Actually, the characters were probably converted into valid utf8 when you pasted them into the JSLint web form.

From: Roberto Spadim <roberto@spadim.com.br>
Date: Saturday, January 31, 2015 at 3:56 PM
To: Tom Worster <fsb@thefsb.org>
Cc: Peter Laursen <peter_laursen@webyog.com>, maria-discuss email list <maria-discuss@lists.launchpad.net>
Subject: Re: [Maria-discuss] JSON and binary strings

from jslint: http://www.jslint.com/
return: JSON: good.