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Two lawyers face charges for allegedly relying on illegal recordings in court cases

Two Pennsylvania lawyers have been charged with violating wiretap law for allegedly using illegally made recordings in legal proceedings.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced charges on Monday against lawyers Gerald Benyo Jr. of Beaver County and Stanley Booker of Lawrence County, the Legal Intelligencer (sub. req.) reports. The charges stem from separate cases.

Booker is accused of playing a recorded phone conversation with a robbery victim during a preliminary hearing. Booker told the Legal Intelligencer that the recording, sent to him by the woman who made it, appeared to vindicate his client. He didn’t know the recording was allegedly made illegally. The woman accused of making the recording was also charged.

According to a press release by the Attorney General’s office, the recording was made without the knowledge or consent of the robbery victim.

Benyo was accused of revealing an illegally recorded conversation in a transcript included in a court filing, according to this press release. The recording was made by a former client who says she recorded a conversation with a paralegal with the Public Defender’s office in an effort to obtain representation. The former client was also charged.

The illegal recording came to light when police seized the cellphone of the former client while investigating allegations that she brought brass knuckles to the courthouse, which were seized by a deputy sheriff who turned them over to the paralegal.

The paralegal had returned the brass knuckles to the woman while she was still in the courthouse, according to state police Lt. Eric Hermick, who spoke with TribLive.com about the case. The paralegal and sheriff’s deputy were charged in connection with the brass knuckles incident.

Benyo told CBS Pittsburgh the former client may have been involved in a setup to smear him engineered by a political opponent, and he was seeking an investigation. “I am being punished for basically being a whistleblower,” Benyo said.

Hermick told CBS Pittsburgh that Benyo’s claims were not substantiated in an investigation.