Cyber-harassment charges brought against five people who sought to publicly identify a New Jersey cop on Twitter have been dropped.
The defendants were accused of causing Nutley Police Detective PJ Sandomenico to fear that harm would come to himself, his family, and his property by sharing a photograph of the officer performing his duties at a Black Lives Matter protest on June 26.
An image of Sandomenico wearing a face mask that read "blue lives matter" was posted on Twitter by Kevin Alfaro of Belleville under the username kevi7 along with the comment "If anyone knows who this b***h is throw his info under this tweet."
The post was subsequently retweeted by four other people, including Nutley resident Andrew Koslecki; Belleville residents Diana Lubizaca and Kamila Mikulec; and Queens Village, New York, resident Georgana Sziszak.
Six weeks later, the defendants, all of whom were aged between 18 and 21, received summonses in the mail. If convicted of cyber-harassment in New Jersey, each of the Twitter users could have been slapped with a $10,000 fine and served 18 months in state prison for committing a fourth-degree felony.
Speaking on Friday, August 7, Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, said: "After reviewing the cases, we concluded there was insufficient evidence to sustain our burden of proof. Consequently, we moved today to dismiss all charges."
After receiving her summons, Sziszak started a GoFundMe page to foot her legal bills and raised nearly $10k.
Commenting on her decision to re-tweet the post featuring Sandomenico, Sziszak said on her page: "On Friday, June 26, my friend attended a BLM solidarity ride out/protest. At the protest, they were met with anti-BLM counter-protestors; separated by a wall comprised of officers from the Police Department.
"I physically did not attend this protest but shared my support by RETWEETING his tweet. His tweet was a picture of the cop turning his back and his badge # was NOT VISIBLE. My friend stated that he felt threatened by this cop and attempted to specifically identify this cop via tweeting.
"The purpose of this tweet was to find out the officer's information, to hold him accountable.”