A federal judge has ordered a hearing on an illegal artifacts-trafficking suspect's motion to toss the audiovisual evidence a confidential source taped with a hidden device.

Blanding resident Brandon Laws, indicted on two felony counts for alleged theft of tribal property and violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, alleges the confidential source broke Utah law by conducting surveillance at the home of Blanding resident Joseph M. Smith in 2008.

Federal authorities responded that such surveillance under Utah and federal law is legal as long as one person is aware of the recording, and that the suspect had been caught in the act of committing a crime.

In this case, the aware person was Ted Gardiner, the government's prime witness and undercover operative, who died in a shooting Monday night. Unified Police Department officers in Salt Lake County said the death was suicide, though it remains under investigation.

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart ordered the Laws hearing for March 25.

Laws' motion is the second seeking suppression of evidence that came from a 2 1/2-year undercover investigation that spanned the Four Corners region, but the first to challenge audiovisual evidence.

Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah, declined to comment what the outcome of Laws' motion might mean for prosecutors, whose top witness has died, or for other cases that also depend on recorded evidence.