Why Tampa Clients Call Attorney Ron Frey for Cases Involving Digital Evidence

When someone in Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Clearwater is facing a charge that involves a phone, a computer, or an online account, one of their first questions is a fair one: has this lawyer done this before? For Attorney Ron Frey, the answer goes back more than twenty years, and it’s the reason he practices in Florida at all.

Where It Started: Ohio, Early 2000s

Attorney Ron Frey’s first exposure to computer and internet prosecutions came before he was a lawyer. As a law student clerking for a criminal defense firm in Cleveland, he watched a joint county and federal task force bring a wave of online-activity cases across Northeast Ohio. Many of those cases grew out of peer-to-peer file sharing on programs like LimeWire.

Courts then were still an analog world. Westlaw was a novelty next to the law library, briefs went by fax or by bicycle courier, and the yellow pages were how many people chose a lawyer. A defendant who used file-sharing software could be made out to be a hacker, even when he had only used a simple program that millions of people relied on to download music. A law clerk from the younger generation, who used the internet more regularly and understood its vocabulary, was useful in those cases, and they became the core of his work.

He was admitted to practice in 2004 and from then on represented clients himself, from the first contact by investigators to resolution and appeal. Doing that well meant studying the monitoring software used on file-sharing networks, the forensic tools used to examine hard drives, and the steps agents took to build a case. Then he used that knowledge to challenge searches under the Fourth Amendment, test whether the government’s software was reliable and properly authenticated, and question how investigations were run. That experience led lawyers and law firms around the country to call on him to consult, serve as co-counsel, and represent clients in cases involving computers, the internet, or storage devices. He went on to teach continuing legal education seminars for defense lawyers around the country.

His work has also reached well beyond his own client list. He is a published author, with articles in several publications, criminal defense association magazines among them, and a book. As an adjunct professor at Ursuline College, he taught classes that included computers and the law, digital evidence, and constitutional law. News outlets have repeatedly turned to him for perspective and analysis.

How Florida Cases Brought Him Here

The work traveled. Early in his career, Attorney Ron Frey was brought into a number of Florida matters, including federal appellate work in Miami. He was in Florida so often that getting licensed here was the natural next step.

He has now practiced in Florida for more than a decade. In that time, the Florida side of his work has centered on two areas:

• State circuit and county courts. These include Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, along with courts around the state. (See our Hillsborough County criminal defense and Pinellas County criminal defense pages.)
• Federal court. This is primarily the Middle District of Florida, which includes Tampa, and the Southern District of Florida, which includes Miami. (More on our federal offenses practice.)

He is also licensed in Ohio and North Carolina, and he has represented clients in federal courts around the country. That out-of-state work shows him how investigators and prosecutors elsewhere handle the same kinds of cases that land in Tampa.

“I had a number of cases in Florida that I worked on and consulted on, including a number of extradition cases out of Hillsborough County. Florida is something that just drew me in.”

Digital Evidence Is in Nearly Every Florida Case Now

When Attorney Ron Frey started, a “computer case” was its own category. Now it is hard to find a case without digital evidence. Cell phones, online accounts, and even an internet-connected refrigerator can end up in a police report. That’s true whether the charge is internet-related or not.

Attorney Ron Frey has handled many cases where computer and phone evidence is at issue. In Florida, those include allegations of online fraud, accusations of possessing prohibited material, cryptocurrency matters, and hacking. Whatever the charge, the questions that decide these cases tend to repeat:

• Was the device or account searched and seized lawfully?
• Can the State or the government prove the data is authentic?
• Is there a clean record of who handled the evidence, from seizure through trial?
• Does the evidence actually show possession, or only that something was on a device that others could reach?
• What did the person know and intend, as opposed to what software did automatically?

(Our computer and internet crimes page explains these charges in more detail.)

What Experience Means for a Tampa Computer Crime Case

Hiring a Tampa computer crime attorney who has seen these investigations from the inside means less time spent learning on your case. It means the right questions get asked early, about the warrant, the forensic copy, and the software the agents relied on. And it means a realistic read on where the case is strong and where it may be weak, so the defense and any mitigation are built around your situation, not a template.

“Most of these investigations follow patterns I’ve seen many times since the early days. Knowing the terminology and knowing what to ask lets me get to the real issues quickly instead of starting from scratch.”

With the arrival of artificial intelligence, Attorney Ron Frey sees this happening all over again. AI is a new technology that many lawyers don’t use yet and the general public doesn’t fully understand. Courts are generally not yet familiar with what it can do, and prosecutions are now being built around this technology and how people use it. The early internet cases showed how much it matters to understand the technology before the government defines it for the court.

No one can promise how a case will end. What you can choose is a lawyer who has spent a career learning how these cases are built. (Attorney Ron Frey’s full background is on his attorney profile.)

For more on Attorney Ron Frey’s internet crime practice nationwide, see his InternetCrime.com profile.

Talk With Attorney Ron Frey

If you would like to speak with an experienced criminal defense lawyer about a computer, internet, or digital evidence case in state or federal court in Hillsborough, Pinellas, or elsewhere in Florida, or you have further questions, don’t hesitate to contact Attorney Ron Frey of The Frey Law Firm, LLC. Your consultation is free and confidential. You can talk with us by phone, by video, or at our Tampa office, and when the situation calls for it, we can come to you.

Call or text (813) 775-2276. Rapid response, 24/7.

This page is for general information only. It is not legal advice, and reading it or contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Laws involving computer and internet crime are changing quickly and vary between state and federal court, and how they apply depends on the facts of each case and on how courts interpret them. Please don’t rely on this page, or on any other information online, to make decisions about your situation. Talk with a lawyer.