The progressive blogger D.J. Byrnes, who has amassed a wide audience with short videos of himself confronting politicians on camera at the Ohio Statehouse, was ordered to pay a $200 fine and court costs after a Lake County jury found him guilty of the first-degree misdemeanor charge of telecommunications harassment. It can be punishable by up to six months in jail.
Byrnes was on trial Thursday and Friday in Willoughby Municipal Court for sending text messages May 6 to Republican state Sen. Jerry Cirino of Kirtland included political commentary and a digitally altered picture of Shrek. The image depicted the ogre from the movie franchise holding his exposed penis. Byrnes was arrested in June at the Statehouse on a warrant entered by the police department in Kirtland, a small city in Lake County, east of Cleveland.
Cirino testified during the first day of the trial that he is friendly with the city’s police chief and asked him to press charges against Byrnes, whose progressive politics often take aim at GOP leadership at the Statehouse.
Cirino confirmed that he called the Kirtland police chief soon after receiving the texts “to have it remedied in some fashion.” He described the chief as an “acquaintance.” He later emailed the chief about the texts and wrote, “I would like charges filed against the individual.”
The chief assigned the case to a detective, who said at the trial that he confirmed that the number that had sent the texts belonged to Byrnes.
Cirino said more than once that the text from Byrnes was “the last straw.” He said that his reaction to the texts stemmed from the “cumulative effect” of “verbal harassment” from Byrnes and others in the past directed at him and his colleagues. He also mentioned incidents like boxes of feces mailed to his house and an envelope containing white powder delivered to his office. In response to a question from Byrnes’ attorney, Cirino clarified that he did not suspect Byrnes of mailing those packages.
“None of us deserve to be treated in a harassing fashion,” Cirino said.
‘That shouldn’t happen in the United States of America’
The defense played a voicemail on Thursday left by Cirino for Bobby Ina, a well known lobbyist. Cirino asked Ina for a campaign contribution. The point seemed to be that Cirino routinely used his cell phone for political work.
On Friday, Ina testified that Cirino texted him the previous night, writing: “You gave a voicemail to a rooster? Seriously?” Ina said he was “shocked “ by the text and did not respond.
At the start of the second day, Byrnes’ attorney asked the judge to acquit the blogger immediately on grounds that the Ohio law is “unconstitutional as applied” because it violates Byrnes’ First Amendment rights.
The judge denied the motion. He also declined to reconsider his pretrial ruling against including explanations of First Amendment rights in his instructions to the jurors.
In closing arguments, both sides talked about the importance of the context in which the texts were sent.
Prosecutor Matthew Lallo argued that the texts violated the law against harassment because Cirino — whom he always referred to and addressed as “Jerry” — is a 75-year-old grandfather who was minding his business in the kitchen of his Kirtland home when the unsolicited image arrived and he felt harassed.
Lallo projected the image on a screen and repeated the words “naked, masturbating Shrek,” or a similar description of the image, several times.
“Tell me how that is not a harassing message,” Lallo said to the jurors while pointing at the screen.
Michael Murray, one of Byrnes’ attorneys, argued that “crude though it was,” the text image should be seen in the context of Byrnes’ extensive coverage of Cirino’s pursuit of the Ohio Senate presidency. Murray said the context also included the breaking news value that Cirino had withdrawn from that race and his immediate reaction, which included calling a police chief and demanding criminal charges.
Byrnes “spent a night in jail because he offended a powerful politician,” Murray said. “That shouldn’t happen in the United States of America.”
Who is The Rooster?
“I read The Rooster because everybody does.”
So said Mike Curtin, a former Democratic member of the Ohio House and publisher of the Columbus Dispatch. He declined comment on the Shrek debate and questioned Byrnes’ factual accuracy in some of his columns. But his comments, made in an interview before trial, neatly echoed Cirino’s own testimony.
“Whatever [Byrnes] talks about is pretty much shared around the Statehouse,” Cirino said from the witness stand Thursday.
Byrnes started The Rooster in 2018, after he lost election as a Democrat for an Ohio House seat near his hometown of Marion. Byrnes’ attorney told jurors Thursday he counts 15,000 subscribers.
The Rooster writes political analysis and sometimes original reporting based on interviews and public records requests. He calls his audience “the Patriots caucus.” The self-described insane communist blogger has also pushed some phrases and nicknames into mainstream Statehouse conversation. Those include “hobgoblins” and Trumpian insults, such as “Young Mussolini” for Cirino or “Governor Sleepy Tea” for Mike DeWine.
Sometimes the dispatches are flush with a healthy mix of satire, rumors and lies (he has not so subtly and repeatedly claimed an Ohio politician is the Unabomber); and serve as a dumping ground for the opposition research and gossip of politics.
He has a knack for pushing limits and, to plenty of enemies around the Statehouse, crossing them.
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.
The Rooster’s influence and reach are clear. But plenty dismiss him as more spectacle and showman than substance. Several Republicans (the most common but not the only targets of most Rooster posts) didn’t respond when asked if they have thoughts about Byrnes.
Cirino’s counterpart in the House, Finance Chairman Brian Stewart, a Republican, said, “I do not” have any thoughts about the matter. Boardman Republican Rep. Tex Fischer, in a text message, said you can call Byrnes a troll, provocateur, guerrilla journalist or whatever else. The bottom line is he has an audience.
“Whether it’s fair or not, I don’t think the general public sympathizes all that much with politicians these days,” he said. “So if one of us doesn’t want to get Shrexted by The Rooster, I think just blocking his number would probably be a more appropriate response than calling the cops and having him hauled off to jail.”
But at least one person depicted without flattery by Byrnes – Niraj Antani, a former Republican state senator – voiced support for the blogger.
“No one has been attacked by the Rooster more than me. But this is wrong,” he wrote on social media. “Freedom of speech in Ohio. Rest in peace. 1803-2026.”
Judge orders no contact
After the jury’s verdict, Judge Michael Cicconetti ordered Byrnes to pay the $200 fine and not to contact Cirino again. He warned that jail time was certain if he did.
Lallo, speaking on Cirino’s behalf, said that all the senator wanted from the case was “to be left alone.”
Byrnes’ attorneys asked the judge to delay the fine pending a possible appeal. Cicconetti agreed.
Neither Byrnes nor his attorneys spoke to the media.
