A Long Island City man's daring attempt to destroy evidence after his arrest on January 21st backfired when the evidence—a 4 gigabyte Kingston flash drive—got stuck inside his intestines. Florin Necula was arrested outside a Queens bank for allegedly installing card-readers over A.T.M. slots to steal data (and $35,000). He was taken to a Secret Service office in Brooklyn, where he and several co-defendants were to be processed. But while there, and in full view of investigators, Necula "grabbed Subject Flash Drive 2, which had been on his person at the time of his arrest, and swallowed," according to court papers obtained by The Smoking Gun.
And Necula might have gotten away with it too, had his stomach acids been up to the task of digesting the flash drive. But after four days, Necula was unable to pass the item and consented to surgery when doctors warned him it could obstruct his colon. Now he's charged with obstruction of justice, among other things—and after all that, a lab technician was still able to retrieve the information from the flash drive, the Post reports. His lawyer Sanford Talkin tells the Daily News he may file a motion to suppress the evidence because "they didn't have a right to take it from him."
