Divorce blog's rancor erupts in free-speech dispute

July 31, 2011|By Larry King, Inquirer Staff Writer

He launched the website in 2007, Anthony Morelli says, as a space for him to vent.

And its URL left no doubt about the subject:

ThePsychoExWife.com - a place of no names, only acronyms, but plenty of wicked description.

"Imagine, if you will, Jabba the Hut, with less personality," he blogged about his ex. "She spends her time . . . drinking her days away bemoaning her victim status, when she isn't stuffing the children with fast food, buying them toys, or pushing them towards the TV or computer."

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Flush with biting vignettes and e-mails from the Doylestown resident's epic custody fights with PEW - his shorthand for Psycho Ex-Wife - the site became an online hit among other disaffected inhabitants of Splitsville.

Divorced men, and often their new consorts, chimed in with domestic horror stories of their own.

Then PEW found out. And Allison Morelli wasn't happy.

The 42-year-old Hatboro woman, calling the site "heartbreaking" and potentially harmful to their cyber-savvy sons, ages 12 and 9, wants it permanently shuttered.

Now Anthony Morelli, 43, finds himself at odds with yet another woman - this one wearing a black robe - and girded for an appellate showdown over his First Amendment rights.

At a June 6 custody hearing, Bucks County Court Judge Diane Gibbons ordered him to "take down that website" and never again refer to his ex-wife "on any public media" or mention his children online "other than 'happy birthday' or other significant school events."

She might as well have ordered world peace.

Over the next two days, two new postings appeared on the site.

The first ripped Gibbons' order as "completely illogical," but agreed to comply.

The second, however, featured a lengthy narrative of the Morellis' last 14 months of drama. Though their nine-year marriage ended in divorce six years ago, fisticuffs over custody of their children - currently shared - has continued unabated.

The post called Allison Morelli "a f- psycho" and a "black-out drunk," and asked "what kind of f- judge gives the kids back to her?" It also pledged to keep the site, saying, "The judge has no say over what I write here."

Anthony Morelli attributes the postings to his girlfriend, an Internet marketer who, he said, owns the site.

No matter. On June 14, a miffed Gibbons hauled the Morellis back into court.

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