Ohio Senator Survives Encounter With Shrek’s ‘Shrekhood’

Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested “progressive” blogger D.J. Byrnes at the statehouse Monday and charged him with telecommunications harassment for texting a state senator a picture of Shrek with an erect p****, henceforth his ‘shrekhood’. Byrnes spent 23 hours in the Franklin County Jail before posting bail, during which time Ohio recorded zero additional ogre-related incidents (that we know of). Officials believe this is evidence that the system worked.

The case file contains three text messages sent to Sen. Jerry Cirino, Republican, of Kirtland. One offered political commentary. One called Cirino “Young Mussolini.” One plugged his newsletter, The Rooster, tagline “All Ohio’s depravity, all the time,” which seems redundant. Then there is the image: a digitally altered Shrek that the arresting affidavit describes as “fully n*** with an exposed and erect humanlike shrekhood engaged in an act of masturbation.” A detective wrote that sentence, read it back to himself, and then later had to swear to it before a judge.

Two days after receiving the unsolicited ogre pic, Cirino emailed Kirtland Police Chief Jeremy Fisher. He found the picture “disgusting” and “pornographic,” he wrote, and he wanted the harassment stopped and charges filed against the individual. Cirino chairs the Senate Finance Committee, where he steers roughly $100 billion in state spending. He has since clarified that he never requested Byrnes be arrested. He claims he simply requested that police file criminal charges against him, which is apparently a separate process where armed men show up later and surprise everyone, including the requester.

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.

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.