On February 10, 2026, Judge Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York answered that question with a “yes” in United States v Heppner.
Background
On November 5, 2025, Defendant Benjamin Heppner was arrested on securities and wire-fraud charges. During the investigation, the FBI seized documents, including 31 documents reflecting communications with the AI platform Claude.
The defendant claimed these documents were protected by attorney-client privilege, raising the question of first impression: “whether, when a user communicates with a publicly available AI platform in connection with a pending criminal investigation, are the AI user’s communications protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine?”
