03/02/2020 US v. Ganias, 755 F. 3d 125 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 2014 - Google Scholar 755 F.3d 125 (2014) UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Stavros M. GANIAS, Defendant-Appellant. Docket No. 12-240-cr. United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. Argued: April 11, 2013. Decided: June 17, 2014. 127 *127 Sarala V. Nagala, Assistant United States Attorney (Anastasia E. King and Sandra S. Glover, Assistant United States Attorneys, on the brief), for David B. Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, New Haven, CT, for Appellee. Stanley A. Twardy, Jr. (Daniel E. Wenner, on the brief), Day Pitney LLP, Stamford, CT, for Defendant-Appellant. Before: HALL and CHIN, Circuit Judges, and RESTANI, Judge.[*] Judge HALL concurs in part and dissents in part in a separate opinion. CHIN, Circuit Judge: In this case, defendant-appellant Stavros M. Ganias appeals from a judgment convicting him, following a jury trial, of tax 128 evasion. He challenges the conviction on the grounds that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the Government copied three of his computer hard drives *128 pursuant to a search warrant and then retained files beyond the scope of the warrant for more than two-and-a-half years. He also contends that his right to a fair trial was violated when, during the trial, a juror posted comments about the case on his Facebook page and "friended" another juror. We reject the second argument but hold that the Government's retention of the computer records was unreasonable. Accordingly, we vacate the conviction and remand for further proceedings. STATEMENT OF THE CASE A. The Facts[1] In the 1980s, after working for the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") for some fourteen years, Ganias started his own accounting business in Wallingford, Connecticut. He provided tax and accounting services to individuals and small businesses. In 1998, he began providing services to James McCarthy and two of McCarthy's businesses, American Boiler and Industrial Property Management ("IPM"). IPM had been hired by the Army to provide maintenance and security at a vacant Army facility in Stratford, Connecticut. In August 2003, the Criminal Investigative Command of the Army received a tip from a confidential source that individuals affiliated with IPM were engaging in improper conduct, including stealing copper wire and other items from the Army facility and billing the Army for work that IPM employees performed for American Boiler. The source alleged that evidence of the wrongdoing could be found at the offices of American Boiler and IPM, as well as at the offices of "Steve Gainis [sic]," who "perform[ed] accounting work for IPM and American Boiler."[2] Based on this information, the Army commenced an investigation. Army investigators obtained several search warrants, including one to search the offices of Ganias's accounting business. The warrant, issued by the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut and dated November 17, 2003, authorized the seizure from Ganias's offices of: All books, records, documents, materials, computer hardware and software and computer associated data relating to the business, financial and accounting operations of [IPM] and American Boiler.... The warrant was executed two days later. Army computer specialists accompanied investigators to Ganias's offices and helped gather the electronic evidence. The agents did not seize Ganias's computers; instead, the computer specialists made identical copies, or forensic mirror images, of the hard drives of all three of Ganias's computers. As a https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16926744034394821172&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr 1/11