The second and final day of D.J. Byrnes’s telecommunications harassment trial concluded with a guilty verdict. Byrnes, better known as the Rooster, was found guilty in the case involving Ohio state Senator Jerry Cirino and received a very minimal sentence: a $200 fine plus court costs.
Before getting into the arguments, I want to give a shout-out to Adam Dew, whose livestream I watched. I appreciate him doing this so I didn’t have to go back down to the courthouse. I spent the first day there in person, but for day two, I watched on my sofa.
It was the defense’s turn to call witnesses. They called two: a lobbyist who had provided a voicemail from Cirino, and the Rooster’s wife. In my opinion, the defense’s witnesses were pretty weak. But before getting into their testimony, there was another text message to discuss, this one sent by Cirino himself.
Cirino’s Text to the Lobbyist
At the start of the day, the attorneys discussed a text Cirino had sent to the lobbyist after the previous day’s proceedings. When the lobbyist took the stand, he testified that the message arrived at 5:21 p.m.
“You shared a voicemail with the Rooster? Seriously?”
The voicemail in question involved Cirino asking about campaign contributions. The lobbyist had provided it to the defense, and he testified that he regularly communicated with Cirino about Senate business on the senator’s cellphone.
The immediate question was whether Cirino was tampering with a witness. I’m not sure whether he actually knew the lobbyist was going to testify, but I can understand the idea of betrayal. Someone you have a professional relationship with turns over your voicemail to the Rooster, and you have a reaction to that.
The lobbyist said he was shocked by the text and did not respond. The defense introduced the message into evidence.
On cross-examination, the prosecution asked whether he had been with D.J. when the original message was sent or with Cirino when it was received. He had not been present for either.
The Rooster’s Wife Takes the Stand
The other witness was the Rooster’s wife (Hilltop Husband).
She described his work covering Ohio politics and then walked through what happened after his arrest at the Statehouse. She testified that she went to post his bond but initially couldn’t because he hadn’t appeared in the system yet.
She eventually paid the required $350, which was 10 percent of his $3,500 bond, that evening. Despite that, he remained in jail overnight. The next morning, she connected with another attorney who helped secure his release. According to her testimony, he was finally released around noon.
The prosecution’s questions focused on the different jurisdictions involved and her knowledge of the process. She is an attorney, but she explained that she does not practice criminal law. She also testified that D.J. had told her he was sending Cirino a message, but he hadn’t told her what it was.
Those were the defense’s two witnesses. D.J. did not testify.
What Each Side Argued
The defense asked the judge to acquit D.J. before presenting its witnesses and renewed that request after resting its case. Its attorneys argued that the messages were protected political speech and that the prosecution had not proven the necessary intent to harass. The judge denied those requests and allowed the jury to decide.
In closing, the defense emphasized the political context. The Rooster had been covering Cirino’s campaign to become Ohio Senate president, criticizing him and predicting that he would not win. The messages were sent on the day Cirino’s withdrawal became public.
The defense argued that this was a political commentator responding to a political development involving a powerful public official. They described the Shrek image as part of that commentary, making the point that Cirino had exposed himself by failing to win the presidency.
They also returned to the cellphone. This was the same number Cirino had used for about 25 years, including for Senate business, lobbyists, constituents, journalists, and fundraising. It had been published in newspaper articles. The defense argued that the jury needed to consider all of that when evaluating the exchange.
Their central point was that finding the image offensive did not establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that D.J.’s specific purpose was criminal harassment.
The prosecution argued that the defense was distracting the jury. The circumstances of the arrest, the overnight detention, the voicemail, and the publication of Cirino’s number were described as “white noise.” The prosecutor wanted the jury focused on the message itself and why D.J. sent it.
In the prosecution’s view, there was no legitimate purpose for sending an unsolicited image of Shrek masturbating directly to Cirino’s cellphone. It wasn’t a request for comment or a question about the Senate presidency. It was a taunt following a political defeat.
The prosecutor again compared it to scoring a touchdown and spiking the football in someone’s face. Their argument was that D.J. intended to annoy and harass Cirino, and that sending the image directly to his phone crossed the line.
The jury found him guilty.
The Final Day
The result was a guilty verdict and a $200 fine plus court costs. After two days of testimony, cross-examinations, and arguments about political speech and Shrek’s dick, that was how the trial ended.
All in all, I thought this was a very interesting proceeding. I’ll write more in The Angry Democrat , where I’ll bring my conclusions, thoughts, and everything together.
For now, that wraps up the second and final day of the Rooster trial.