Before February, Robert Kraft was mostly known for two things: winning six Super Bowl rings as owner of the New England Patriots, and losing one of them to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then Florida prosecutors charged the 77-year-old with soliciting prostitution after secretly videotaping his encounters with masseuses at a day spa in Jupiter, Florida. Kraft and hundreds of other men had been ensnared in an investigation into what police described as a multi-million-dollar sex-trafficking operation.

Kraft could have pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and put this episode behind him as quickly as possible. Instead, he refused a plea deal and waged an all-out war against the charges. And on Monday, the NFL tycoon won a major legal victory in his case after a judge ruled that the video evidence couldn’t be used at trial because police had illegally obtained it with a “seriously flawed” warrant. If it stands, the ruling makes it far more likely that Kraft will successfully get the charges thrown out without a trial.

Kraft’s brush with the American criminal justice system is atypical, to say the least. That makes it all the more instructive. His case punctured some of the overheated rhetoric surrounding coerced sex work and highlighted the power dynamics that police and prosecutors often enjoy over defendants—not because it worked against him, but because it didn’t.

The initial charges against Kraft came as part of a sweeping, dramatic raid on Asian massage parlors across Florida. State and federal law-enforcement agencies spent eight months building their case, eventually bringing charges against more than 300 men and the owners of almost a dozen parlors. Kraft was one of 25 men charged with misdemeanor solicitation to commit prostitution for acts that allegedly took place inside Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter. The Patriots owner pleaded not guilty to the two counts against him in February and issued a public apology for having “hurt and disappointed my family.”

Local prosecutors told the public they had smashed a international sex-trafficking ring and caught some of the country’s most privileged citizens participating in it. (Another Boston billionaire, John Childs, was also charged in the case.) “The men are the monsters in this case,” Marin County Sheriff William Snyder told reporters in February. At a press conference shortly after the raids, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg suggested that the defendants might face additional charges for their connections to it. “Human trafficking is the business of stealing someone’s freedom for profit,” he warned. “It can happen anywhere, including the peaceful community of Jupiter, Florida.”