Intellectual Property Law

Teen Ashton Lundeby Charged as an Adult for Bomb Threats

By Kevin Poulsen

A 16-year-old North Carolina boy arrested for allegedly making a bomb threat against Purdue University has been charged as an adult for that threat, and for threats against eight other schools and two FBI offices, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Ashton Lundeby allegedly staged bomb hoaxes from mid-2008 until his arrest last March. He’s charged with conspiring to make threats against Purdue, the University of North Carolina, Florida State University, Clemson University, Boston College and FBI offices in Colorado and Louisiana.

The indictment also accuses him of making a series of five more calls to high schools around the country on March 4, two days before his arrest.

Lundeby’s mother, Annette Lundeby, admitted in an interview with Threat Level in May that her son was ?Tyrone? ? a notorious prank phone caller who performed for a live internet audience in exchange for PayPal donations. But she claimed that he was with her in church at the time of the Purdue hoax.

An former fan of “Tyrone” who helped police track him down told Threat Level that the prank caller had begun accepting donations in exchange for shutting down donors’ schools for a day with fake bomb threats — a charge reflected in the indictment.

According to prosecutors in South Bend, Indiana, where the case was filed, a federal judge granted a government motion to try the teenager as an adult — an unusual request from the feds that cleared the way for his indictment and the public release of his name. Lundeby is in custody.

Ashton Lundeby’s arrest stoked widespread outrage on the web after Raleigh, North Carolina?s WRAL-5 reported on the case, noting that the boy is a patriotic homeschooled student with an American flag bedspread. Much of the online fury was triggered by Annette Lundeby?s incorrect claim ? uncritically reported by the station ? that the boy was being held without any legal rights on the authority of the 2001 USA Patriot Act.

See Also:

• Mom Loses Bid for Purdue Bomb Hoax Suspect’s Freedom
• Teenage Bomb Threat Suspect Was Internet Prank-Call Star
• Bloggers, TV, Go Nuts Over Misleading ‘Patriot Act’ Arrest Claim

Full post as published by Threat Level on July 08, 2009 (boomark / email).