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The 7-month prison sentence of Douglass Mackey has been stayed per a federal judge. He was convicted in March for circulating a satirical meme that encouraged Hillary Clinton voters to cast their votes via text in the lead up to the 2016 election. The Motion Order reads: "granting motion for release pending appeal, at docket entry 16 Mackey's surrender date is stated. The District Court is ordered to determine the appropriate terms of release, without prejudice to the government's making a future request for detention, on behalf of Appellant Douglass Mackey, It is further ordered that this appeal is expedited....

Nearly 5,000 people sent in an SMS "voting" for Hillary Clinton after a man the US Office of Public Affairs characterized as a "social media influencer" promoted it as an option. According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Douglass Mackey, who is also known as Ricky Vaughn, was this week sentenced to seven months in prison and handed a $15,000 fine for trying to trick voters into believing they could vote by text message. The Florida man (no, not that one) had faced up to 10 years for his scheme to deprive American citizens of their constitutional right to vote....

It took an FBI investigation, a three-week trial, and lots of taxpayer dollars, but the government finally got what it wanted this week: A Florida man is heading to federal prison for disseminating trollish memes during the 2016 election season that prosecutors alleged "deprive[d] people of their constitutional right to vote." In the months leading up to Election Day, Douglass Mackey, an erstwhile far-right social media influencer, posted a series of photos on his Twitter profile—which had about 58,000 followers under the name "Ricky Vaughn"—encouraging Hillary Clinton–supporters to cast their votes by phone. That obviously didn't go so well for...

A federal jury on Friday convicted pro-Trump troll Douglass Mackey of plotting to trick voters out of casting a ballot during the 2016 presidential election. The case, which sought to address if any of the toxic stew of Internet disinformation during the 2016 election rose to the level of a crime, has been closely watched by both anti-extremist groups and right-wing politicians and pundits. Mackey, 33, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who gained fame on the Internet as the Twitter user “Ricky Vaughn,” posted two images made to look like fake Hillary Clinton ads telling people they could vote by...

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important. Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say. Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny...

Ricky Vaughn” was among the most prolific far-right Twitter users working to spread disinformation during the 2016 election cycle. He posted racist and anti-Semitic photos and memes and routinely retweeted the @TEN_GOP account, which purported to belong to the Tennessee Republican party but, Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed two years later, was actually run from St. Petersburg by the Internet Research Agency troll farm. In the MIT Media Lab’s ranking of top political influencers in 2016, Vaughn came in at #107—above NBC and CBS. Vaughn has now been arrested—and, as it turns out, his name isn't Ricky Vaughn after all....

Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported a former business partner of Hunter Biden's criminal defense attorney has been picked as a top Justice Department official in President Biden's new administration. It has already been revealed that Nicholas McQuaid, a former federal prosecutor, was picked as acting chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division. Hunter Biden confirmed in early December, after his father won the 2020 election, that he was under federal investigation. Carlson said on his show Friday night that McQuaid worked with Christopher Clark as partners at Latham & Watkins and worked on cases together right until McQuaid took...

....31-year-old Mackey was arrested in West Palm Beach on one charge of conspiracy against rights and faces up to 10 years in prison. According to the unsealed indictment, Mackey conspired with others on Twitter to encourage black people to cast their votes via text message.... Far-left activist and “comedian” Kristina Wong posted the same fake voting meme on Twitter in 2016 — but she targeted TRUMP SUPPORTERS! Her tweet is still live on Twitter — via Jack Posobiec!...

Twitter troll Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, was arrested on Wednesday and faces ten years in prison for "tweeting" and "retweeting" joke memes on Twitter telling people they can "text" in their votes.

Yesterday (October 5) Twitter suspended the account of “Ricky Vaughn,” the pseudonym of a popular Twitter user whose real identity is unknown. (Ricky Vaughn is the name of a rookie pitcher in Major League, a popular 1989 movie. Actor Charlie Sheen played Vaughn in the film.) Ricky Vaughn is a prominent Donald Trump supporter identified with the alt-right phenomenon. He’s so big that MIT named him the 107th most influential Twitter account on the election.