Willie Banks was arrested in connection with a shooting outside his Westbrook home in 2024 after his neighbor’s security camera captured the incident by chance — at least, that’s what he and his attorney believed until this month. 

For over three years, a police officer monitored Banks’ home through unfettered and ongoing access to the neighbor’s camera, installed after the neighbor regularly contacted police about suspicious activity at the home. 

The video recording — which was instrumental in incriminating Banks — was obtained without a warrant, and had Banks’ attorney, Heather Gonzales, known about the surveillance, she would have challenged its legality and the integrity of the case as a whole, she wrote in a motion to sanction prosecutors. The motion was first reported by the Bangor Daily News.

In January 2021, Banks’ neighbor — a public safety employee for the town of Windham — set up a camera with a vantage point of the house that was not available to the public. The neighbor created an account to give access to Westbrook police officer and Maine Drug Enforcement agent Phil Robinson.

Robinson, who retired in January, monitored the camera with “some regularity,” according to the motion for sanctions. 

On March 13, 2024, police arrested two people, including Banks, after gunfire was reported outside of his apartment on Cumberland Street. No injuries were reported, but Banks was charged with aggravated reckless conduct and illegal possession of a firearm.

Robinson responded to the scene, and he was the only person who was able to identify Banks as one of the shooters based on the grainy and low resolution surveillance footage. He claimed to have known Banks from former police work and did not mention the three-year surveillance arrangement until an interview with the FBI in May after the defense discovered the arrangement.  

Robinson’s identification of Banks and the video were “the linchpins of probable cause and the sole basis upon which the otherwise indecipherable video was transformed into incriminating evidence against Mr. Banks,” Gonzales wrote. Based on those, a judge authorized a search warrant for Banks’ house, where a firearm was found.  

Gonzales’ motion cites a Supreme Court case that ruled the warrantless seizure of cell phone records — including a user’s location and movement — violated the Fourth Amendment. The case raised questions about the levels of police surveillance possible in the digital age. 

In Banks’ case, Gonzales argued the technology-assisted, continuous and automated monitoring became “a powerful surveillance tool.”

A prosecutor on the case, assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Brostowin, and spokesperson for the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency declined to comment on the active case. Westbrook Police Chief Sean Lally did not respond to a request for comment.