Investigative error leads to short sentence for Bismarck martial arts instructor

Bismarck martial arts instructor pleads guilty to recording minors
Bismarck martial arts instructor pleads guilty to recording minors(KFYR)
Published: Jul. 27, 2020 at 1:49 PM CDT
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BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - Many took to social media last week to voice their disappointment, after a Bismarck martial arts teacher was sentenced to two days in jail, for recording students in the changing room.

In hundreds of pages in court documents, a lawyer for Adler Scheer filed two motions that ended up getting three charges thrown out.

Due to the ruling prosecutors can't use a good portion of the evidence police collected.

In November Judge Bruce Romanic ordered in favor of a motion to suppress evidence.

He says police seized Scheer's cell phone illegally during a unconstitutional traffic stop.

Scheer also made confessions after that stop, because Romanic ruled that original stop illegal, prosecutors couldn’t use them in court.

These statements included those where Scheer admitted to police he had recorded the three minors and inappropriately touched another. Court documents say Bismarck Police failed to obtain a search warrants for Scheer's phone due to involuntary consent.

That is where they located the videos of the victims, however because the phone was illegally obtained, it was suppressed from being a part of the state's evidence. Court documents state, "By his own admission, all the testimony the detective provided to support the charge was derived exclusively from his unlawful interrogations of Scheer."

All information including admission statements, and videos on Scheer’s phone were unable to be used as evidence. The gross sexual imposition and two counts of surreptitious intrusion were dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Scheer pleaded guilty to the only remaining charge of promoting obscenity to minors, which he was sentenced to two days in jail, with credit to two days he already served.

Prosecutors say the court ruled Scheer wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender after his therapist testified it wouldn’t be necessary.

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