JoCo Sheriff's Office doxxes owner of anonymous "parody" Facebook page
The identity behind the "Ronald Johnson’s Prison Cell Phone" was revealed by the JCSO in response to a harassment complaint, despite not finding evidence of criminal activity
The Johnston County Sheriff's Office has doxxed the identity of the citizen behind a small anonymous "parody" page on Facebook after a complaint by one of the targets of its caustic commentary regarding the county's messy local politics.
Although the investigation into the "harassment" resulted in a determination that the page's activity was not liable for prosecution "due to First Amendment rights," the JCSO nevertheless took it upon themselves to disclose to the "victim" of this non-crime that the page was owned by Parker Antoine, son of Johnston County school board member Michelle Antoine, and was operated from an IP address associated with her:
On 1/27/2025, I filed a harassment complaint with JCSO. The named victims include myself, Kevin Donovan, Cecelia Helm, and Angela Barbour. On 3/4/2025, we were notified via a private email with this result:
"At the conclusion of the investigation into the Facebook page Ronald Johnson's Prison Cell Phone, evidence was turned over to the NC Attorney General's Office. The evidence indicated that a Facebook page belonging to Parker Antoine is operating from a residential IP address belonging to Michelle Antoine. The Attorney General's Office advised that there is insufficient evidence to prove a violation of the Cyberstalking statute, or any other NC criminal statute beyond a reasonable doubt, due to First Amendment rights."
— Christine Livingston, Real Talk with Christine Livingston, March 11, 2025 at 6:45 PM
The JCSO has confirmed that the private information regarding the account's ownership and usage was gathered via "Facebook legal processes," according to a message obtained by the Brightleaf Bulletin.
In response to an inquiry as to whether any citizen could request the identity of an anonymous page, the JCSO pointed to the nature of the individuals involved as playing a role in the process of how a complaint is investigated:
Victims alleging misdemeanor crimes which occurred outside of the presence of deputies are typically referred to speak with a magistrate. Magistrates in Johnston County require law enforcement to investigate any misdemeanor involving a law enforcement officer, school teacher or elected official, they will not simply hear testimony and possibly issue legal process.
Ronald Johnson’s Prison Cell Phone
The earliest posts on the "Ronald Johnson’s Prison Cell Phone" page date back to January, less than a week after Johnston County school board member Ronald Johnson was removed from his position and sentenced to 6-17 months in prison after being found guilty at trial on charges of extortion, obstruction of justice, and willfully failing to discharge his duties.
In a February post, the page described its intentions as "point[ing] out how ridiculous the elected officials and the wannabe 'media' operate."
Although general posts can be found on the page regarding issues such as local roundabouts, many if not most of the posts on the page are derogatory in nature, and directed at a range of figures involved in local politics, including the four named in the JCSO incident report:
Christine Livingston, former Raleigh Police officer and publisher of Real Talk with Christine Livingston
Kevin Donovan, Johnston County Board of Education (at-large)
Angela Barbour, key witness in Ronald Johnson trial; her multi-year adulterous affair with him was central to the extortion charge
Cecelia Helms, along with Barbour, appears to have been involved in the campaign of school board member April Lee
Harassment and the Constitution
On January 27, shortly after the page was created, Livingston filed a complaint with the JCSO over "harassment," a term which is used in North Carolina statutes such as § 14-277.3A (Stalking) and § 14-196.3 (Cyberstalking.)
As previously covered in reporting on the bogus cyberstalking charge against Sloan Rachmuth in Wake County over a single Twitter/X post, which was rapidly dismissed, there is an overlap between behavior prohibited by a plain reading of these statutes and behavior which is clearly protected by Article I Sec. 14 of the NC Constitution as well as the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Although the cyberstalking statute referenced in the JCSO's response to Livingston to repeatedly use any sort of electronic communication (including the internet) "for the purpose of abusing, annoying, threatening, terrifying, harassing, or embarrassing any person," the statute also clarifies that it "does not apply to any peaceable, nonviolent, or nonthreatening activity intended to express political views or to provide lawful information to others" and it should not be interpreted to "impair any constitutionally protected activity, including speech, protest, or assembly."
When weighing the constitutionality of content-based regulation of speech, courts apply the strict scrutiny standard, under which "the government must show that its actions were 'narrowly tailored' to further a 'compelling government interest,' and that they were the 'least restrictive means' to further that interest," according to the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.
Under this standard, the state Appeals Court in State v. Shackelford overturned a stalking conviction in a more clear-cut situation (the defendant making repeated social media posts about and emails to a woman with a restraining order against him), and the state Supreme Court in State v. Bishop found that a provision of the cyberbullying statute (§ 14‑458.1) intended to protect children was not narrowly tailored to that interest.
Less Speech vs Better Speech
Although Livingston took her complaint to law enforcement, another subject of repeated vulgar posts on the page has a different approach.
"While I think Parker Antoine's comments were poorly chosen, we must also protect free speech," said Edwin Boyette of the Brightleaf Bulletin, another target of the page, in a statement given to This Week in the Triangle. "Bad speech can be countered with better arguments."
"Parker's commentary perhaps should be viewed in context with the Antoine family's political ambitions," Boyette continued. "Michelle Antoine was the single largest contributor to the Johnston County CAAG PAC. which spent extensively to reelect Ronald Johnson."
Michelle Antoine also testified in the Ronald Johnson trial, telling the court that she was aligned politically with Johnson on the Johnston County school board opposite the board chair, who she said "iced [them] out" of committee appointments, according to trial coverage by the News & Observer.
Intimidation Under Color of the Law?
According to Michelle Antoine, she and her attorney met with two Johnston County deputies on February 21st at 1pm, where they "tried to extort and use the color of law to intimidate [her] into chilling the speech of [her] adult son" by offering to not to release their names if she would "make the page go away."
Antoine says that she left the decision up to her son Parker, who made the decision to keep the page up. Eleven days later, the JCSO sent the email to Livingston which doxxed Parker as the owner of the page based on information obtained via "Facebook legal processes."
A civil rights lawsuit will be filed over the "egregious actions by the Johnston County Sheriff's Department and local District Attorney," according to a statement provided by Antoine to the media:
The Johnston County Sheriff's office and District Attorney executed an unlawful search warrant where no crime existed, as confirmed by the Attorney General, in order to ascertain who was behind an anonymous political parody page.
The Facebook political parody page Ronald Johnson's Prison Cell Phone was linked to the Facebook account of Parker Antoine, I had nothing to do with the page. Parker Antoine is my adult son. He has many pages and groups he runs on social media and has for years.
The Sheriff's office and District Attorney tried to extort and use the color of law to intimidate me into chilling the speech of my adult son when they called me in and told me to make the page go away and our names would not be released. I left the option of continuing the page up to my son, who made the decision that his protected speech should not be infringed.
They violated both my and my son's first, fourth, and fourteenth amendment rights and continue to do so by releasing our names. My son has been doxxed online with his work, school, and home locations being released. After the Johnston County School Board meeting on Tuesday, where the crowd was vitriolic and threatening toward me due to the unlawful release of my name, a Sheriff's deputy needed to escort me to my vehicle.
The government does not have the right to infringe speech they dislike. They do not have the right to intimidate and use the threat of law to chill speech, or to take away anonymity in speech. This parody page is a highly protected form of political speech. The egregious actions by the Johnston County Sheriff's Department and local District Attorney leave question to their integrity and fairness for the average citizen, if they are so bold to do this to an elected official.
A civil rights lawsuit is forthcoming.