United States v. Darren Chaker

MEMORANDUM

Darren David Chaker appeals the district court’s revocation of supervised release and the sentence imposed upon revocation. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We reverse the revocation of Chaker’s supervised release and vacate the sentence imposed.

The relevant supervised release condition provides that Chaker “may not stalk and/or harass other individuals, to include, but not limited to, posting personal information of others or defaming a person’s character on the internet.” Chaker’s blog post, which claimed that former police investigator Leesa Fazal “was forced out of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department,” does not qualify as harassment. Among other issues, the blog post was not directed at Fazal, and the government failed to prove that Chaker intended to harass Fa-zal. See United States v. Gnirke, 775 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir. 2015) (“[Cjonditions of supervised release are read to require an element of mens rea.”) (citation omitted); Harassment, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). The government also failed to prove that Chaker’s blog post satisfied the elements of defamation, including falsity and actual malice. See N.Y. Times Co. v.…