{"id":14710,"date":"2019-05-16T17:42:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T21:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=14710"},"modified":"2019-05-16T22:33:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T02:33:34","slug":"brick-woman-charged-with-writing-kkk-intimidation-message-via-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2019\/05\/brick-woman-charged-with-writing-kkk-intimidation-message-via-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Woman Charged With Writing ‘KKK’ Intimidation Message Via Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Denise<\/a>

Denise Scaltrito (Photo: OCPO)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Brick Township woman is facing a charge of bias intimidation after allegedly writing racially-charged messages to another person on Facebook, the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

Denise Scaltrito, 48, was arrested and charged on Monday. According to an office spokesman, Scaltrito is accused of sending \u201cthreatening and offensive messages\u201d to the victim via Facebook Messenger.\u00a0 The messages included the text: \u201cKKK is alive and well in Brick,\u201d and that the victim \u201cshould move.\u201d Additional messages included references to the Aryan Brotherhood \u2013 a white power prison gang \u2013 and \u201cderogatory comments regarding the victim\u2019s race,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of behavior is on the rise, especially on social media,\u201d said Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer. \u201cIndividuals that exploit hatred, intolerance and prejudice with a purpose to intimidate will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under New Jersey statutes, it is illegal to intimidate someone based on their race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, disability or gender identity. Bias intimidation charges are fluid, meaning the potential penalties change depending on the underlying charge \u2013 normally one degree above the connected offense. In the case of a disorderly persons offense such as harassment, for example, bias intimidation would be treated as a fourth degree crime which carries a potential penalty of 18 months in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Brick Township Police Department will investigate all allegations of bias intimidation thoroughly,\u201d said Police Chief James Riccio. \u201cThis type of language directed at an individual with a purpose to intimidate will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scaltrito was processed at Brick Township Police Headquarters and released on a summons pending a future court date.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brick Township woman is facing a charge of bias intimidation after allegedly writing racially-charged messages to another person on Facebook, the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office announced Thursday. Denise Scaltrito, 48, was arrested and charged on Monday. According to an office spokesman, Scaltrito is accused of sending \u201cthreatening and offensive messages\u201d to the victim via […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[751,24,3707],"class_list":["post-14710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-bias-intimidation","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-denise-scaltrito"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Scaltrito-DMV.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3Pg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}