Environmental engineering senior Jona Fox was issued a court summons for criminal defamation Sunday. Jona is the older brother of Jawan Fox, the black University student who allegedly had a swastika drawn on him at a house party in Oakbrook Village on Oct. 7.

Jona admitted to posting fliers around the University’s campus and other public places that showed a swastika and listed the phone number and name of Allison Seidel, the University student who allegedly drew the symbol on Jawan at the party. Jona said he put a flier on the door where the house party was held in Oakbrook and on Seidel’s dumpster where she lives.

“It was entirely my fault. I didn’t know it was a crime at the time,” Jona said. “I wanted people to see how she really felt and who she really was.”

The Daily Reveille contacted Seidel, but she declined to comment for the story.

Jona said Baton Rouge Police Department officers came to his apartment Sunday to question him, and when faced with the decision between being booked in jail that day or remaining at home and facing a judge in the future, he told the police he posted the fliers.

According to Louisiana’s criminal defamation law, “Defamation is the malicious publication or expression in any manner, to anyone other than the party defamed, of anything which tends:(1) To expose any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or to deprive him of the benefit of public confidence or social intercourse; or (2) To expose the memory of one deceased to hatred, contempt, or ridicule; or (3) To injure any person, corporation, or association of persons in his or their business or occupation.
The penalty for defamation is a maximum $500 fine, imprisonment for a maximum of six months, or both.