Podcaster’s felony conviction thrown out — The Sandusky Register

SANDUSKY — Local podcaster Ashli Ford is no longer a convicted felon.

On Tuesday, the Sixth District Court of Appeals announced it accepted the appeal from Ford, 41, of Milan, and reversed her convictions on felony intimidation charges.

The appeals court judges [ruled] that Ford was using protected First Amendment speech when she stated that she would escort Norwalk city officials “to (their) demise in a manner more akin to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King Jr.”

The appeals court additionally stated that Ford’s words did not constitute a “true threat” directed at Mayor Dave Light, law director Stu O’Hara, former police Chief David Smith and former safety services director Mike White …

The appeals judges interpreted Ford’s words as relating not to physical violence, but to bringing about the officials’ “political demise.”

… “(Ford’s) Facebook post, when considering the context in which it was made, is such an example of … political hyperbole,” the appeals judges wrote. “This court holds that under the circumstances (Ford’s post) was not a true threat as a matter of law.”

Click here to view a PDF of the full Sandusky Register report

Ford’s attorney Peter Pattakos issued a statement about the case that was not quoted by the Register, which reads, in part, as follows:

“We’re extremely gratified to report that one of the worst and most threatening miscarriages of justice in recent Ohio history — prominent victim’s advocate and podcaster Ashli Ford‘s conviction on four felony “intimidation” charges in Erie County, over a single Facebook post in which she did no more than issue sharp political criticism of certain City of Norwalk public officials — has been decisively reversed and vacated by an excellent decision from a unanimous panel of Ohio’s Sixth District Court of Appeals. The 21-page opinion is a ringing endorsement of our most fundamental freedoms as Americans at a moment when, as shown by the mere fact of this prosecution, those freedoms are under unprecedented threat.

Click here to view a copy of the 6th District Court of Appeals’ opinion vacating Ford’s conviction