United States of America v. DARREN DAVID CHAKER, AKA Darren Del Nero, AKA Darrin Shackler

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DARREN DAVID CHAKER, AKA
Darren Del Nero, AKA Darrin Shackler,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 15-50138
D.C. No. 3:15-cr-07012-LAB-1
MEMORANDUM*
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DARREN DAVID CHAKER, AKA
Darren Del Nero, AKA Darrin Shackler,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 15-50193
D.C. No. 3:15-cr-07012-LAB-1
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
Larry A. Burns, District Judge, Presiding
FILED
JUL 06 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.

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Argued and Submitted June 10, 2016
Pasadena, California
Before: KOZINSKI and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges and KORMAN,** Senior
District Judge.
Darren David Chaker appeals the district court’s revocation of supervised
release and the sentence imposed upon revocation. We have jurisdiction pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse the revocation of Chaker’s supervised release and
vacate the sentence imposed.
The relevant supervised release condition provides that Chaker “may not
stalk and/or harass other individuals, to include, but not limited to, posting personal
information of others or defaming a person’s character on the internet.” Chaker’s
blog post, which claimed that former police investigator Leesa Fazal “was forced
out of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department,” does not qualify as harassment.
Among other issues, the blog post was not directed at Fazal, and the government
failed to prove that Chaker intended to harass Fazal. See United States v. Gnirke,
775 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir. 2015) (“[C]onditions of supervised release are read
to require an element of mens rea.”) (citation omitted); Harassment, Black’s Law
Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). The government also failed to prove that Chaker’s
blog post satisfied the elements of defamation, including falsity and actual malice.
See N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 279–80 (1964); Defamation, Black’s
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Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). We therefore conclude that Chaker did not
violate the special condition of supervised release.
Because we reverse the revocation of Chaker’s supervised release on these
grounds, we need not reach his constitutional arguments. Similarly, because we
vacate Chaker’s sentence for the reversed revocation, see United States v.
Moreland, 622 F.3d 1147, 1173 (9th Cir. 2010), we need not address Chaker’s
challenges to the newly imposed conditions of supervised release, which were only
imposed as a result of that reversed revocation.
REVERSED; VACATED.
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