Will County Clerk’s Office says Trump-related Facebook image fake, election judge files suit

The Will County Clerk’s Office determined that an image of a Facebook post about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump that was attributed to an election judge was a “manipulated image” and not real.

In an Aug. 21 email, interim County Clerk Charles B. Pelkie Jr. said the Will County Sheriff’s Office investigated the image of a Facebook post that was attributed to election judge Ellen Moriarty.

The image made it seem as if Moriarty updated her Facebook account’s cover photo to make a negative comment regarding the July 13 attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“Too bad he missed!! A heroic effort too bad he lost his life,” the post said.

However, Pelkie’s email said a sheriff’s detective determined that the image was “not a depiction of a real Facebook post and that [it] is a manipulated image,” according to emails obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request.

“After its own thorough review of the screenshot, the Will County Clerk’s Office agrees that the image forwarded to us could not have existed on a real Facebook page. The most compelling reason is that the timeline notification of an updated cover photo in the provided screenshot does not match the actual cover photo at the top of the same image,” according to Pelkie’s email.

In his email, Pelkie said the content of the faked image is “disturbing and unacceptable.” But Pelkie said he also considered it disturbing that someone “would create a false image containing the same violent, hateful message to besmirch another individual.”

Pelkie said the office will “cooperate with further efforts to determine who created and disseminated the image we received on July 22, 2024.″

On Aug. 9, Moriarty filed a lawsuit against New Lenox Township Trustee Patricia “Patty” Deiters.

Moriarty’s lawsuit claims that Deiters subjected her to doxxing and defamation by falsely attributing the faked post to her on July 23 on a Facebook page called Will County Republican Women.

In the comment section of the July 23 post, people said they were emailing the county clerk’s office about Moriarty. The office received several emails calling for Moriarty’s firing.

One email sent from someone whose name was redacted also had been sent to the email for the Libs of TikTok account run by right-wing social media influencer Chaya Raichik and the email for former Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey.

The July 23 post still was visible Aug. 15 on the Will County Republican Women Facebook page but has since been removed.

In a July 24 email to Pelkie, Moriarty said she did not make the Facebook post attributed to her, and a graphic designer determined the image was “incongruent and altered.”

“I am very unnerved by all of this. The doxxing of my employment information, inciting people to email the clerk’s office, is a crime. I only pray that some of those people do not decide to take matters any further and come to my home or threaten me otherwise,” according to Moriarty’s email.

Although the sheriff’s office did not consider the incident a crime, they documented their initial investigation in police reports for informational purposes.

The Aug. 21 email from Pelkie about the investigation into the Facebook image linked to Moriarty was in response to an email from Homer Township collector Mike Gondek. Gondek also had contacted the county clerk’s office about the image.

In a separate email, Gondek claimed that Moriarty was disruptive at township meetings, that she filed burdensome FOIA requests and that she allegedly called Homer Township Supervisor Steve Balich a racist.

Pelkie told The Herald-News that the only issue the county clerk’s office reviewed was the Facebook post attributed to Moriarty.

When asked about Gondek’s other issues with Moriarty, Pelkie said those issues fall under political expression and freedom of speech. Pelkie said people have the right to raise issues with their local government and be in contact with them.

“That’s not our business, and it’s not cause to dismiss someone as an election judge,” Pelkie said.