In the 2000-teens, a detractor by the name of Jeremy Leval came onto my radar. I responded to his social media attacks with this page: Jeremy Leval In summer of 2014, I was suddenly arrested and charged with a misdemeanor, "Harrassment by Electronic Communications," for something I supposedly posted on Reddit. But to me, the charge sounded more like Reddit's mission statement than something one could be arrested for. Here are the charges, from court transcript: Count 1: 5 The first count alleges that on 6 September 23, 2013, in response to the question, 7 "Students of UIUC, where is your favorite place to B study on campus and why?", the post, "i like to 9 studie in the bathroom so I can masterbate without 10 making a mess all over the apartment," posted by 11 the username Jeremy-the-prick, appeared on Reddit. Count 2: 12 On January 10, 2014, the username Suburbin 13 Eggpress, S-u-b-u-r-b-i-n E-g-g-p-r-e-s-s, posted 14 on Reddit, in all caps, "KATHERINE CHI TRIES TO 15 HUMP JEREMY LEVAL, FINDS HE HAS NO PENIS." Based on the file I received from the Highland Park Police Department, it seemed clear that Leval's father and Leval had lobbied HPPD for months to do something about the page above where I pushed back against Leval's attacks. HPPD seemed to tell Leval what was needed for a charge, and Levals seemed to worke to produce it. At trial, Leval produced screenshots of posts that I could not find anywhere on Reddit. I don't believe there was any other authentication of the posts, other than Leval stating he'd taken the screenshots. The Reddit witness was unable to provide any information about the posts, other than IP address from which the supposedly-involved accounts were created. The judge ruled as follows (excerpt): 21 One might argue that one cannot use a 22 username established by someone else other than 23 with their password, but there are allegations, and 24 I have no reason to disbelieve them, in the 1 complaint that the State asked the Court to take 2 judicial notice of that Mr. Leval had been boasting 3 that it was easy to access the defendant's accounts 4 because his passwords were amateur and easily 5 decipherable. 6 With respect to the posting on January 1 7 8 MR. GOLDMAN: January 10th, I believe. 9 THE COURT: Thank you. 10 -- January 10, not only is there no 11 evidence that the defendant himself made the post, 12 an essential element in a criminal case, and that 13 any posting made at that IP address wasn't easily 14 accessible by anyone else at that place of business 15 or apartment or town home as defendant. 16 For all of those reasons, I would find 17 that there has not been proof beyond a reasonable 18 doubt that the defendant himself made those posts. . . . 25 ...For all of those reasons, I'm entering 26 a finding of not guilty. 27 MR. GOLDMAN: Thank You It's somewhat amusing that judge went on to appease Leval by saying she might have ruled otherwise if there was a different standard of proof, right after she just seemed to acknowledge that Leval was logging into accounts that were not his and making posts. The taxpayers of Lake County spent tens of thousands of dollars litigating this case. They went so far as to fly in, lodge, and feed a witness from California. This was an interesting adventure. The media never reported the real story. They just spouted nonsensical melodramas. When the smoke cleared, the court ordered that records, files, and mugshot be destroyed or turned over to me. The order specifically directed anyone publishing mugshot to cease doing so. To date, neither Google nor various scummy online purveyors of slimy news have complied with the order. Expungement Order Eventually, politicians will figure out that digital mugshots and expungement orders are sort of mutually exclusive, and they'll either restrict publication of digital mugshots or grant copyrights to defendants along with expungement, so that DMCA can be used to remove mugshots from websites. Leval also tried to get the Jeremy Leval page down by filing a defamation suit. That was an interesting ploy, but Leval settled when a counterclaim was filed. The counterclaim is here. The last count is most interesting, but draw your own conclusions. Counterclaim - Skip to Page 16
Dennis Toeppen Mugshot
February 12, 2025 Blurry license photo of Dennis Toeppen