PEORIA — A Twitter exchange late Monday night between a real estate agent based in Peoria and the actor and comedian Patton Oswalt led to the agent losing his job when he resorted to mocking Oswalt’s deceased wife.

Oswalt, who has an extremely active Twitter account of almost 30,000 tweets, posted a comedic message praising Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who was fired earlier this week by President Donald Trump. The agent, Tony Brust, responded by tweeting, “Oh (expletive), the little troll has an opinion again” — a sentiment that has been frequently tweeted at Oswalt from people who oppose his views.

In this particular instance, though, the rhetoric escalated quickly. Another Twitter user posted a message saying, “Everyone stop having opinions! You're upsetting Tony Brust!” This prompted a tweet from Brust toward Oswalt that said, "I’m a psychic and I’m channeling his wife’s opinions.” The tweet remained posted for most of Monday night but was deleted Tuesday morning.

Oswalt’s wife, the true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died in her sleep in April 2016. Her passing left Oswalt a single father to their 7-year-old daughter, a devastating experience that he revealed more about to The New York Times in November.

Brust was let go from his position with Jim Maloof Realtor immediately Tuesday morning, confirmed owner Mike Maloof. The real estate agency was bombarded by complaints on its Facebook page and other platforms overnight.

“We have a culture and expectation of how people are to act at Jim Maloof Realtor,” Maloof said. “We are people-loving. We are family-oriented. We don’t offend people. If you do, you need to go.”

Brust was an agent with the agency for about five years, according to Maloof, who added, “I’m sorry it happened.”

All of Brust’s social media and work pages have since been deleted. Jim Maloof Realtor released a statement on its website about the incident: “The management, brokers and staff of Jim Maloof Realtor regret the words of one of our former agents which were posted on social media. We apologize for the resulting angst his words have caused. His words and views are not those shared by the company.”

Brust could not be reached for comment. Maloof said the properties that Brust brokered were distributed to other agents in the company.

After Brust’s offending tweet, Oswalt spent much of Monday night mocking Brust’s real estate listings. When it was apparent that Brust’s social media pages had disappeared the following day, Oswalt tweeted "And it seems to me / You lived your life / like a realtor in Peoria."

Oswalt later explained that he would have happily ignored Brust if it weren’t for the tweet about his wife, “(b)ut he did and it caught me at a dark moment,” Oswalt wrote on Twitter.

Thomas Bruch can be reached at 686-3262 and tbruch@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThomasBruch.