The American legal system is designed to settle disputes with dispassionate gravitas. Its dignity was tested this week by an image projected on the wall of an Ohio municipal courtroom: Shrek, the ogre of children’s cartoons, naked and posing in a manner more fit for adult entertainment.
The disquieting picture was evidence in the trial of D.J. Byrnes, an independent journalist, in the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby. Mr. Byrnes, who is better known online as The Rooster, faced a misdemeanor telecommunications harassment charge after texting the lewd rendering of the green animated character to a Republican state senator, Jerry Cirino.
Mr. Byrnes is a fixture at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, where he often films ambush-style interviews with elected officials. After his arrest, Mr. Byrnes began selling T-shirts with his mug shot to fund his defense, and the case has brought him a notoriety that’s invaluable in the attention economy, where shock and outrage serve as currency.
But the prosecution also raised thorny questions about the boundaries of discourse when digital exchanges and social media platforms have blurred public and private communications.
Mr. Byrnes’s legal team argued he was being targeted for “engaging in political speech about and to an elected official,” while prosecutors said his direct communication was mere harassment.
The trial sprang from a clash between political worlds and generations.
Mr. Byrnes’s Substack blog, also called The Rooster, has 15,000 subscribers and a monthly subscription fee of $12.99. The Rooster often takes a left-leaning stance on politics and sports with Mr. Byrnes, 39, playing the role of journalist-antagonist. In 2024, Mr. Byrnes posed as an Ohio State football staff member and tricked Vivek Ramaswamy into meeting in a parking lot after telling him that he would be speaking with the team.
Mr. Cirino, 74, is a former chief executive of a medical imaging company who pivoted to politics in 2020. Mr. Cirino’s lawyers positioned him as a family man, describing him as a “senior citizen” and repeatedly mentioning his 41 grandchildren. Mr. Cirino said during the trial that he had watched the “Shrek” movie with some of those grandchildren.
Tension between Mr. Byrnes and Mr. Cirino intensified in 2025 when Mr. Cirino threw his hat in the ring for Senate president. Mr. Byrnes started a campaign supporting his opponent.
In May, Mr. Cirino withdrew his bid, and Mr. Byrnes sent the senator gloating text messages.
In one, he called Mr. Cirino “Young Mussolini.” In another, he sent the picture that ultimately got him in hot water: an image of Shrek masturbating that was anatomically, if not politically, correct.
“I don’t know who this is, but I am certain you are a moron,” Mr. Cirino texted back.
Mr. Cirino contacted his local police chief, and Mr. Byrnes was arrested and jailed the following month.
During the jury trial this week in Willoughby, on the banks of the Chagrin River, several content creators livestreamed from the courtroom. The bailiff glared at gigglers as lawyers and witnesses did their best to describe the offending picture.
The prosecution argued that Mr. Cirino had been harassed by Mr. Byrnes.
“There is no legitimate purpose to sending that photo,” said Matthew Lallo, a prosecutor, noting that Mr. Byrnes had not requested a comment for an article or asked to interview Mr. Cirino in his text messages, moves that might have indicated an intention beyond harassment.
Mr. Cirino testified that he has a “tough skin,” but that the messages from Mr. Byrnes were too much. “I said, ‘I’ve had it,’” Mr. Cirino said on the stand.
Lawyers for Mr. Byrnes tried to convince the jury that the crude image was not a taunt, but rather commentary on Mr. Cirino abandoning the leadership race, exhibiting political weakness.
“Cirino had exposed himself,” said William Livingston, Mr. Byrnes’s defense lawyer.
Michael Murray, another of Mr. Byrnes’s lawyers, asked the jury to consider the implications of a politician retaliating against a journalist.
But prosecutors kept their case closely focused. In his closing argument, Mr. Lallo gestured at the projection of Shrek on the wall.
“Tell me how that is not harassment,” he said.
Such skirmishes seem “silly and small,” said Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School. But “they are what defines what kind of world we live in. We can either live in a world in which very powerful people get to shut down any speech that annoys them, or we can live in a world in where unruly speech is tolerated, even if it is tasteless, because that’s the price of living in a free society.”
Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace,” said that harassment and stalking laws, while rarely enforced, apply to citizens and elected officials alike. She said that such stunts could harm a politician’s mental health and physical safety.
“It can be frightening. It can chill their activities, it can change how they move through the world,” she said, adding that harassment cases are often trivialized when the victims are women or people who do not wield celebrity or political power.
On Friday, after a two-day trial, an eight-person jury found Mr. Byrnes guilty.
Judge Michael Cicconetti told Mr. Byrnes to have no contact with Mr. Cirino and ordered him to pay a $200 fine.
“This was an issue of my personal rights that the statute is supposed to protect,” Mr. Cirino said after the verdict. “That’s all this was about. This was not a First Amendment or free speech issue.”
Mr. Byrnes, through his legal team, declined to comment. His lawyers said in court papers that they planned to appeal.
But Mr. Neuborne said that for The Rooster the loss may be a win.
“If you wanted a blueprint for putting this guy on the map, this is the blueprint,” Mr. Neuborne said.
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
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