Man arrested for parodying mayor on Twitter gets $125K in civil lawsuit

9 09 2015

An Illinois man arrested when his residence was raided for parodying his town’s mayor on Twitter is settling a civil rights lawsuit with the city of Peoria for $125,000. The accord spells out that the local authorities are not to prosecute people for parodies or satire.

Plaintiff Jon Daniel, the operator of the @peoriamayor handle, was initially accused last year of impersonating a public official in violation of Illinois law. However, the 30-year-old was never charged. His arrest was kicked off after the local mayor, Jim Ardis, was concerned that the tweets in that account falsely portrayed him as a drug abuser who associates with prostitutes. One tweet Ardis was concerned about said, “Who stole my crackpipe?”

As part of the agreement, (PDF) which includes legal fees, his attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union said Peoria will publish a “directive” to the police department making it clear that Illinois law criminalizing impersonation of a public official does not include parody and satire.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/man-arrested-for-parodying-mayor-on-twitter-gets-125k-in-civil-lawsuit/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.


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