the substance of the actual allegations that were brought against spone is that she was sending harassing messages to parents, children and to coach. she admitted to sending some of those messages, but denied sending other messages. she was doing that anonymously either from a burner number or from random accounts. she gets convicted of that specifically. but then when interviewed by the op's journalist she denies sending any kind of messages at all.
Spone may not manipulate videos and images, but she definitely collects them. Still, she says she never sent them. “The charges were that she directly sent messages to the minors,” Birch adds. “That never happened. That’s the point.”
But did she send messages to the gym and the parents? There is a long pause. “No,” Spone eventually says.
I’m surprised to hear her say this, given Birch told the Washington Post Spone messaged the parents out of concern for what their daughters had put online. When I point this out, there’s another long pause. “If I said that, I said it,” Birch says, with a shrug. “It is what it is.”
Even if Spone is guilty of sending the five messages, she is innocent of the claims that made her notorious. Sending anonymous and unwelcome text messages is not the same as digitally manipulating images of minors.
in my opinion this is the core of the article. the charges of digitally manipulating images were never brought against her, but she got victimized as a result of police incompetence and a public witch hunt. the article thought tries to paint her entirely as a victim. birch is her lawyer, spone gets convincted on harassment of minors charges, birch claims that such harassment never took place, meanwhile birch and stone can't agree on which messages were sent even when talking to a sympathetic journalist. shouldn't the question of harassment be handled by appeal? instead of the appeal though, they are bring various pain and suffering suits against the county, which is entirely reasonable, but not quite what the article tries to imply.
in my read of the article a nasty busybody harasses people, happens in this kind of communities all the time, but this time the whole thing gets caught in a national witch hunt. the witch hunt is awful, but it lets the nasty busybody play victim across the board.
The bigger story is how the DA and police ran with the ludicrous deep fake angle with zero basis and ruined this woman’s life.
The anymore texts weren’t threatening in my opinion. Literally trying to make parents aware of what their children were doing. Not sure why she sent it anonymously though, but that’s not a crime in of itself.
> The anymore texts weren’t threatening in my opinion
that's not what the jury decided, nor what the lady was convicted over, this also not something that the lady is attempting to dispute in court. she can't even keep her story straight between herself and her lawyer about which texts she actually did sent.
If you're bright and critical, you will be weeded-out early by prosecutors, and you'll see the type of people the prosecutors want deciding a case.
If you're coy enough to play dumb and get selected, you'll get to see the shallow reasons other jurors choose to declare someone guilty.
I was so personally disturbed by my experience as a juror that I pledged to never accept a jury trial if I was wrongfully indicted; I'd rather take my chances on appeal after letting a judge decide my guilt.
you are implying that miscarriage of justice took place, without explicitly saying so. would you still make the same insinuations in other controversial cases like minnesota v. chauvin, or in cases where the guilt is so well established the jury is choosing between one lifetime and seven, like in state v. keith gibson (a recent serial killer in philadelphia, not national news)
but also like consider, there's appeals court's opinion (i missed that there was an appeal on my first reading) https://casetext.com/case/commonwealth-v-spone, i read it, if the details presented in the opinion are not substantially different from the facts presented during original trial, i would've also convicted spone of harrasment. so literally if i were on jury duty in this case, i would've had to disagree with you.
Nothing that transpired was anything other than a giant CF based upon the girls in question lying (and getting away with it) and ruining another persons life.
> Nothing she did deserves what happened. Nothing.
she was convicted of harrasment of minors by a jury in a court of law. presumably there was supporting evidence of the harrasment charges, and that's not something that the article disputes.
> presumably there was supporting evidence of the harrasment charges
Yeah, the media shitshow...
There were no DeepFakes, a few text messages raising concerns about some young girls' behavior and a DA running around during an election year slandering this woman to get votes. Oh, and a lying teenager capitalizing on the drama to get movie and book deals.
The result: a woman who's life was forever turned upside down and found guilty by an "impartial" jury.
> “She was convicted of sending five text messages,” Birch sighs. “There wasn’t one threat in any of them. All the messages said was, ‘You should be aware of what your daughters are posting.’”
that's what her lawyer says, the appeals court disagrees with what her lawyer says, they upheld the original decision and explain in detail why in the opinion https://casetext.com/case/commonwealth-v-spone. "The above cited evidence directly contradicts Spone's suggestion that she was a concerned parent who had a legitimate purpose in sending the series of anonymous text messages."
> "The above cited evidence directly contradicts Spone's suggestion that she was a concerned parent who had a legitimate purpose in sending the series of anonymous text messages."
OK, I read it, and I can't see that it does. Explain how. (And no, her doing it anonymously doesn't contradict her being genuinely concerned. Why would it?)
> shouldn't the question of harassment be handled by appeal?
They did appeal.
As I understand it an appeal is granted if they can show misconduct during the initial trial and not because they disagree with the verdict. Could me wrong, not a lawyer.
you're correct, i missed that part, because i would've looked up the appeal decision otherwise, https://casetext.com/case/commonwealth-v-spone and it provides all the necessary details that support my guess in the op: spone was an unhinged busybody anonymously harrassing parents, the greater abhorent witch hunt took this minor community business into a national spotlight, but now the overal complexity of the situation allows spone to pretend to be a victim. if you feel particularly involved, i recommend reading the decision in full, it addresses all the concerns i have so far encountered in comments, question of free speech, potential lack of evidence, etc.
> spone was an unhinged busybody anonymously harrassing parents, the greater abhorent witch hunt took this minor community business into a national spotlight, but now the overal complexity of the situation allows spone to pretend to be a victim.
A) "Unhinged busybody"? [Citation needed] (Yeah, sure, not super-sympathetic. But a far cry from your vicious characterization.)
B) The national spotlight is a lot bigger than minor community business, and it that much bigger issue she definitely was a victim. No pretending needed.
in my read of the article a nasty busybody harasses people, happens in this kind of communities all the time, but this time the whole thing gets caught in a national witch hunt. the witch hunt is awful, but it lets the nasty busybody play victim across the board.