Many of you have seen movies involving phone calls from a jail or prison, maybe some of you have gotten calls from a jail or prison. If you have, you may be familiar with the message that often plays ‘This call is from a correctional institution and may be recorded…’
In Minnesota and to my knowledge all or most other states, calls from jails or prisons can be recorded, except calls to the prisoner’s attorney. Do not say anything on a jail line that you would not want your local police chief, or a judge to hear.
A former Minnesota State Senator, a Republican who previously represented the Brainerd and Grand Rapids areas, learned this the hard way after being picked up on a federal solicitation of a minor charge. He called someone he knew from the jail and asked if this person would pick up a backpack from his apartment near the state capital before the police could get it. The jailors tipped off the FBI, who went to the apartment. When the friend of the state senator got to the apartment the FBI was already there. When she asked if she could get the backpack the FBI said no, as expected. Inside the backpack was a computer, which may have had some incriminating evidence on it, a phone that had recently been scrubbed, and a pistol. The gun was the biggest problem because the State Senator had previously told the Federal Court that he did not have any guns when he asked to be released on bail to his apartment. Needless to say, it looks like he will not be going anywhere outside of a jail in the near future.
Moral of the story, do not solicit minors at the risk of stating the obvious, and when you are in jail, do not use the phones to ask someone to help hide evidence for you.
Ed