Legal Expert Was Barred From Testifying About the Use of Artificial Intelligence
Posted on November 3, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
Defendant, Goran Gogic, was charged in a multi-count indictment with crimes related to international narcotics trafficking, in violation of the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (“MDLEA”).
Subsequently, the parties filed several motions in limine concerning evidence of electronic communications that were purportedly seized and decrypted by European law enforcement.
As explained in the parties’ briefs, the communications in question were seized and decrypted by law enforcement authorities in Europe as part of a joint investigation that involved French, Belgian, and Dutch officials. Furthermore, the Government obtained electronic records of certain such communications from a French official through a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (“MLAT”) between the United States and France.
In order to obtain these records, a Department of Justice (“DOJ”) officer sent a written MLAT request for content associated with specific Sky user accounts, each denominated by a five-character “Sky PIN,” believed to belong to Defendant. The MLAT request specifically identified, among others, Sky PINs 28A508 and 5UIP0T as belonging to Defendant. Thereafter, French officials complied with the MLAT request and transmitted electronically a large set of spreadsheets and media files (the “Sky Evidence”).
Finally, the Defendant notified the Government of his intention to call three expert witnesses: Yehudi Moszkowicz, Andreas Milch, and Lee Koch. The Government moved to preclude any testimony and argument regarding the legality or propriety of the European law enforcement operation through which the Sky Evidence was obtained, and to preclude Defendant’s proposed experts from testifying.
Law and Legal Expert Witnesses
Yehudi Moszkowicz is a Dutch criminal defense attorney with a degree in “audio- engineering” who has experience representing clients in Europe in cases that involve encrypted phone evidence.
Lee Koch is an American lawyer and former “Signals Intelligence & Network Reconstruction Analyst” for the U.S. Air Force.
Andreas Milch is a German criminal defense lawyer and certified IT forensics specialist.
Discussion by the Court
Yehudi Moszkowicz
Moszkowicz’s two proffered reports concerned the structure and internal communications of the European governments that participated in the joint investigation, with emphasis on the purported involvement of the United States.
His analysis is based on his review of government documents and media reports that describe, inter alia, the role of Europol and the use of Dutch software to analyze communications captured from the Sky network.
The Court held that Moszkowicz’s report did not reflect any specialized knowledge and merely summarized documents that—if they had been admissible—could have been understood by a lay person. Additionally, while such information might have borne on issues raised in Defendant’s prior suppression motion, it was of minimal relevance to any issue at trial. The diplomatic details of the underlying investigation simply did not bear on the reliability of the resulting intelligence. Insofar as the defense intended to elicit Moszkowicz’s opinion about the reliability of the Sky Evidence at issue in the case, such testimony would have been speculative because, inter alia, he had not even personally reviewed the discovery.
Lee Koch
Koch’s expected testimony consisted of a single page “report” indicating that he had reviewed Sky Evidence and “agreed on all points” with the report of Milch and stated that the Sky Evidence “should be suppressed” because it was “incomplete, open to manipulation, unverifiable to an original dataset . . . contained multiple errors, contained multiple omissions, was collected and processed by unknown and unverified tools, and lacked timestamps or GPS data.”
Consequently, the Court held that the primary opinion set forth in the letter was a legal conclusion—namely, that the Sky Evidence “should be suppressed”—which would not constitute relevant or permissible testimony at trial.
Andreas Milch
Milch reviewed the Sky Evidence and drafted two lengthy reports evaluating the reliability of the data and highlighting various “anomalies” in the Chat Spreadsheets.
Those reports addressed a wide range of topics related to the Sky Evidence, including, inter alia, the functionality and format of the encryption used on the Sky network, the European “hack” operation, and various features of the Chat Spreadsheets and Media Folders. Milch’s conclusion was that the “integrity” of the Sky Evidence could not be verified due to the format in which it had been transmitted. The Court held that the integrity of the Sky Evidence is relevant to issues at trial, as it bears on the reliability of the Government’s evidence of the conspiracy.
The Court found that some (but not all) of Milch’s analysis was based on sufficient facts and sound methods—namely the close review of the Chat Spreadsheets and associated Media Folders. His speculation about the tools and methods of European law enforcement, by contrast, did not rest on a sufficient foundation. Finally, the Court held that Milch’s explication and analysis of certain topics would be helpful to the jury, who are likely to be unfamiliar with topics such as encryption, metadata and digital forensic standards that bear on the reliability of the Sky Evidence.
The Court permitted Milch to testify as an expert about the functionality and format of Microsoft Excel as well as the format and content of the Chat Spreadsheets, including metadata, in addition to general digital forensic standards and methods.
However, Milch was barred from testifying about the method by which European law enforcement captured, stored, analyzed, or decrypted communications from the Sky network and the use if artificial intelligence.
Held
The Court granted the Government’s motion in limine to preclude expert testimony as to Yehudi Moszkowicz and Lee Koch but denied it as to Andreas Milch.
Key Takeaway:
Milch is qualified to opine on the format and reliability of the Sky Evidence based on his certification as an IT forensics specialist and experience litigating multiple cases involving similar evidence. Federal Rule 702 does not require that an expert attend a specific type or number of trainings for a specific length of time, and the Second Circuit has advised that ‘the words qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education’ must be read in light of the liberalizing purpose of Rule 702.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | United States V. Gogic |
| Docket Number: | 1:22cr493 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, New York Eastern |
| Order Date: | October 31, 2025 |
