No Criminal Charges Against Bucks County Guidance Counselor For Facebook Threat
By Brad Segall
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- A Bucks County guidance counselor who used social media to threaten to harm protesters outside an Eagles game will not face any criminal charges for her actions.
Marykate Blankenburg of Upper Gwynedd took to Facebook on December 7th to warn demonstrators that if they blocked her family's efforts to get to the football game she would harm them. It was deleted a short time later, but not before it was posted by others who saw her page. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman says the posting was not made with the level of intent to make it criminal.
"While they were certainly ill-advised and, in a word, stupid, they were not criminal," Ferman says. But I think the lesson that people can take from this is that when you put something out on social media you cannot control it."
She says Blankenburg was cooperative with investigators and remorseful about her actions.
After the post, she was suspended with pay from her job as a guidance counselor at Central Bucks West High School in Doylestown.
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