City Of Peoria Offers $125,000 Non-Apology To Owner Of Twitter Account That Parodied Its Mayor

from the mayor's-power-inversely-proportionate-to-skin-thickness dept

The taxpayers of Peoria, Illinois, will be footing the bill for the bumbling thuggishness of their thin-skinned mayor and an all-too-compliant police force.

Last April, Peoria mayor Jim Ardis somehow stumbled across a parodic Twitter account run by local Jon Daniel. Taking offense to the account's content, Ardis managed to talk the police department into raiding Daniel's apartment, despite the chief of police informing the mayor that no criminal activity had actually occurred.

Backlash ensued. The mayor took to the airwaves to defend his actions, claiming the parody account used up all the free speech, leaving him no way to defend himself against tweets suggesting he was "trill as fuck."

A lawsuit ensued. The ACLU took up Daniel's case and sued the mayor, the city and various law enforcement officers. Faced with the possibility of increased damages if the case went to trial, the city has decided to pay Daniel $125,000 for actions it took because its mayor couldn't take a joke.

The central Illinois city of Peoria tentatively agreed Wednesday to pay $125,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man whose home was raided by police over a Twitter account he created depicting the mayor as a lewd fan of drugs and alcohol.

The deal includes no admission that Peoria did anything wrong, but it calls for the city to send its police department a directive emphasizing that parody does not fall under an Illinois statute regulating false personation of a public official, which was used to obtain warrants to arrest Daniel.

As is the case with nearly every government lawsuit settlement, the accused get to walk away without admitting wrongdoing while allowing other people to pick up the tab.

The directive agreed to by the city in the settlement is the tiniest concession of wrongdoing. And, as such, it's redundant. It simply demands the police enforce the law as it is written, rather than the mayor's reading of it through the haze of butthurt and misdirected indignation.

In consideration of the releases set forth in Paragraph 6 above, Defendant agrees to implement the False Personation Statute Directive (attached hereto as Exhibit 1), including but not limited to announcing and distributing Exhibit 1 to all current City of Peoria police officers at roll call and certifying to the ACLU that they have done so. Defendant City of Peoria further agrees that it will continue to abide by the terms of the False Personation Statute Directive until and unless a specific change in circumstances, such as a modification in the governing law or a change in the interpretation of the law by the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s office, provides Defendant a good faith belief that adherence to the terms of the False Personation Statute Directive are no longer appropriate.

This reminder shouldn't be needed and will doubtless be greeted with various levels of eye-rolling when delivered to police officers. The cops that weren't involved will know the actions taken on behalf of Ardis were wrong. And those who did participate will resent being talked down to by a settlement stipulation. The underlying problem with this directive is that -- as noted above -- the involved officers already knew Daniel's parody account didn't break the law cited in support of the raid of his apartment.

Here's what Chief Settingsgaard emailed to the mayor before the raid took place.

Mayor/Manager, I reviewed this matter with Detective Feehan. He is in the process of shutting down the account as you saw from my last email. This phony Twitter account does not constitute a criminal violation in that no threats are made. I'm not sure if it would support a civil suit for defamation of character. I'm not an expert in the civil arena but my recollection is that public officials have very limited protection from defamation. I asked (Feehan) about identity theft and he advised it did not qualify because the statute requires the use of personal identifying information such as a social security number, DOB, etc., and a financial gain form (sic) the use of that information. Twitter does not require identifying information other than an email address and name, and there appears to be no financial gain.

And yet, the police did raid Daniel's apartment. Rereading the law at roll call isn't going to prevent abuse in the future. The Peoria Police Department has already indicated its willingness to ignore the law if the right person asks. With this settlement, it's basically buying its way out of accountability.

Filed Under: abuse of power, defamation, jim ardis, jon daniel, parody, peoria, trill as fuck

Judge Says Raid On Twitter User Perfectly Fine Because Officers Can Enforce Non-Existent Laws Provided They Have 'Probable Cause'

from the in-the-weeds-finding-some-weed dept

There's been an update of sorts in the Peoria Mayor v. Twitter Parody fiasco, although reading the headlines attached to most of these articles tells a much different story than what's actually contained in the body. This has nothing to do with the parody account owner's (Jon Daniel) lawsuit against the city [pdf], filed with the assistance of the ACLU. (Many headlines actually lead with this, as though the filing of the lawsuit didn't actually happen over a month ago.)

Judge Thomas Keith ruled that police had probable cause to perform the raid at Daniel's residence -- which also netted his roommate, Jacob Elliott, with felony drug possession charges when marijuana and paraphernalia were discovered. And it's Elliott who's actually in court seeking to have charges dismissed and the warrant invalidated.

The argument against the warrant itself is solid. FOIAed emails show internal discussions between the Peoria PD and the Mayor's office, one of which includes the Chief of Police himself saying there are no laws being broken.

Mayor/Manager, I reviewed this matter with Detective Feehan. He is in the process of shutting down the account as you saw from my last email. This phony Twitter account does not constitute a criminal violation in that no threats are made. I'm not sure if it would support a civil suit for defamation of character. I'm not an expert in the civil arena but my recollection is that public officials have very limited protection from defamation. I asked (Feehan) about identity theft and he advised it did not qualify because the statute requires the use of personal identifying information such as a social security number, DOB, etc., and a financial gain form (sic) the use of that information.

Shortly after the raid and the ensuing debacle, the prosecutor dropped the (admittedly) bogus charges against Daniel.

Peoria County State’s Attorney Jerry Brady decided the offender must commit false personation in person. Using that reasoning, he didn’t charge Jon Daniel, the creator of the parody account, who also lived at the house.

This is the argument being used by Elliott's legal rep. If no crime was committed -- and the statute used to secure the warrant not applicable -- then the warrant should be thrown out, along with anything discovered during the raid.

But the judge doesn't see it that way. He says the police had "probable cause," even if the probable cause was (to put it nicely) misinformed.

Keith’s ruling means police had to reasonably think they would find items related to the parody Twitter account such as phones, flash drives, computers or similar things in Elliott’s bed or closet.

This is stuff the police did find. But the officers also looked under Elliott's pillows and in his closet. Judge Keith still wants them to answer for that.

Peoria police officers will testify Oct. 8 to explain why they looked under Elliott’s pillow and in a closet in his room, where police said they found the drugs in a gift bag.

As for the underlying cause being premised on a law that didn't say what police (and Mayor Ardis) wanted it to say, Judge Keith is less decisive.

Elliott’s attorney, Dan O’Day, sought to have the warrant declared invalid, arguing that police made a mistake and that anything found in the house should be thrown out of court.

Keith said he couldn’t make such a finding. He said the law was vague, and there was no case law that could guide judges on what legislators meant when they wrote the law.

But the prosecutor could make that decision, without the intercession of legislators or case law. He simply found that the law did not apply to Daniel's Twitter account and dropped the charges. Keith seems to be unable to wrap his mind around the fact that a warrant served to seize items and detain someone for not committing a crime is inherently flawed. That this was all uncovered after the raid took place does not excuse actions directed and led by a police chief and detective who admitted in emails that they knew the law didn't apply.

The "probable cause" was bogus from the start. The officers' actions in Elliott's bedroom aren't relevant because the whole search was a farce predicated on a deliberate misreading of a statute. The warrant may as well have stated it was seeking evidence of "harboring office supplies" or "manufacturing sandwiches without a license" for all the legal force it actually had behind it. While the warrant application lists "cocaine, heroin and drug paraphernalia" as things "reasonably" believed to be on the premises (no specific mention of marijuana or any other drugs, however), the statute clearly stated as the motivating force is False Personation, which doesn't cover Jon Daniel's Twitter account.

The police went after a Twitter account holder who had violated no laws and netted themselves a drug bust. The fact is, the police had no right to enter the premises in the first place and certainly shouldn't benefit from items seized that had nothing to do with the electronics (or other items) specified in the warrant application.

Keith's obeisance to "probable cause" is ridiculous but you can't expect much more from a former prosecutor who minored in cybercrime and majored in death sentences.

Filed Under: false personation, illinois, jacob elliott, jim ardis, jon daniel, parody, peoria, probable cause, raid, search, search warrant

ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Mayor And Police Officers Who Shut Down Parody Twitter Account, Arrested Its Owner

from the the-streisand-school-of-reputation-management dept

Sue 'em if they can't take a joke.

Well, sue 'em if they can't take a joke and go so far as to raid your house, seize your electronics and abuse a law that contains no provision for impersonating someone via electronic means, in order to show you how much they aren't laughing.

As was noted earlier, the ACLU is representing Jon Daniel, the Peoria native behind a Twitter account that parodied Mayor Jim "Trill As Fuck" Ardis. Ardis was sufficiently offended by the off-color nature of the account that he demanded the local police do something about it. And they were only too happy to comply, rooting around in the local statutes (and throwing in child porn accusations for good measure) until they found something they could use.

It didn't take. Charges were dropped by the District Attorney, and Mayor Ardis was forced to defend himself against angry citizens who had just witnessed the power of government being thoroughly (and pettily) abused. According to Ardis, he had to do this. Until the account was closed, he had no First Amendment rights… at least according to his bizarre rationale.

The ACLU has filed its complaint against the City of Peoria, the mayor, his staff and a handful of law enforcement officials. The lawsuit asks for no specific damages, but one imagines those named are now in the process of nailing down a settlement amount that's affordable without being insulting.

The filing also fills in some more details on the overreach and abuse by these public figures and public servants. One of the more surprising details is just how long the Peoria PD held onto Daniel's cell phone (presumably as evidence of a Twitter account).

Daniel was arrested (at work) on April 15th. Charges were dropped on April 23rd (something Daniel learned from the papers, rather than from the city itself). That day, he visited the police department to get his phone back. The police refused. Daniel's lawyer sent a letter the next day demanding the release of Daniel's phone. It took all the way until May 2nd for the PPD to return property it never should have had in the first place.

Equally as surprising was how many warrants were crafted and served over a parodic Twitter account. In addition to the warrant served Twitter, the PPD also served one to Comcast. It obtained warrants to search his residence and cell phone. (Presumably, warrants were in the works for the electronics seized during the four-officer raid of the Twitter parody account's "headquarters" -- i.e., Daniel's home.) According to the filing, the PPD was also working on a warrant to serve to Google to access Daniel's email account. All of this over a Twitter account that was shut down by Twitter on March 20th after verifying that Mayor Jim Ardis was not behind it.

There's nothing in here that wasn't done out of sheer vindictiveness. Once the account was closed, Ardis was free to create an official account for the mayor's office. But he didn't. Instead, he worked closely with Peoria Police for more than a month to ensure the account's creator was punished. Now, he and his office, along with every law enforcement member involved, are being sued for violating Daniel's rights. I'm sure this isn't playing out exactly how Ardis envisioned it. Instead of "protecting" his reputation, he's completely destroyed it, doing more damage than a profane parody account (or twelve...) could ever do.

Filed Under: free speech, jim ardis, jon daniel, parody, peoria, peoria police
Companies: aclu