A reporter for Red Bank Green, a local news organization, was issued a summons in June for refusing to remove the name of a man whose name was published on a police blotter and then had his arrest expunged by a judge.
The reporter, Brian Donohue, and publisher Kenneth Katzgrau, are accused of violating a state law prohibiting the disclosure of expunged criminal records.
A September 2024 police blotter report, published by Red Bank Green, included the arrest of Kyle Pietila, a resident of Red Bank, for simple assault.
After his case was dismissed and expunged in March, Pietila asked the Red Bank Green to remove the story from their site. Donohue declined because of a policy not to delete previously factual information. He did add an update to the original story clarifying that the charges were expunged under a court order.
In June, Pietila filed a criminal complaint in Red Bank Municipal Court.
“This prosecution is unconstitutional and in fact unfathomable, and the matter should be promptly dismissed,” said Bruce Rosen, an attorney representing the Red Bank Green.
Rosen argues that the prosecution of Donohue and Katzgrau should be dismissed and expunged, citing a New Jersey Supreme Court decision that this type of prosecution violates free speech provisions in the U.S. and State Constitutions.
He points to court decisions finding that “news organizations do not have a duty to retract, remove or update previously-published true stories based on subsequent developments, and that those developments “cannot undo historical facts or convert once-true facts into falsehoods.”
The arrest of Pietila was part of a community bulletin released by the Red Bank Police Department.
Pietila, 41, a trader who now works for MUFG Securities Americas, a global financial group. Donohue, a veteran journalist who worked for the Star-Ledger and News 12 New Jersey who is also the Red Bank Green editor, and Katzgrau face a municipal disorderly persons offense with a maximum fine of $200.
“Prosecuting journalists for declining to censor themselves is alarming and blatantly unconstitutional, as is ordering the press to unpublish news reports,” said Seth Stern, the advocacy director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Any prosecutors who would even think to bring such charges either don’t know the first thing about the constitution they’re sworn to uphold, or don’t care.”
The story was first reported by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
October 1, 2018 -
-
December 8, 2018