Jury Convicts Ohio Blogger Of Harassment For Sending A Naked Shrek Pic To A Local Politician
In today's episode of wtf," we have a jury deciding a local blogger is a criminal because a local politician didn't appreciate being sent a Shrek bereft of clothes to his cell phone. Morgan Trau of the Ohio Capital Journal has the (pathetic) details on this particular miscarriage of justice.
An Ohio political blogger let out a surprised laugh as he was found guilty of harassment after he sent an explicit digitally altered image of the cartoon character Shrek to a powerful lawmaker.
After just thirty minutes, eight Lake County jurors decided D.J. Byrnes was guilty of telecommunications harassment against state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), after he sent him two taunting messages and a meme of Shrek holding his genitals.
Laugh he should, although we both certainly wish the laugh had been provoked by the judicial dismissal of plainly vindictive prosecution. The alleged crime has real consequences: up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Fortunately (I guess) for Byrnes (who runs a popular local-focused blog that routinely criticizes local MAGA-leaning officials), the judge only ordered him to pay court costs and a $200 fine.
But that shouldn't let State Senator Jerry Cirino off the hook. After all, he conjured all of this into existence by using his power and political connections to turn a naked Shrek jpeg into a criminal conviction.
The lawmaker testified he directly called the local police chief, saying he wanted charges to be filed. Public records show Cirino called the judge who signed Byrnes' arrest warrant a good friend" in late April and donated at least $2,500 to her political campaign in 2016.
It's impossible to say whether a different judge would have handled this arrest warrant differently, but it's certainly easy to assume there was some grease on the wheels when this judge was given the chance to review the affidavit.
Cirino is not to be trusted. Not only did he use his connections to turn an unwanted text message into a criminal act, but he pretended (in court!) that this was harassment because Byrnes sent the naked Shrek to his personal cell phone.
Just because he is a politician doesn't mean he deserves that on his private cell phone, Cirino added.
Whether or not Cirino deserves" to receive taunting messages and dick-stroking Shrek pics is a question that isn't really answered by this verdict. But what's no longer open for debate is whether or not Cirino has a private" phone that's more deserving of protections not normally afforded to public figures, like local politicians. He doesn't. The state may not be paying for his cell service contract, but the number is anything but private."
One of the main arguments the defense brought up was that this was official political business and free speech, citing examples of Cirino using his cell phone for public business, even allowing local newspapers to publish his number for constituents to reach him.
It seems Cirino only likes to receive supportive messages from right-wing locals. What he doesn't care for is criticism, taunts, and naked Shreks sent to him by people who don't agree with his political actions or views. Since he's already handed it out to the locals, I'm sure any enterprising search engine user should be able to find this supposedly private" number.
But I'm sure people aligned with Cirino's right-wing views will find Byrne first, and engage in similar harassment in response to previous crimes" that embarrassed GOP figures and the people they love. Here's a choice bit from Byrne/The Rooster's CV:
He helped unearth a scandalous cell phone video that brought down former Ohio State and NFL football coach Urban Meyer. He catfished Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, posing as an Ohio State football coach. And he was present when an Ohio State professor tackled a cameraman who was trying to cajole former OSU President Gordon Gee into an interview.
And that's really why Cirino went after Byrne. He could have done nothing more than block Byrne's number to end the alleged harassment." But he didn't. He made a personal call to the police chief and somehow managed to get his criminal accusations presented to a good friend" who also happened to be a local judge.
Politicians like Cirino consider corruption to be a feature of government, rather than a bug directly related to citizens trusting their fellow Americans to serve their interests, rather than their own. Hopefully, the end result of this will be Cirino being voted out of office and those who aided and abetted his petty quest for revenge coughing up a settlement to Byrne for violating his rights.