When the FBI applied for warrants this summer to raid three $25,000-per-night villas at Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino, it omitted some key investigatory details that eventually resulted in the arrest of eight individuals, including an alleged leader of a well-known Chinese crime syndicate, defense lawyers maintained in Las Vegas federal court documents late Tuesday.

The authorities built, in part, a case for a search warrant (PDF) by turning off Internet access in three villas shared by the eight individuals arrested. At various points, an agent of the FBI and a Nevada gaming official posed as the cable guy, secretly filming while gathering evidence of what they allege was a bookmaking ring where "hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal bets" on World Cup soccer were taking place.

"If this Court authorizes this duplicity, the government will be free to employ similar schemes in virtually every context to enter the homes of perfectly innocent people. Agents will frequently have no incentive to follow the warrant procedure required by the Constitution," defense lawyers wrote the Las Vegas federal magistrate presiding over the prosecution.

A hearing is set for December, and the defense will argue for a dismissal of the charges.

One of the accused defendants is Paul Phua, charged under the name Wei Seng Phua. The government alleges that the 50-year-old Malaysian man is a "high-ranking member" (PDF) of the 14K Triad specializing in loan sharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking.

The investigation began this summer when the defendants started requesting a substantial amount of electronic equipment and Internet connections from Caesars Palace staff, the government said. A technician was suspicious and alerted casino security that a bookmaking operation might be underway, the government said in court papers. Nowhere in the search warrant request, however, did the authorities mention that they saw supposed wagering on computers after posing as technicians who in reality briefly disconnected the Internet.

The search warrant that led to the arrests would not have been issued had the judge been told the truth, the defense said in court papers. Evidence of what the defense called an unlawful "scheme" against its clients was produced (PDF) by the government in the pre-trial discovery process, the defense lawyers wrote (PDF):

The notion that an individual “consents” to such searches—so that the government is free to ignore the Fourth Amendment’s explicit warrant requirement—is, in a word, absurd. Our lives cannot be private—and our personal relationships intimate—if each physical connection that links our homes to the outside world doubles as a ready-made excuse for the government to conduct a secret, suspicionless, warrantless search. Only a few remote log cabins lack any Internet, electric, gas, water, cable, or telephone service. But the Constitution does not require us to sever all those connections—and live as hermitic luddites—to protect ourselves from the government’s prying eyes and secret cameras. A ruling upholding these intrusions would cause innocent Americans to live their daily lives burdened with the palpable sense that their government is regularly scheming to spy on them in their homes.

The others arrested this summer include Darren Wai Kit Phua, 22; Seng Chen Yong, 56; and Wai Kin Yong, 22—all of Malaysia. Also arrested were Hui Tang, 44, of China, and Yan Zhang, 40, Yung Keung Fan, 46; and Herman Chun Sang Yeung, 36. They are all from Hong Kong.

Federal prosecutors are expected to respond to the defense papers in the coming days. Defense attorneys include, among others, David Chesnoff of Las Vegas and the co-founder of SCOTUSblog, Thomas Goldstein, of Bethesda, Maryland.