A blogger known as “Rooster” was found guilty of harassment after he admitted to sending a sexually explicit image of the Shrek cartoon character to an Ohio politician.
Eight jurors in Lake County, Ohio, took only 30 minutes to find Donald “D.J.” Byrnes guilty of telecommunications harassment for texting the image to state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Republican.
‘This wasn’t a free speech issue; this was a harassment statute that I believed he was in violation of.’
The blogger faced up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for the offense, but a judge decided to sentence Byrnes to pay only $200 on top of court costs.
The offensive messages included a meme of the Shrek cartoon character holding his genitals and two messages taunting the powerful lawmaker after he dropped out of the race for Ohio Senate president.
“This wasn’t a free speech issue; this was a harassment statute that I believed he was in violation of,” Cirino said after the verdict.
Prosecutors had asked for a no-contact order against Byrnes as well, but the judge refused to grant the request.
Byrnes’ defense in court rested on his free speech rights and the accusation that Cirino was using his political influence to retaliate against his enemy.
Cirino denied the allegations despite his donation of at least $2,500 to the judge who signed the arrest warrant for the blogger. A different judge presided over the actual case.
“I would never do that. I respect my position in the Senate way too much to ever let that happen,” he said to WEWS-TV.
Cirino had also contacted one of the witnesses in the trial in what appeared to be an annoyed message, but he denied to WEWS that he was doing anything except expressing his surprise.
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Byrnes let out a laugh of surprise when he heard the jury’s decision, WEWS reported.
The Rooster plans to file an appeal, according to WEWS.
“The First Amendment protects the right to criticize government officials, even in crude or vulgar terms,” said Aaron Terr, the director of public policy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, on social media. “If a single electronic communication that annoys or alarms the recipient can amount to criminal harassment, that’s bad news for a lot of social media users!”
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Foundation for individual rights and expression, Harassment, Ohio, Politics
