Peoria mayor sued over response to Twitter account

Published June 12, 2014 8:04pm ET



PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — A man whose home was raided in response to a parody Twitter account he set up in the name of Peoria’s mayor is suing the city, the mayor and the police chief, alleging authorities violated his constitutional rights to free speech.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Peoria by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which is representing the account’s creator, 29-year-old Jonathan Daniel. The filing calls the account a “satiric form of expression protected by the First Amendment” and says no one could have reasonably thought the tweets actually came from the mayor.

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