Was Douglas Mackie Arrested? Twitter Used Over Voters Acquisition And Joe Scarborough Case Details
Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, a Florida resident, was taken into custody on January 27th, 2021, on suspicion of conspiring with others before the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election to circulate false facts on numerous social media platforms to deny Democrats their voting rights.
Mackey was charged with the criminal count of Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign. He made his first court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of the Southern District of Florida on the same day he was arrested.
Specifically, Douglass, a right-wing agitator, was charged with propagating memes that led Democratic supporters to believe they could vote in the election by text message rather than physically coming to the polls.
Was Douglass Mackie Arrested?
In what purported to be the first criminal case in the nation concerning voter suppression through the transmission of false information on Twitter, Mackey was taken into custody on January 27th, 2021, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Federal prosecutors accused the then 31-year-old of working with accomplices to circulate an illegitimate voting medium on Twitter. His tweets falsely suggested that Hillary Clinton’s supporters could cast their votes by sending a text message to a phone number. This perhaps proved beneficial to Donald Trump. Anthem Gionet, a well-known far-right media figure known as “Baked Alaska,” who was detained after taking part in the riot in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, was believed to be one of the co-conspirators.
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Prosecutors claimed that as a result of Mackey’s disinformation campaign, at least 4,900 different phone numbers texted the number in a botched attempt to vote for Hillary Clinton. Besides, Mackey also posted other racist, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist assertions to his 58,000 followers using the then viable Twitter handle @Ricky Vaughn99. He did not just stick up to one account but operated many others for the same deed.
The influencer’s account was placed higher than NBC and CBS News, as well as political comedians Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, on a list of the top 150 election influencers by the MIT Media Lab. Before Mackie’s identity was exposed in 2018, he operated undercover with a frequent switch between his numerous social media accounts.
Where Is Douglas Mackie Now?
It is prohibited for someone to plot to oppress or intimidate anyone from exercising a constitutional right, including the right to vote. Mackey probably is the first to face legal action on such charges; however, he was released from detention the same day he was arrested on a $50,000 bond. The maximum punishment for the offense is up to ten years in prison.
Douglas’s whereabouts after his release on the bond are unknown. However, his activities, which gave the unusual case life, will test the new use of federal civil rights statutes as a weapon to hold individuals accountable for disinformation campaigns meant to sway elections. The urgent need to address this issue has recently made it a top priority for social media companies and law enforcement authorities.
Also Read: Why Was Shylily Banned? Real Face Reveal At Twitchcon
Another Controversy Involving Donald Trump: He Accused Joe Scarborough Of A Murder In 2020
Former President Donald Trump accused MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of perhaps killing Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old assistant who was employed by Scarborough when he was a Republican congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District in 2001, in a tweet he sent out on May 12th, 2020. He has been adamant about leveling this accusation of conspiracy against Scarborough since 2017.
Conspiracy theories have been developed in response to Klausutis’s death; however, officials never harbored suspicions of wrongdoing. Her death is not a mystery that hasn’t been solved or a case that needs an investigation. The cause of Klausutis’s death on July 20th, 2001, was determined to be an accident, and the police decided there was no need for a second look.
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Michael Berkland, the medical examiner, concluded that Klausutis’s heart problem caused her to lose consciousness and faint, resulting in a fatal head injury. According to a police report, she was found in Scarborough’s office in Fort Walton Beach, resting on her back with her head close to a desk.
In the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, Scarborough frequently criticized the dysfunction of the Trump administration, calling it a cyclone of lies. Scarborough can also be seen accusing Trump of racism and condemning his Justice Department’s unusual decision to withdraw the criminal case against Michael Flynn, a former aide to Trump who pled guilty to lying to the FBI. People speculate that Trump is simply venting his anger on Scarborough without valid evidence.
