WORCESTER, MA—Momoh Kamara, the West Boylston man accused of setting the December fire that claimed the life of Firefighter Christopher Roy, is seeking the suppression of evidence against him.
Mr. Kamara, 22, of 157 Hartwell St., West Boylston, is awaiting trial in Worcester Superior Court on second-degree murder, arson and burglary charges in connection with a Dec. 9, 2018, fire in an apartment building at 5-7 Lowell St., where the suspect had previously lived. Mr. Kamara was secretly indicted on those charges in March.
Firefighter Roy died of smoke inhalation after being trapped on the second floor of the three-story dwelling during efforts to extinguish the blaze.
Mr. Kamara's lawyer, Blake J. Rubin, filed a motion June 17 asking the court to suppress as evidence against Mr. Kamara any information obtained by investigators as a result of what the defense lawyer contends was the unlawful, warrantless seizure of his client's cellphone by Worcester police on Dec. 19.
A second defense motion seeks the suppression of a statement Mr. Kamara made to West Boylston police six days earlier, when he provided his cellphone number after being asked for it during his booking on a matter unrelated to the Dec. 9 fire.
That motion asks the court to preclude prosecutors from using any evidence recovered as a result of the statement, which Mr. Rubin maintains was not made voluntarily and was obtained in violation of Mr. Kamara's constitutional rights.
Prosecutors have not yet filed their written opposition to the motions. A hearing on the motions is scheduled for Aug. 13.
According to the motions and affidavits and a memorandum of law accompanying them, Mr. Kamara was asked for his cellphone number after being arrested by West Boylston police Dec. 13 on a Shrewsbury Police Department warrant for failing to appear in Westboro District Court on an unspecified matter.
During the booking procedure, after being advised of his Miranda rights, Mr. Kamara was asked for his cellphone number and provided it, according to Mr. Rubin.
After being advised of his Miranda rights, including his right to remain silent, Mr. Kamara was asked if he understood those rights and whether he had any questions for the officer, according to the memorandum, which states that Mr. Kamara twice shook his head from side to side and responded, "No."
Once the booking ended, Mr. Kamara was told he was being taken to Worcester police headquarters, where he was told detectives wanted to talk to him about the Lowell Street fire, according to the defense filings. When he told detectives he did not wish to speak with them, Mr. Kamara was served with a summons to appear before a grand jury on Dec. 18, according to one of his affidavits.
After being held in custody overnight, Mr. Kamara was brought to Central District Court in Worcester on Dec. 14, the court filings state. At the Worcester court, Mr. Kamara was informed that he had to be brought to the Westboro court on the warrant and he remained in custody until Dec. 17, according to the defense.
After being brought to the Westboro court, he was released from custody.
A bench warrant was issued after Mr. Kamara apparently failed to appear before the grand jury Dec. 18. He was arrested on the warrant the next day and brought to the Worcester courthouse, where he appeared before a Superior Court judge, was appointed a lawyer and was given another summons to appear before the grand jury on Dec. 20.
Upon entering the courthouse on Dec. 19, Mr. Kamara said he was ordered to leave his cellphone with security guards near the front entrance. As he was leaving the courthouse later in the day, he was told his iPhone had been taken by Worcester police, according to his affidavit. Mr. Kamara wrote that he later learned from a police report that his phone had been confiscated "as evidence" and "in order to preserve the data within it."
Mr. Rubin contends that his client did not voluntarily waive his Miranda rights during his Dec. 13 booking, that the request for his cellphone number was not "a routine booking question" and that his arrest that day was "pretextual" in nature, designed, in part, to allow Worcester police to question him about the fire. He said police later used the cellphone number in several affidavits for search warrants.
The defense lawyer further charges that there was no legal justification for the seizure of Mr. Kamara's iPhone without a search warrant, the defendant's consent or the presence of exigent circumstances.
Prosecutors have said Mr. Kamara, who remains in custody in lieu of $500,000 cash bail, was linked to the Dec. 9 blaze by video surveillance and Uber, Lyft and bank records. They have also said that Mr. Kamara was asked to leave 7 Lowell St. in the spring of 2018 after a dispute with his roommates over property.
Still pending in the case is a motion filed by Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey T. Travers asking that Mr. Kamara be compelled to provide the passcode to his cellphone. The prosecutor said in the motion there was probable cause to believe the "locked" device contained evidence of criminal conduct.
While police had extracted "limited data" from the cellphone, they have been unable to perform a complete examination of the device, as authorized by a search warrant, without the defendant being ordered to provide the passcode, according to Mr. Travers.
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