New Jersey Prosecutors Unconstitutionally Charge Two Journalists
Two reporters in New Jersey were unconstitutionally charged for refusing to unpublish information related to an expunged arrest.
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New Jersey state prosecutors unconstitutionally charged two reporters in Red Bank for disclosing an expungement order and refusing to remove details related to an expunged arrest.
Red Bank Green is a local news website that posts monthly police blotter reports. One of the arrestees named in the blotter, Kyle Pietila, demanded in April that the site remove the entry for “simple assault” after a municipal court judge signed an expungement order.
According to Donohue, in May 2025, the website updated the blotter entry with an editor’s note that the arrest was dismissed and expunged. He responded to various emails and phone calls by outlining the website’s reason for leaving the entry as it appeared in the post originally published on September 18, 2024. But Pietila did not accept the website’s explanations.
On June 4, 2025, Pietila allegedly contacted Donohue, asked Donohue to confirm his home address, and then added, “[H]ow much money do you have?” Donohue hung up the call.
Pietila submitted a “citizen’s complaint,” and the court subsequently signed off on charges against Katzgrau and Donohue on June 26, 2025, asserting there was “probable cause” for state prosecutors to charge them for allegedly violating a New Jersey statute.
“To the extent that defendants are somehow being charged with not removing the police blotter entry after the expungement, [the New Jersey] Supreme Court and numerous other courts have opined as to the blatant unconstitutionality of such a requirement,” defense attorney Bruce Rosen declared in a motion to dismiss the charges [PDF].
“If anything, Red Bank Green should be commended for, after being informed of the expungement, adding a note explaining that the arrest had been expunged. It had no legal obligation to do so, but did so in accordance with its own policies and desire to report fairly and accurately to the public.”
“Therefore, the issuance of probable cause in this matter is plain legal error, this prosecution is unconstitutional and in fact unfathomable, and the matter should be promptly dismissed,” Rosen added.
The United States Press Freedom Tracker, a project of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, was the first to call attention to this case. The organization later issued a statement condemning state prosecutors and the municipal court.
“Any prosecutors who would even think to bring such charges either don’t know the first thing about the Constitution they’re sworn to uphold, or don’t care,” contended FPF advocacy director Seth Stern. “Failure to immediately correct and apologize for this inexplicable error would put prosecutors’ competence in doubt and warrant investigation of whether they should keep their law licenses.”
Stern also emphasized that the New Jersey Supreme Court has “upheld the right to publish expunged information. There is no exception for expunged arrest records and any state law that says otherwise violates the First Amendment.”
In the dismissal motion, Rosen pointed out that “there is no requirement in law” that an arrest entry “be removed from the publisher’s website” simply because an expungement later occurred. Yet this is the basis for certifying the charges: “I have provided Red Bank Green with dismissal/expungement paperwork multiple times and they refuse to remove the content from their website directly violating NJ 2C:52-30.”
This violation of free speech rights, as FPF acknowledged, is similar to a judge in Jackson, Mississippi, ordering The Clarksdale Press Register to unpublish an editorial criticizing Clarksdale city officials after officials sued the newspaper for defamation. City officials, along with Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin, were nationally embarrassed, and the censorship attempt was abandoned.
In Marion County, Kansas, police and Magistrate Judge Laura Viar authorized illegal raids in 2023 against a community newspaper known as the Marion County Record. Viar was admonished by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct for signing off on the search warrant. (It was later reported that she may have misrepresented key facts to escape discipline.)
FPF additionally recalled how “San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu threatened civil penalties against journalist Jack Poulson." He covered a sealed report detailing “tech executive Maury Blackman’s arrest for domestic violence.”
After Poulson was threatened, the First Amendment Coalition pursued an effort to overturn a California state law that punished individuals for sharing sealed arrest records. The group prevailed in December 2024, when Chiu and other officials who were sued agreed to an injunction that prevented city and state officials from enforcing the anti-dissemination statute.
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