Robert Kraft has some of the country's most in-demand attorneys on his side as he faces charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida.
In a Palm Beach County court filing, Kraft notified the state that he had retained attorney Alex Spiro as counsel. The New York-based attorney has established himself as a go-to option for big-name clients, including Jay-Z, Mick Jagger, DeMarcus Cousins, Charles Oakley, Thabo Sefolosha, Julian Edelman and Aaron Hernandez.
In the Feb. 26 court filing where Kraft pleaded not guilty to all charges and requested a non-jury trial, Spiro and William Burck, partners at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, were named as having been retained by Kraft. Burck is co-managing partner of Quinn Emmanuel's Washington, D.C. office and was a lawyer in the George W. Bush White House. High-powered Florida defense attorney Jack Goldberger has also been hired by Kraft.
Spiro, 36, has plenty of New England ties as well as Patriots-specific ties.
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He's a graduate of Wellesley High School (2001), Tufts University (2005) and Harvard Law School (2008). A psychology major at Tufts, he worked at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., for five years, according to his resume on Quinn Emanuel's website. He's also recognized as a lecturer at Harvard Law.
Hired by Edelman when Edelman appealed of his four-game suspension last year, Spiro was also a member of Hernandez's defense team in Hernandez's double-homicide trial.
Spiro focuses largely on "white collar" crime, according to Quinn Emanuel, but he represents a variety of clients. One case that effectively raised Spiro's profile was when he helped Sefolosha -- now of the Jazz, then of the Hawks -- to be found not guilty of misdemeanor obstructing government administration, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest stemming from an incident in 2015. Sefolosha eventually received $4 million from New York City in a settlement.
Prior to joining Quinn Emanuel, which opened a Boston office a little over a year ago, Spiro worked as a trial attorney with Benjamin Brafman. Before that, as a Manhattan prosecutor, Spiro helped indict and convict Rodney Alcala, the "Dating Game" killer.
The New York Times pointed out earlier this week that Kraft's attorneys "could mount an aggressive defense by poking holes in video evidence that may prove that Mr. Kraft did not ask anyone for sex and by arguing that the police violated Mr. Kraft's Fourth Amendment rights during an improper traffic stop, among other arguments."
Sports Illustrated legal expert Michael McCann has written that while the maximum sentence facing Kraft includes up to a year in jail, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service, the Patriots owner is unlikely to spend any time in jail. "Kraft's legal issues," McCann writes, "might prove resolvable through Florida's pretrial misdemeanor diversion program," which offers first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to pay a fine and perform community service in order to have charges dismissed.
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