![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/John-Spodofora.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nBack in 2012, we first wrote<\/a> about John Spodofora, the mayor of Stafford, New Jersey, when he pretended to be a secret squirrel Vietnam veteran. A few days later we published his records<\/a>. Earl Galloway, one of Spodofora’s critics, started spoofing Spodofora on a Facebook page that he created. The mayor got upset and sent the full weight of his police force against a citizen critic. They used the same technology that police have available to track real internet criminals.<\/p>\n Ultimately, it was determined that Galloway had done nothing illegal. So he sued Spodofora and the town for using the police to conduct a baseless investigation of him that almost cost him his job. He settled in court the other day for $34,000, according to the Ashbury Park Press<\/a>;<\/p>\n Spodofora had told police from the outset that he suspected Galloway was behind the Facebook page. Galloway had been an ardent critic of Spodofora’s military claims and had confronted him about it during public comment time at Stafford Township Council meetings, over which the mayor presides.<\/p>\n The “fraudulent Facebook profile,” as it is referred to in police documents, was photographed and stored as evidence. A Stafford police detective then contacted the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, where an assistant prosecutor advised that there was indeed sufficient evidence for a wrongful impersonation investigation, according to the police report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I wonder how the citizens of Stafford feel about their taxes paying for an investigation and now to settle a lawsuit so John Spodofora can continue to be a phony secret squirrel Navy special warfare Vietnam veteran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"