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We’ve read a few examples recently of lawyers getting in trouble for what they post online: a lawyer disciplined for posts about a judge and another charged with revealing client confidences (here are other examples from the ABA journal and the NY Times). But it’s not just lawyers getting in trouble.
In an unreported opinion out of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, in early September (but just now showing up online on Lexis), the Court affirmed a decision in which a university police officer who posted a fake (and apparently nasty) profile of a female colleague on Facebook was permanently barred from holding any public office in New Jersey (under N.J. Stat. § 2C:51-2) [the decision is N.J. v. Mandi, 2009 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2499 (September 9, 2009)]. The Court found that because the fake profile was of a co-worker (with whom the poster had previously had a relationship), and was made using a university computer while on the police officer was on duty, the officer could be fired and prevented from working in the N.J. public sector again.
According to the Court, the three facts (co-worker, university computer, university time) sufficiently involved or sufficiently touched upon his public office that permanent forfeiture of any future public employment was suitable:
[T]he statutory scheme is clear. Any person convicted of an offense, including a petty disorderly persons offense, as was defendant, is subject to forfeiture of his present position, and is permanently barred from future public employment, if the offense “involv[ed] or touch[ed] on his public office, position or employment.”
I assume the outcome would have been different had he posted the profile from home, using his own computer, but still created a fake profile about his co-worker ex-girlfriend. The Court’s analysis does not pose this as a hypothetical.
I have two things I want to raise (after the jump).
Read More »Fake Profile Poster Barred from Public Positions for Life
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