Teen To Be Tried As An Adult For Bomb Threats
July 12, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Federal prosecutors say a teenager from Oxford is a celebrity in an online prankster world in which conspirators, for nominal fees, make bomb threats to high schools, universities, federal offices and other places and then broadcast the results live to a select audience.
In indictments issued this week by a federal grand jury in Indiana, prosecutors accuse Ashton Lundeby, 16, of making or helping make bomb threats in at least a dozen states from his home computer since last year. In some cases, prosecutors say, Lundeby and unnamed co-conspirators would collect fees to lodge bomb threats at high schools and middle schools with the goal of closing school for the day.
Federal prosecutors call it “Swatting,” the act of making a false emergency report that frequently prompts responses from special weapons and tactics, or SWAT, teams. They say Lundeby and the co-conspirators used pseudonyms and elaborate computer gaming techniques to disguise their voices and identities, then transmit threats and watch live through video surveillance and webcams as law enforcement teams responded.
via Teen to be tried in bomb threats – Local & State – News & Observer.
