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Acting US attorney once orchestrated Facebook posts criticizing judge presiding in his case, report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 11:12 am CDT

The acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., formerly helped ghostwrite posts criticizing a judge presiding in a civil case in which he was the defendant, according to lawsuit documents cited by ProPublica.

U.S. attorney nominee Edward R. Martin Jr. helped his associate, Priscilla Gray, write the posts that began in 2016 after the Illinois judge “dealt Martin a major setback in the case,” according to the report by ProPublica, noted by Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call. Martin is filling the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia position on an acting basis.

Gray’s posts on the judge’s Facebook page called the judge a “politician” with the “lowest rating for a judge in Illinois.”

Martin had urged Gray to call the judge’s actions “unfair and rigged over and over,” according to ProPublica. He also urged Gray to privately message the judge, the article reports.

The judge was presiding in a case seeking to oust Martin from association with a grassroots group that he once headed, the Eagle Forum. The plaintiff was Anne Schlafly Cori, an Eagle Forum board member who was the daughter of the group’s founder, Phyllis Schlafly.

The truth about Martin’s involvement in the criticism “emerged as Cori’s lawyers gathered evidence for her lawsuit,” according to ProPublica.

President Donald Trump has nominated Martin, who has no prosecution experience, to remain in the U.S. attorney position. Martin did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gray also declined to comment to the publication.

Andy Schlafly, a former Eagle Forum board member who supported Martin, told ProPublica that Gray “speaks for herself” and had every right to express her outrage. He also said no court has ever sanctioned Martin for his “First Amendment advocacy.”

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An Idaho man was sentenced this week to a minimum of 45 years and a maximum of life in prison for murdering a man he says bullied him on Facebook — shooting him 17 times in the street outside the victim’s home — over “rumors” that the killer was an undercover cop.

Mark Bent, 43, was found guilty in December of first-degree murder and felony enhancement for the use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony for the September 2023 killing of Nikolas Bird, 23, outside his home in Bonneville County, according to East Idaho News. Bent, who was sentenced Monday, took to Facebook after the fatal shooting to explain why he took Bird’s life, saying it stemmed from online bullying related to his occupation. Bird’s family has denied the bullying accusation and says there’s no evidence to support it.

“I am saddened to say that I have committed some serious crimes today that will put me in jail for the rest of my life or lead to death,” Bent wrote after the shooting, according to prosecutors and East Idaho News. “As some of you know, shortly after I moved to Idaho Falls, I was slandered on Facebook with rumors of me being an Undercover Police Officer. Those rumors were followed by threats, harassment and more slander. Even after the facts were out that I am not a Police Officer of any kind, people still chose to believe it and continue to harass, threaten me and eventually look up where I live and work and post it on the internet.”

A deputy prosecutor in Indiana has been fired for voicing her disdain with Donald Trump voters on social media — writing on Facebook after the election that they “disgust” her and “clearly don’t respect” human beings — in addition to sharing posts about them being Nazis, according to her boss.

“If you voted for Trump, please unfriend me,” wrote Jordan Stroh, former deputy prosecuting attorney for the Hancock County District Attorney’s Office, in a Facebook post cited by District Attorney Brent Eaton this week in her termination letter, which was obtained by local CBS affiliate WTTV and local Fox affiliate WXIN.

A now-former Indiana sheriff’s deputy was recently arrested after pretending to be a woman on Facebook in order to harass a schoolteacher he once dated, law enforcement in the Hoosier State says.

Derek Joseph Bogenschutz, 36, stands accused of one count of felony identity deception, according to the Indiana State Police.

The defendant previously worked as a deputy with the Jay County Sheriff’s Office — and also as a part-time resource officer at the elementary school where the woman taught.

It is unclear when, exactly, Bogenschutz stopped working for the sheriff’s office.

A 29-year-old man in Florida who last year turned down a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for five years may now spend the remainder of his life locked up for brutally ambushing two police officers in an attack that he streamed live on Facebook.

Orange County Circuit Court Judge Keven B. Weiss on Tuesday ordered William McClish to serve a sentence of life in prison after being convicted on charges of attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer with great bodily harm, among others, authorities announced.

In a news release, prosecutors with the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office said jurors took less than an hour to find McClish guilty on all charges following a two-day trial.

Acting as his own defense attorney, McClish tried to convince jurors that he had been set up, keeping his opening remarks to a single sentence.

“I didn’t do it and the evidence was tampered with,” was all he said, according to the state attorney’s office.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, the unprovoked attack took place at about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, 2021.

Uniformed officers Michael Zambito and Stephen Hurt with the Orlando Police Department were standing outside their patrol vehicle at North Magnolia and East Washington Street when Zambito spotted McClish, who appeared to be setting up a cellphone to record a video of the officers.

Shortly thereafter, McClish struck Hurt in the back of the head with a brick and then started punching Hurt as he fell to the ground. Zambito intervened, lifting McCliup from behind. But McClish bit Zambito’s bicep, then “slipped his head out of Zambito’s grip and began gouging Zambito’s left eye with his fingers. When the officer managed to “stop the defendant from gouging his eye out,” McClish bit the middle finger on the officer’s left hand, the affidavit states.

As McClish and the officer continued to struggle, McClish grabbed the officer’s radio hand mic, pulling it off his shoulder to prevent him from calling for help.