(CNN)An extortion case involving bikini-clad models, social media celebrities and racy images has sparked an intriguing legal debate over phone security and the Fifth Amendment.
The big question: Can authorities access potentially incriminating information on your phone by compelling you to reveal your passcode? Or is verbal access to your phone’s secrets protected under the Constitution?
The case stems from the arrest of Hencha Voigt, 29, and her then-boyfriend, Wesley Victor, 34, last July on charges of extortion. Voigt and Victor threatened to release sexually explicit videos and photos of social media star «YesJulz» unless she paid them off, according to a Miami Police Department report.
Both Voigt and «YesJulz» are big names on social media. Voigt is a fitness model andInstagram celebrity who starred last fall on «WAGS Miami,» an E! reality TV show about the wives and girlfriends of sports figures in South Beach.
YesJulz, 27, whose real name is Julieanna Goddard, is a party promoting jet-setter who was described as «Snapchat Royalty» in a profile last year in The New York Times magazine.
As part of the ongoing investigation into the case, prosecutors have sought to search Voigt’s and Victor’s phones and asked a judge to order the two to give up their phone passcodes.
Attorneys for the two suspects have pushed back, arguing that passcodes are equivalent to self-incriminating testimony that is protected under the Fifth Amendment.
«They’re asking for the passcode so they can keep on searching what’s on the phone — which may be incriminating my client — and then use that against her,» Kertch Conze, Voigt’s attorney, told CNN.
A ruling on this question is expected on Wednesday. But no matter its result, the broader question of passcode security and the Fifth Amendment has become a «hot issue» at the center of many criminal trials, according to Joshua J. Horowitz, an attorney specializing in technology-related litigation.
«This is definitely a question that is percolating in the lower courts and will eventually make its way up to the Supreme Court,» Horowitz said. «Until it does, there’s really no clear answer on this issue.»