A bus filled with inmates arrives at the new Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, N.J., Saturday, March 27, 2004. Inset: Monica Ciardi booking photo Essex County Correctional Facility.
A mother in New Jersey thrown in jail for allegedly making terroristic threats against court officials on Facebook during a contentious custody dispute has been released after 35 days in detention thanks to a nascent ruling by the state’s supreme court that raised prosecutorial standards — and questions about the scope of the First Amendment — when it comes to threat-making.
First reported by the New Jersey Monitor on Monday, Morris County resident Monica Ciardi was upset in December and opted to express her outrage online, so she logged onto Facebook to rant on her own social media page about injustices she felt had plagued a custody battle with her ex-husband.
In some of the posts, she reportedly complained about judges, jurists and prosecutors, sometimes calling them “liars” and in the posting that sparked formal charges against her, she wrote: “Judge Bogaard and Judge DeMarzo: If you don’t do what I want then you don’t get to see your kids. Hmm.”