The husband of a Canadian woman arrested after an alleged altercation with a Trump-supporting teenager on the Jersey Shore over Fourth of July weekend is downplaying the incident as a “nothingburger” and blaming “conservatives online” for her subsequent detention by ICE.
Kaitlyn Tracey, 33, was taken into custody by immigration authorities following the July 3 confrontation and is being held at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark. ICE has said Tracey overstayed her visa after entering the United States with her passport in 2024.
Her husband, Matthew Geroni, who has posted extreme anti-Trump remarks online including wishing cancer on the president’s family, says he and his wife have become the real victims after the alleged encounter with a 16-year-old girl wearing “patriotic-colored” MAGA sweatpants on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk.
“This whole situation has been blown out of proportion and a person like Kate does not belong in any facility,” Geroni, 42, told NJ.com, while acknowledging he was not present when the incident occurred.
“My wife has never been in trouble in her entire life. She’s never had any kind of situation like this. This one little situation that was really a nothingburger when it happened has been blown so out of control by conservatives online that it has caused my wife to be put in a detention center,” Geroni claimed.
Geroni has previously shared anti-Trump and anti-ICE TikTok posts, including one in which he said he “prays” for the president and his family to get cancer, mentioning even “little kids.”
Point Pleasant Beach police allege Tracey recorded herself approaching the teen, who was wearing “patriotic colored” sweatpants, before slapping the girl across the face and body and leaving the scene, according to an affidavit.
Geroni disputes that account, claiming his wife was the person who was shoved and hit. He also insists she was not recording the encounter and did not flee from police.
He claims he’s seen video that shows the incident is being taken “totally out of context,” and “shows her as the aggressor when she was not at all.”
“And now from that video and from people having connections and knowing people in Point Pleasant Beach, my wife was given charges,” he griped.
Tracey turned herself in after hearing charges had been filed on July 9.
She was held at Ocean County Jail until ICE moved her to Delaney Hall after lodging an immigration detainer.
