A Los Angeles judge has ordered prosecutors to relinquish a cell phone belonging to Fraser Bohm, the 24-year-old charged with the murders of four Pepperdine University students killed in a devastating crash on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Judge Thomas Rubinson, presiding at LA Superior Court in Van Nuys on Tuesday, issued a compromise ruling requiring the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to deliver the device in a sealed bag to the laboratory of a defense-appointed technical expert. Prosecutors will be permitted to observe the data extraction to ensure, in the judge’s words, that “nothing nefarious” occurs.
Bohm has pleaded not guilty to four counts of second-degree murder and four counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in connection with the 2023 crash that claimed the lives of Niamh Rolston, 20, Asha Weir, 21, Peyton Stewart, 21, and Deslyn Williams, 21, on a stretch of road some have called “Dead Man’s Curve.”
Authorities seized the phone after Bohm allegedly declined to provide its passcode following the accident. Prosecutors, who have been unable to access the device’s contents as a result, had opposed returning it, citing concerns that Bohm could “modify, alter or delete” potentially critical data. His defense attorneys countered that information stored on the phone could prove vital to their case…