A Delco man trolled a Philly Mag writer on Facebook. Now, a judge has ordered him to pay $160,000.

A Philadelphia judge ordered a Delaware County man to pay Philadelphia Magazine senior reporter Victor Fiorillo $160,000 over a series of Facebook comments falsely labeling the journalist a pedophile.

In an order issued Tuesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Vincent Johnson awarded Fiorillo $35,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages. The ruling follows a hearing at which the defendant, Ryan Nelson, did not show up.

“It feels great,” Fiorillo said. “Part of what I said at the beginning is that I would like to support some LGBTQ causes that the defendant very much would dislike his money going to, and I intend to pursue the matter.”

The libelous comments by Nelson were aimed at Fiorillo not for his journalism, but for his off-the-clock performances as a keyboard player for a band led by drag queen Martha Graham Cracker.

Nelson never responded to the lawsuit, which was filed in April, and no attorney is listed for him on the court docket. James Beasley, the journalist’s lawyer, did receive a threatening email in June from a person identifying as “RN” that included an expletive aimed at Fiorillo in the subject line.

“Tell him to unblock me and stop hiding behind facebook,” said the message, which was presented to the judge. “If not i guess i can go to his house and ask him.”

That email is no longer active, and The Inquirer was unable to reach Nelson through publicly available contact information.

» READ MORE: Philly Mag’s Victor Fiorillo filed a libel lawsuit after Facebook comments over drag performances

The focus of the complaint was a series of comments Nelson made in response to a January post by Fiorillo in the Citizens of Delco public Facebook group, in which the reporter shared his article about a racial discrimination lawsuit against a country club restaurant.

“The only person to agree with you likes seeing dudes in dresses dance with kids,” Nelson wrote.

Fiorillo asked if the suggestion was that he was a pedophile because he performs with a drag queen.

“Yes victoria, corruption of a minor. Same as pedophile,” Nelson wrote, adding, “or do you prefer groomer.”

In another comment, Nelson said he’d “bet” that if a drag queen molested children, Victor would “prob write how the kids are homophobic.”

The lawsuit said others on the Facebook group had read Nelson’s comments, and provided an example of another person repeating them.

“There is nothing in the First Amendment that says you can call me a pedophile and a child molester,” Fiorillo previously told The Inquirer.

Fiorillo was the only witness at the Oct. 8 hearing. Johnson interrupted the lawyer’s line of questioning to ask questions of his own, the reporter said. The judge asked over and over how many times Nelson made the comments.

The Philly Mag writer recalled thinking from the stand that the hearing was not going in his favor, but felt a great sense of moral victory when the judge issued his decision.

He said he hopes the ruling sends a message to all the “keyboard warriors out there, in their mother’s basement.”

“That’s a very big part of why I went down this road to begin with. Part of defending free speech is standing against things that aren’t covered by that.”