ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (AP) -- A judge ruled Tuesday that Linda Tripp didn't have federal immunity when she turned over her secret tapes of Monica Lewinsky to Kenneth Starr's office.
It was a victory for state prosecutors planning to try Tripp on wiretapping charges.Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure ruled that Tripp's immunity didn't begin until Feb. 19, 1998, when a federal judge signed an immunity order.
Her lawyers had argued that she had immunity starting Jan. 16, 1998, the day she turned over the tapes to Starr's prosecutors.
The judge's order appears to clear the way for the state to use the tapes against Tripp.
Maryland law forbids recording a phone conversation without the other party's consent.
Tripp's attorneys have argued that her cooperation with Starr's investigation of President Clinton protected her from prosecution on state wiretap charges.
The judge called the federal court's immunity order in February a technicality but an important technicality, "unfortunately for Mrs. Tripp."
The ruling means Tripp wasn't protected by the immunity agreement when her attorney played a Lewinsky tape on Jan. 17, 1998, to Newsweek magazine.
The pretrial hearing is continuing.
The Maryland prosecutor still must show that his case is untainted by any of Tripp's statements to the independent counsel's office after she received formal immunity in February.
A Howard County grand jury indicted Tripp on two counts of breaking Maryland's wiretap statute because she secretly taped Lewinsky confiding her affair with Clinton.
The recordings were the starting point for Starr's investigation, which led to Clinton's impeachment in the House on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.