New Jersey- The owners of a popular college gossip website under investigation by the state say New Jersey’s attorney general is interfering with the free speech rights of its users, according to a statement posted on the site.

In a four-paragraph statement, titled “Juicy Jersey,” JuicyCampus.com said the site has not broken any laws and cannot be held legally liable for the gossip posted by its users.

“We consider the attorneys general’s conduct to constitute a heavy-handed attempt to ignore the clear direction established by Congress and the courts and interfere with the free-speech rights of our users,” JuicyCampus said in an unsigned statement posted Wednesday.

The statement was the site’s first response to New Jersey Attor ney General Anne Milgram’s [picture] announcement last week that the state was investigating JuicyCam pus for allegedly violating consumer fraud laws. Milgram subpoe naed the website’s records and ad vertisers, saying it broke the state’s consumer fraud rules by failing to live up to policies posted on the site that promise to remove offensive content.

The site, which has a large following at Princeton University, has attracted a growing audience on campuses across the country by allowing users to anonymously pose and answer questions like “Who’s the sluttiest girl on campus?” and “Who do you have a gay crush on?”

Three days after New Jersey announced its investigation, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he also had launched a probe into JuicyCampus and its Nevada-based owner, Lime Blue LLC. Blumental said he heard complaints from students and administrators at Yale University and other colleges who said JuicyCam pus provided no way for them to remove false statements posted on the site.

In its statement, JuicyCampus called the New Jersey and Connecticut investigations “absurd” and said federal law protects websites from being responsible for false information posted by their users.

“We hope people will contact the attorneys general of New Jersey and Connecticut to protest this waste of government resources,” the JuicyCampus statement said.

New Jersey officials responded to JuicyCampus’ statement with a brief statement of their own:

“The only response from Juicy Campus that we’re interested in seeing is their response to our subpoena,” said Jeff Lamm, a spokesman for the attorney general.