Mayor Jim Ardis was the target of a fake Twitter account that accused some pretty serious stuff.
Jon Daniel controlled the account @peoriamayor and would regularly spout out tweets portraying Mayor Ardis as a drug user. He was eventually arrested under accusations of impersonating a public official, but was never charged. Daniel is protected as “satire” and “parody” do not count in that definition of impersonation.
Ardis’ attorney said, “The mayor and city officials believed Daniel was breaching an Illinois law making it illegal to impersonate a public official.” Officials then got a judge to issue a warrants to Twitter and Comcast to find and arrest Daniel.
The settlement from the resultant civil lawsuit totaled $125,000.
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.
Further reading on Peoria’s parodied mayor, see here.
Image Credit: Flickr User rachelrusinski, https://flic.kr/p/8k5f3g via (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)