The legal troubles facing New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft continue. According to reports, Florida prosecutors are moving to level increased charges against Kraft. Based on a new request filed with the state’s attorney general, lawyers are seeking to increased the charges from two misdemeanors – which Kraft pleaded not guilty to in March – to a third-degree felony.

Kraft is among 25 individuals charged in relation to a prostitution investigation, involving numerous spas and massage parlor. Kraft’s charges stem from alleged soliciting at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. A lower court recently threw out video evidence leveled against the Patriots owner. The request to increase the charges against Kraft will depend on the success of a state appeal to have this ruling reversed.

In their 15-page argument for steeper charges, state lawyers argued that prostitution rings tend to lead to heavier crimes. However, investigators have been unable to determine if trafficking was occurring due to the uncooperative spa staff.

Conversely, Kraft’s lawyers have argued that his Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. Each side's arguments will be reviewed by a three-judge panel.

“That the State here is seeking to criminally prosecute one of its citizens — using evidence obtained during a dragnet video surveillance scheme that breaks from Fourth Amendment constraints agreed on by other courts — hardly entitles it to special dispensation or sympathy,” Kraft’s lawyers Frank Shepherd and William Burck said in a statement to the Sun-Sentinel.

Robert Kraft Patriots
Patriots owner Robert Kraft celebrates on Cambridge street during the New England Patriots Victory Parade on February 05, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
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