A Massachusetts woman is facing an unlawful wiretapping charge after she allegedly recorded her own arrest via cellphone.
The Springfield Republican reported Monday that police originally arrested Karen Dziewit, 24, on Sunday for disorderly conduct and an open container violation.
Before she was arrested, however, police told the newspaper that Dziewit activated the voice recorder on her cellphone, hid it in her purse and secretly taped audio of the encounter.
Police discovered the phone, still recording, when they went through her belongings while she was being booked at the station, the Republican reported.
Massachusetts is a "two-party consent" state, which means the law states all parties must be aware that the conversation is being recorded.
After finding the cellphone recording, officials added a charge of unlawful wiretapping to Dziewit's case. She denied all three charges at her arraignment on Monday, and she was released on her own recognizance, the Republican reported. A pretrial hearing was set for July 8.
When contacted by NBC News on Monday, staffers at the Springfield Police Department said the people authorized to comment to press were unavailable.
Massachusetts is the home of a landmark 2011 case involving the right to record. The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in Glik v. Cunniffe that to arrest someone for recording police activity in public is a violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights.
