Charges From YouTube Incident Against Ridgefield Employee Dropped

RIDGEFIELD, CT — Charges have been dropped against the town employee accused of striking a YouTube "First Amendment auditor" with a file folder.

Accounting Department worker Patricia Pacheco had been charged with disorderly conduct and placed on administrative leave by the Town of Ridgefield for a week following the Dec. 1 incident. The charges were dismissed Dec. 16, according to state Superior Court.

Pacheco was charged by Ridgefield Police following her reaction to being questioned and recorded while she was at work in Town Hall. The videographer, Josh Abrams, uploaded the recording he made of the incident to the YouTube channel "Accountability For All." The video has received over 141,000 in the past two weeks.

A second YouTube auditor, "Leroy Truth Investigations," visited Ridgefield Town Hall the same day the charges against Pacheco were dismissed, and recorded himself speaking with First Selectman Rudy Marconi. In the 10-minute video, the auditor described Abrams as his "brother in First Amendment auditing" and questioned Marconi about an additional half-door checkpoint the town erected since the first YouTuber's visit.

"Those are internal offices," Marconi explained. "We got W-2's that go on, payroll information, insurance information, et cetera, so a lot of that is protected. People's personal information."