Karla Lawrence
Ms. Jessica Sawyer, once a Patch Media reporter, catches our attention.
Upon examining our evidence, we found Jessica L. Sawyer, also known as Jessie Sawyer, of 201 Harrison St #104 San Francisco, CA 94105, engaged in “yellow journalism.”
“Yellow journalism” means journalism that exaggerates, or distorts, or even exploits the news to create sensations and attract readers and, in this case, to coerce a crowd of readers into believing falsehoods.
Sawyer also used her personally penned articles to incite hateful violence against journalists Jonathan Reich and members of his immediate family.
In six continuously republished news articles, Ms. Sawyer, under her byline for her employer Patch Media, Inc., published the Queens County, New York home address of journalists Jonathan Reich and his family. All six news stories were designed, timed, worded, and printed to, amongst other things, incite public members to threaten, stalk, harass, endanger, and frighten the occupants of Mr. Reich’s domicile.
Jessie Sawyer’s parents, Jeffrey Sawyer and Christina Dagradi of 30 Canterbury Lane, Unionville, CT, 06085, do not seem to care that their daughter is involved in a massive scandal and cover-up. Jeffrey Sawyer and Christina Dagradi have three children, Jessie the oldest, 34 years old, Jamie N. Sawyer, age 31, of 1444 Rhode Island Ave. NW #614, Washington, DC, 20005, and Jared A. Sawyer, age 29, of 96 Webster St. Apt. G, East Boston, MA, 02128.
Our reporters do not know why Christina failed to take Jeffrey’s last name.
Ms. Sawyer used a specifically crafted mixture of truth and lies to achieve her objective of silencing Mr. Reich.
The news articles were systematically released to corrupt and influence any current jury pool using her foreknowledge of Mr. Reich’s upcoming trial.
Sawyer’s strategy worked well for her as her articles led to repeated trespassing on Mr. Reich’s property at the address she recklessly published. The six news stories bylined by Ms. Sawyer also contain inflammatory and deceitful claims designed, worded, and printed to accomplish the ongoing “character assassination.” of Mr. Reich.
When Sawyer’s news articles appeared, Mr. Reich worked as a freelance journalist. Due to his inquiries, Reich became a “person of interest” to the Avon, Connecticut Police Department.
The Avon Police Department used intimidating tactics to coerce Mr. Reich to attend an arranged meeting in their jurisdiction with their detective Jason Reid. Reid immediately arrested Reich on a harassment charge at this meeting, discussed nothing, and Reich’s attorney failed to appear at this meeting as promised. Reich posted a $50,000 bond using “All City Bail Bonds” and returned to New York. Connecticut authorities subsequently postponed Court dates 19 times during the next two years.
Ms. Sawyer wrote six malicious, defamatory, and non-objective articles immediately following Mr. Reich’s arrest by Avon Police, subjecting Mr. Reich to various members of the public targeting him.
The items were geographically published on Patch.com, primarily in the Avon and Farmington, Connecticut editions. These stories are continuously republished, edited with new content, and injected into hateful discussions as they currently circulate on internet social media platforms.
The contents published by the Patch outlets contained confidential personal information known only to the Avon Police Department. None of the information in the articles was included in their press release.
Sawyer’s news items exposed Mr. Reich to religious persecution, hatred, contempt, ridicule, employment restrictions, and obloquy. This maliciously false, inflammatory, and hateful information, plus specifying Mr. Reich’s family home address, is the direct cause of Mr. Reich’s and his family members’ intimidation, stalking, harassment, and employment restriction.
Headlines of Ms. Sawyer’s articles include the following:
1) “Police: Man Made Threatening Phone Calls to Connecticut Official in Farmington Valley.” [Posted on May 20, 2013, at 10:42 PM]
2) “Police: CT Chief Medical Examiner Received Threatening Calls Referencing Newtown Shooting Probe.” [Posted on May 22, 2013, at 7:15 PM]
3) “Police: Man Who Harassed Connecticut Officials Believed in Newtown Shooting Cover-Up.” [Posted on May 23, 2013, at 11:41 PM]
4) “Suspect Made Harassing Calls Prior to Newtown-Related Incidents, Police Say.” [Posted on May 24, 2013, at 4:16 PM; Updated May 24, 2013, at 9:14 PM]
5) (Newtown Patch)- “Police: CT Chief Medical Examiner Received Threatening Calls Referencing Newtown Shooting Probe.” [Posted on May 23, 2013]
6) “Top Stories: Man Threatens State Officials Post-Sandy Hook.” [Posted on December 26, 2013]
One article claims that Mr. Reich had also contacted a police officer “for the purposes of harassment, regarding the Newtown incident.” This claim is false as Mr. Reich never “harassed” anyone, including any police officer.
The claims within the same news article demonstrate Ms. Sawyer’s unlawful access to the arrest warrant application, an internal police document, and its use thereof. The claims within the report from 5/23/2013 state the following: “Police said that people setting up charitable organizations for victims of the Newtown incident also received harassing calls.
In a systematic, timely release of pre-written articles, Ms. Sawyer sought to destroy Mr. Reich’s reputation, silence him, and turn the public against him using fake news mixed with facts.
The 5/20/2013 article referred to Mr. Reich repeatedly by name and included personal information, such as his family’s home address, his age, and Mr. Reich’s booking photo. However, the article published on 5/22/2013 also falsely claimed that Mr. Reich made “threatening calls” to the Chief Medical Examiner, H. Wayne Carver II. Mr. Reich made no threats to anyone. This same article is maliciously drafted to include and publish the names of alleged witnesses unauthorized for release due to his pending case status.
The article published on 5/23/2014 stated: “Man Who Harassed Connecticut Official Believed in Newtown Shooting Cover-Up.” The article refers to this man as Jonathan Reich. However, this statement falsely claims that Mr. Reich “harassed” Dr. Carver as a factual matter. The same article claims that Mr. Reich had also contacted a police officer “for the purposes of harassment, regarding the Newtown incident.” This claim, too, is false as Mr. Reich never “harassed” anyone, including any police officer. The claims within the same news article demonstrate Ms. Sawyer’s unlawful access to the arrest warrant application, an internal police document, and its use thereof.
The claims within the report from 5/23/2013 state the following: “Police said that people setting up charitable organizations for victims of the Newtown incident also received harassing calls.” This news item implies that Mr. Reich made such telephone calls. However, Mr. Reich made no such telephone calls.
Despite Ms. Sawyer’s dubious access to confidential police records, Sawyer demonstrated malicious intent by excluding several supporting police affidavits. One such testimony included Connecticut State Police (State of Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection) Report No. 1200704559-00054069, which stated: “there does not seem to be any violation of any sort.” The same article said: “The suspect also called Carver’s Farmington office at the UConn Health Center on February 6 and told a secretary to tell Carver that ‘he has a problem and that he would keep calling,’
Police said. He told her he had ‘proof’ that Carver did not perform autopsies on the Newtown victims and that he was covering up the incident.” The Connecticut State Police investigated the incident referenced in the State of Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Report No. 1200704559-00054069. Investigator TFC Michael A. Downs (Badge No. 0502) examined the case found “there does not appear to be a violation of any sort.”
This same article released both false information and information ineligible for the press to release to the public. The report states, “Jonathan Reich, 22, who was “radical” in his Jewish beliefs, also harassed her and her roommates on a school trip to Israel.” These statements are patently false. First, Mr. Reich is of the Christian faith. Furthermore, there is nothing “radical” about Mr. Reich. Moreover, Mr. Reich has never participated in a school-sponsored trip to Israel. He never harassed anybody on any school-sponsored trip to Israel – as no such trip ever occurred.
The article dated 12/26/2013, “Top Stories: Man Threatens State Officials Post- Sandy Hook,” refers to Mr. Reich. The report states: “New Yorker Makes Threatening Calls to State Officials Post-Sandy Hook.” This statement is untrue. The text within the published articles under Ms. Sawyer’s byline is prima face false and defamatory. The text within the news articles falsely and with no basis portray Mr. Reich as a religious nut with preposterous and meaningless ideas.
The facts of the matter are Avon Connecticut police coerced Mr. Reich into their jurisdiction and arrested him. No evidence has ever been presented, no Court hearing ever commenced, and no words have been written or spoken by Mr. Reich.
As planned by Ms. Sawyer, these sensational claims reported in her publication resulted in widespread international dissemination and republication through news media outlets and social media platforms. Since these articles’ original publication and subsequent republication, online and in-person entities have stalked and harassed Mr. Reich and his family. As a result, Mr. Reich has suffered harm to his reputation, economic prospects, and career advancement—also, social stigmatization, ridicule, and painful emotional and physical distress and suffering.
Ms. Sawyer describes Mr. Reich as a criminal. However, submitting to a voluntary give-up with no evidence and no hearing does not make an arrestee a criminal. Ms. Sawyer’s publication of false claims that Mr. Reich is a criminal constitutes libel per se, for which she and her employer are liable.
Anybody who inputs Mr. Reich’s name into any Internet search engine will be met with these republished irresponsible stories. These stories are inherently damaging statements and have caused Mr. Reich to suffer the loss of economic opportunities, scorn, derision, hatred, harassment, trespass, employment restrictions, deep emotional pain, and physical harm.
Ms. Sawyer also targeted Mr. Reich for what she perceived as Reich’s religious beliefs. One of the articles published by Ms. Sawyer refers to Mr. Reich as: “Jonathan Reich, 22, who was “radical” in his Jewish beliefs, also harassed her and her roommates on a school trip to Israel.” This statement is false as it pertains to Mr. Reich. Mr. Reich is of the Christian faith and has never participated in a school-sponsored trip to Israel. The headlines label Mr. Reich as both “Jewish” and “radical.” Mr. Reich contends these news article statements were based upon false accounts for means of defamation and persecution.
The Society of Professional Journalists has a strict Code of Ethics to which journalists should adhere. Ms. Sawyer failed to comply with over 95 % of the Journalism Code of Ethics. Ms. Sawyer wrote one-sided fraudulent news stories under her byline and participated in efforts to frame Mr. Reich as a “harasser” and “fugitive.” Ms. Sawyer is responsible for writing under her byline Mr. Reich’s family member’s home addresses, thereby recklessly placing Mr. Reich’s family members in harm’s way. The publishing and republishing of these hateful and patently false articles subsequently caused severe reputational damage to Mr. Reich.
Ms. Sawyer’s original series of publications in 2013 were published in a finite period of less than (7) days and showed no concern with following up on the case or the story in any capacity. They provided no updates or retractions regarding the matter. Ms. Sawyer’s conduct was intentionally malicious, and Ms. Sawyer’s associates sought to conceal the conduct.
On August 24, 2015, Mr. Reich sent a complaint via certified mail and e-mail to the Patch editor and Jessica L. Sawyer, requesting she and Patch quit their deliberate libel but to no avail. The communications remain unanswered to date, and the articles remain published and republished to the present. Ms. Sawyer embarked on a mission of “character assassination” against Mr. Reich, which is defined as “the slandering of a person usually to destroy public confidence in that person.”
It would be relatively easy for Ms. Sawyer to remove Mr. Reich’s family home address from her publications or delete what she wrote in her news articles. Still, she refuses to do so or respond to complaints about the matter.
Jessie Sawyer appears to have left journalism behind after participating in the Sandy Hook School Shooting Cover-up and the character assassination attempt of Mr. Reich and now seems to be working for HubSpot at 400 Montgomery St. Level 10, San Francisco, CA 94111 as a Customer Support Specialist.
Sawyer’s inaccurate reports are still online to this day. Our reporters will continue to monitor this situation and provide our visitors with the latest updates and information.
