The People of the State of New York v. Ken Lyons, Defendant. (2026)

Summary

1. The defense application to controvert search warrants B223-2026 and B224-2026 is GRANTED in its entirety.

2. All evidence seized through the execution of search warrants B223-2026 and B224-2026 is ORDERED SUPPRESSED.

Defendant, Ken Lyons, stands charged in an indictment with predatory sexual assault against a child (Penal Law § 130.96), course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree (Penal Law § 130.75 [1] [b]) and other related charges. By motion dated May 28, 2026, defendant moves the court to controvert two search warrants, B223-2026 and B224-2026, each authorized by the Criminal Court on April 9, 2026, and to suppress the evidence seized through their respective executions. The People oppose the defense motion in responsive papers dated May 29, 2026. "In reviewing the validity of a search warrant to determine whether it was supported by probable cause or whether it contained a sufficiently particular description of its target, the critical facts and circumstances for the reviewing court are those which were made known to the issuing Magistrate at the time the warrant application was determined" (People v Nieves, 36 NY2d 396, 402 [1975]). The reviewing court's role is thus limited to ascertaining whether the Criminal Court "reasonably could have concluded that probable cause existed" (People v Castillo, 80 NY2d 578, 585 [1992]; see also People v Hanlon, 36 NY2d 549, 559 [1975]).

The factual averments presented to the Criminal Court in the instant matter are as follows (all quoted factual averments are from the search warrant affidavit for both warrants). The People alleged that defendant had sexually abused the complainant, his underage stepdaughter, over a period of years since 2021 inside the family residence where they both lived with the complainant's mother. There was one such sex abuse "incident on June 6, 2024 which [the complainant's] mother walked in on, causing the defendant to flee." The mother contacted the police, but defendant could not be located. About 1½ years later, on January 19, 2026, defendant committed another sex abuse act against the complainant inside the family residence. The next day, January 20th, defendant was arrested inside of the home.

"Initially [the complainant's] mother denied that the defendant, Ken Lyons, was in the home on any day other than January 20, 2026 when he was found in an upstairs bedroom and arrested on the open complaint for the sexual abuse of [the complainant]. [The complainant's] mother has since acknowledged allowing the defendant into the home despite the sexual abuse allegations which she was aware of."

Defendant had a blue cell phone on his person at the time of his arrest; it was seized and vouchered. "According to [the complainant's] mother, she had purchased the target cell phone for her daughter, [the complainant], but the defendant began using it approximately two months before he was arrested." T-Mobile was the service provider, and the complainant's mother shared the phone number with the police. Both warrants concern the blue cell phone, and the prosecution limited the search in both to November 1, 2025 — January 20, 2026, which encompasses the approximate time that defendant is alleged to have possessed and utilized the phone. The People submitted in the search warrant affidavit that there

"is [probable] cause to believe that the Target Cell Phone and T-MOBILE Records [sic] will have electronically stored information and data stored tending to evince or demonstrate evidence of the [charged] crimes, including the whereabouts of the defendant during the relevant time period, his presence—or lack thereof—in the family home . . . during the relevant time period, the commission or attempted commission of the [indicted] crimes, as well as other data related to the commission or concealment of the [indicted] crimes and/or the attempt of the same."

Search warrant B223 authorized a search of the

"[b]lue cellular telephone . . . to acquire the following: any and all data, records, files or evidence on the Target Cellular Telephone (1) tending to demonstrate the commission of Predatory Sexual Assault Against a Child PL 130.96, . . . or the concealment or attempted concealment thereof; (2) identifying the participants therein; and/or (3) connecting individuals to the Target Cellular Telephone, including, but not limited to:

a. Location information, such as applications data (Google maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc.); browser and search history; GPS location information; cell-site location information, Bluetooth connections; WiFi connections; images, photographs, videos; and/or communications and any references related to the complainant, SM, her family members, her home, the sexual abuse allegations, and/or connecting said device to the scene of the crime ([the family residence]) between November 1, 2025 and January 20, 2026.

b. Any and all electronic evidence tending to evince the owner of the device, and the user of the device at the time of creation, storage, usage of the evidence referenced above, including correspondence, writing style, identifications, photographs and images, and communications with third parties while using aliases or other identities; products and purchases, device information (such as computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices), device attributes, operations, identifiers, and networks; financial activity; contacts or address books; call history; pattern usage; pattern cell site location information and GPS data; and identifying attributes for the device (such as telephone number, Mobile Identification Number [MIN/MSID], International Mobile Subscriber Identity [IMSI], Electronic Serial Number [ESN], Mobile Equipment Identifier [MEID], and International Mobile Station Equipment Identity [IMEI])."

Search warrant B224 authorized the acquisition of T-Mobile records

"associated with [the telephone number for the blue cell phone subject of search warrant B223] . . . , which is to include:

a. Call, text, and data records, such as call logs/call detail records (CDRs), which is to include delivered and undelivered inbound and outbound calls; text message SMS and MMS transaction records, which is to include text message content, if any; and connection records, which includes records of duration and session times, data, usage, and IP logs during the relevant time period between November 1, 2025 through January 20, 2026;

b. General and specialized location information, which is to include LOCDBOR (Location Database of Record), Historical Precision Location Information, Historical Mobile Locate (HML), vMLC (Virtual Mobile Locate - vLMC3, VMLC4, VMLC5), NELOS (Network Event Location System), RTT (Round Trip Time/Return Trip Time/Real Time Tool), PCMD (Per Call Measurement Data), TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival) or Timing Advance Information, Mediation Records, E9-1-1, and Historical GPS/Mobile Locate Information which shows GPS location (longitude and latitude) and Cell-Site and sector of the device in relationship to the network when connected to the network for the above referenced number during the relevant time period between November 1, 2025 through January 20, 2026;

c. Cell site specific information to include a list of all cell-sites for all states in which the above records used cell locations, with said list to include the switch, cell-site number, name, physical address, longitude and latitude, all sectors associated with the cell-site, azimuth, and beam-width of each sector, and designation if multiple technologies are utilized (i.e. CDMA, UMTS, GSM, LTE), and Time on Tower and Sector information, which includes the start and end date and time for each connection that was involved in a 'hand-off' from one cell-site or sector to another, including the elapsed time for each handoff through the voice or data session during the relevant time period between November 1, 2025 through January 20, 2026; and

d. Electronically stored information indicated account usership and ownership, which is to include subscriber information, such as names, addresses, associated telephone number or subscriber/identity number, IMSI, or temporarily assigned network addresses, billing records, as well as pattern information such as pattern location information, pattern writing style, or identifying messages or images, such as self-identifying messages or images through the use of aliases."

The probable cause principles undergirding the warrant requirement of both the federal and NY Constitutions (see US Const Amend IV; NY Const, art I, § 12, cl 1) carry particular force in the context of a cell phone search. The US Supreme Court recognized in 2014 that the "term 'cell phone' is itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers" (Riley v California, 573 US 373, 393 [2014]). A cell phone's "cache of photographs, contacts, text messages, apps, calendars, emails and internet browsing histories provides a rather complete picture of the owner's life, including, but not limited to, financial standing, family and social connections, medical conditions, and educational and work histories" (Matter of People of the State of NY for a Search Warrant, 79 Misc 3d 1211[A], 2023 NY Slip Op 50589[U], *1-2 [Crim Ct, Bronx County 2023]).

Today, even more so than when the US Supreme Court decided Riley in 2014, the body of information obtainable through a cell phone, about both a user and all those digitally connected to that user, ordinarily dwarfs, in both quantity and sensitivity, what may be concealed in a briefcase, a USB flash drive, or even one's home. "Since [Riley was decided], the percentage of Americans who own smartphones has only increased. Today, more than nine in ten Americans own a smartphone. That means they are likely addicted to apps and other services, many of which collect and store 'detailed information about all aspects of a person's life' " (Chatrie v United States, 609 US —, 2026 WL 1855568, *4 [2026], quoting Riley, 573 US at 396; see Search Warrant, 2023 NY Slip Op 50589[U], *2 [Crim Ct, Bronx County 2023] ["Access to a cell phone's contents renders its owner's life an open book through which even the most determinedly concealed secrets, fears, hopes, fetishes, lies, joys, worries, shames, bigotries and desires are laid bare"]). A search warrant request for GPS or cell site information heightens constitutional privacy concerns further because such records may expose minute details of a user's movements and whereabouts (see generally Chatrie, 2026 WL 1855568; Carpenter v United States, 585 US 296 [2018]; People v Weaver, 12 NY3d 433 [2009]). "Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life" (Riley, 573 US at 403 [internal quotation marks omitted]).

Importantly, a defendant's privacy interest in a cell phone is not extinguished because a third party paid for it or its subscription, or because the phone is registered to another. In other words, "[s]tanding to challenge a search is not established by asserting a possessory interest in the goods seized—defendant must assert a privacy interest in the place or item searched" (People v Ramirez-Portoreal, 88 NY2d 99, 108 [1996]). Consequently, "[o]ne need not be the owner of the property for his privacy interest to be one that the Fourth Amendment protects, so long as he has the right to exclude others from dealing with the property" (United States v Perea, 986 F2d 633, 639-640 [2d Cir 1993]; see People v Lively, 163 AD3d 1466, 1467 [4th Dept 2018]).

The court's search warrant review is guided by the First Department's analysis in People v Thompson (178 AD3d 457 [1st Dept 2019]). In Thompson, the warrant

"application alleged that, on September 1, 2016, defendant sent texts to a 13 year old making indecent proposals, and called her on the same day. The warrant authorized examination of defendant's internet usage from January 1 to September 13, 2016, and also authorized, without a time limitation, examination of essentially all the other data on defendant's phones" (id. at 458).

As in Thompson, the "pivotal question here is whether there was probable cause that evidence of the crimes specified in the warrant would be found in the broad areas specified" (id.; see Maryland v Garrison, 480 US 79, 84-85 [1987]). The People's search warrant application did establish defendant's reasonable privacy interest in the cell phone and did incorporate a reasonable time limitation on both search warrants—but nothing more. The People failed to establish to the Criminal Court that defendant ever called, texted or utilized social media platforms to communicate with the complainant. Defendant was not accused of having photographed, recorded, documented or digitally transmitted evidence of any purported criminality. Nor did the People identify a single message, image, file, internet search, application, call log entry, cell cite information, GPS tag or other category of digital information stored on defendant's cell phone and reasonably believed to contain evidence or instrumentalities of criminality.

The People did not establish probable cause to believe that defendant's cell phone, its data, or its location and ownership records were in any way connected to the planning, commission, facilitation, documentation or concealment of the alleged criminal conduct. Indeed, the People failed to establish probable cause to believe that defendant ever, at any time, incorporated a cell phone or any digital or social media technology into the planning, commission, facilitation, documentation or concealment of the alleged criminal conduct (see People v Branch, 224 AD3d 919, 921 [2d Dept 2024]). The consistently absent nexus between the alleged criminality and any—let alone "all"—of the areas of defendant's cell phone to which the search warrants granted access is dispositive (Thompson, 178 AD3d at 458 [the "information available to the warrant-issuing court did not support a reasonable belief that evidence of the crimes specified in the warrant[s] would be found in all of the 'locations' within defendant's cell phone to which the warrant[s] authorized access"]).

Here, as in Thompson, "[t]he search warrant for defendant's phone[ ] was overbroad" (id. at 458, at 459 ["The conclusion that the warrant was overbroad is not undermined by the fact that the specified crimes involve child sex abuse, or the general recognition that this variety of crime often entails repeated and habitual conduct"]; see People v Conley, 234 AD3d 1363, 1365 [4th Dept 2025]; People v Ozkaynak, 217 AD3d 1376, 1377 [4th Dept 2023]; Burns v United States, 235 A3d 758, 775-776 [DC Ct of Appeals 2020], citing Thompson, 178 AD3d 457). "While it was of course possible that defendant's phone contained evidence of the specified offenses . . . , there were no specific allegations to that effect" (Thompson, 178 AD3d at 458). Accordingly, defendant's motion to controvert the two subject search warrants is GRANTED in its entirety. All information obtained through the execution of the two search warrants is ORDERED SUPPRESSED.

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.

Dated: July 10, 2026

Bronx, New York

E. Deronn Bowen, A.J.S.C.

E. Deronn Bowen, J.