Detective Jake Scott Googled the suspect. He read one article from The Rooster and attempted to read nine more, but the paywall stopped him. He rounded out the file with a Columbus Monthly profile in which a Senate spokesman called Byrnes a “security threat,” then obtained a warrant from Judge Marisa Cornachio, whose campaign website carries an endorsement from Jerry Cirino. In Ohio, apparently, the system is small, and everyone in it has met.
Telecommunications harassment is a first-degree misdemeanor in Ohio, punishable by up to six months if the state proves Byrnes texted “with purpose to harass, intimidate, or abuse,” as opposed to whatever else a man might have intended by texting a senator an aroused cartoon ogre. Ohio is also the state that produced Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court case holding that the First Amendment protects even speech the government hates. That case involved a Klansman calling for violence. This one involves Shrek’s shrekhood. The casebooks will need some time to adjust to this new reality, as will anyone who has read this far into the article.
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Byrnes says the facts will show he is innocent. His attorney, Bill Livingston, has advised him not to discuss specifics, leaving the press to rely on the affidavit, which discusses the specifics at length. In a statement issued on official Rooster letterhead, Byrnes called the case an attempt to interfere with his coverage of “the wretched and decaying underbelly of Ohio politics,” a sentence that might read as overly paranoid, except the arrest warrant over a Shrek pic was issued by a judge endorsed by the complainant.
A trial date is pending. The image remains in evidence, where it will eventually be projected in open court, in high definition, before a jury of Byrnes’ peers, each of whom will be instructed by a bailiff to try not to laugh hysterically.
