BREAKING: Ramsingh Attorneys Seek To Suppress Cellphone Evidence In Bubba Bozo Trio Case.
Defense argues warrants were based on false premises and unconstitutional searches; Prosecution has yet to file response and no date has been set to hear the motion.
Raj Ramsingh is asking a Monroe County judge to suppress evidence gathered from his cellphone, arguing in a newly filed motion that state investigators obtained two search warrants using false and misleading claims tied to a supposed political conspiracy that never existed.
The motion, filed March 9, comes in the broader criminal case involving Ramsingh, his brother and former Key West City Attorney Ronald Ramsingh and former City Code Compliance Director James Young — The Bubba Bozo Trio — that has drawn intense local scrutiny since their indictments last year on charges tied to alleged misconduct within the city’s building and permitting system.
The 94-page motion was filed before Judge Mark Jones, although a date has yet to be set. The State said it will likely file a response later in March with a hearing set for sometime in early April.
The indictments were a result of a scathing Grand Jury Report that resulted in 27 felony counts against the trio. It also recommended the firing of Assistant City Manager Todd Stoughton and the resignation of sitting District IV commissioner Lissette Carey.
Stoughton recieved a promotion to oversee legislative affairs for the city, and Carey refused to step down. City Manager Brian Barroso marks both of those recommendations as 100-percent complete on the city’s webpage depicting its progress on the items.
THE FRAUDULENT AND CORRUPT ACTS OF CBO [RAJ] RAMSINGH
![THE FRAUDULENT AND CORRUPT ACTS OF CBO [RAJ] RAMSINGH](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!o2ww!,w_280,h_280,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe34a2ac0-e4e0-4f45-a59a-b43109daae10_541x611.jpeg)
Well, the Monroe County State Attorneys Office released the grand jury report delving into corruption at 1300 White Street and the dirty dealings by the Bubba Bozo Trio of disgraced (and likely disba…
In the motion, Ramsingh’s attorneys argue the State Attorney’s Office based its original cellphone search on allegations that Key West officials and city commissioners had privately conspired to force out then-City Manager Al Childress in violation of Florida’s Sunshine Law and to shield Ramsingh from scrutiny tied to the Corradino Report, which criticized his management of the city’s building department.
But the filing says SAO Investigator Thomas Walker later testified in deposition that he found no evidence of an illegal commissioner-to-commissioner conspiracy, no evidence of private vote whipping by Ronald Ramsingh, and no evidence that Childress’ ouster was part of a criminal effort to protect Raj Ramsingh. Instead, the motion says, Walker acknowledged the episode amounted to “the rough-and-tumble of Key West politics.”
The defense contends Walker nevertheless relied on that theory in a February 2025 affidavit to obtain a warrant to search Raj Ramsingh’s phone, even though he already knew there was no conspiracy and no Sunshine Law violation.
Three Key West Employees Indicted
The Key West City Commission will meet in a special session on Monday, April 21 at 5 p.m. The meeting will be televised.
The motion also alleges Walker falsely claimed AT&T records showed more than 1,000 calls between Raj Ramsingh and his brother that had not been produced in response to a subpoena. Defense attorneys say the actual records showed fewer than 300 total calls by Ramsingh to all parties during the relevant period.
Ramsingh’s attorneys further argue the warrants were overly broad, allowing investigators to access not only text messages and call logs, but also calendars, contacts, photographs, videos, GPS data, browser history and other digital records without probable cause to believe those categories contained evidence of a crime.
The motion says the first warrant authorized a search of text messages between Ramsingh and specifically identified alleged co-conspirators during June 2024, but FBI agents instead reviewed all of his text messages during that period, including messages with people not named in the warrant. The defense argues that search converted the warrant into an unlawful general warrant and tainted all evidence derived from it.
According to the filing, investigators then used evidence from that first search to obtain a second warrant in May 2025 expanding the time frame from 30 days to four years. That warrant again repeated the abandoned theory that Ramsingh was part of a political cover-up, the motion says, while adding a new allegation that his company, Strykker-Avery, improperly worked on projects in Key West while he served as chief building official.
The defense says that claim was also false because Ramsingh had written permission from the city to continue working through the company while employed. It argues that even if his conduct amounted to a contract or policy violation, the affidavits failed to establish probable cause for criminal offenses such as official misconduct or organized fraud.
Ramsingh’s attorneys are asking the court to hold a Franks hearing to determine whether false statements or omissions were made intentionally or recklessly in the warrant applications.
A Franks hearing is a special court hearing where a judge determines whether law enforcement lied, misled the court, or recklessly omitted key facts when applying for a search warrant.
The term comes from the U.S. Supreme Court case Franks v. Delaware, which established that defendants have the right to challenge the truthfulness of statements used to obtain a warrant.
They are seeking suppression of all evidence obtained from the phone searches, as well as any evidence derived from them. All defendants are presumed not guilty in a court of law unless convicted by a jury of their peers.
This is an evolving story. Watch this space.