In an incident being called “Twittergate,” an Illinois man is suing his local police department after officers raided his house, and then arrested him, as part of an investigation into a parody Twitter account.
Jonathan Daniel, 29, filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday after police arrested him for creating a fake Twitter account that poked fun at Peoria mayor Jim Ardis. Among other things, Daniel reportedly tweeted jokes that suggested Ardis was sleeping with prostitutes and taking drugs.
Ardis ordered an investigation into the Twitter account, which resulted in police arresting Daniel in the early morning hours of April 15. Authorities charged Daniel with one misdemeanor count of impersonating a public official, an offense that carried one year in prison and a possible $2,500 fine.
Daniel responded on Thursday by filing a civil rights lawsuit against Ardis and several city officials, alleging — among other things — that Daniel’s First and Fourth Amendment constitutional rights were violated.
“Political parody is a great tradition in the United States, from Thomas Nast to Jon Stewart,” ACLU attorney Harvey Grossman said in a statement, adding that city officials have been “unapologetic” about the way they handled the situation.
“The only way to hold these government officials accountable is to have a federal court rule that their actions violated the fundamental constitutional rights of our client,” Grossman said.
Daniel, who alleges emotional distress since the police raid and subsequent arrest, said the mayor could have easily diffused the situation by publicly declaring that the comments made on the parody account were not his own.
“The joke of the account was to have my fictional mayor saying things that no one would possibly think that Mayor Jim Ardis would say,” Daniel said in a statement on Thursday. “If the Mayor was concerned, all he had to do was tell the public that his was not his account and not his words, rather than involving the police.”
Daniel is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, to be awarded by a jury at trial, as well as a “permanent injunction relief prohibiting the City of Peoria from engaging in future efforts to suppress constitutionally protected speech that is derogatory toward stye mayor.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Ardis maintained his position that the investigation was necessary because the account in question did not explicitly claim to be a parody.
“If this filthy attack was labeled as parody at the beginning, I would not have been any less repulsed, but at least it would be known to those reading the information that the things being assigned to me were in fact coming from someone posing as me,” Ardis said.
Ardis said he is “exploring false light and defamation as well as other actions against those responsible for the placing and hosting of the libelous comments.”
“I agree with the foundation of the constitution granting us all freedom of speech,” he continued. “I don’t believe that freedom allows me to say anything I want to say about anyone at any time about anything and attribute those things to another person as their thoughts under their picture. That’s taking away my freedoms.”
The parody Twitter account has since been suspended.
Matthew Keys is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine.
