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NC Teen Accused of Making School Bomb Threats for Cash

by Terrence O'Brien on May 8, 2009 at 04:14 PM


A 16-year-old North Carolina boy, known by his Internet handle "Tyrone," made the rounds of Digg, Drudge, and the rest of the blogosphere after he was arrested for calling in a series of bomb threats to schools. A fury erupted over allegations that Tyrone was being held without charges under the Patriot Act, which of course turned out to be completely false.


"Tyrone" has been charged, and if the allegations are true he may be looking at some hefty fines and potential jail time. "Tyrone," the name he used on 4chan where he posted prank phone calls he made, supposedly began collecting donations from fans of his prank calls. Then, in order to earn even more cash, he began to accept donations from students at various schools and colleges around the world, in exchange for calling in bomb threats and forcing closures.

Annette Lundeby, Tyrone's mother, told Wired that she knew her son was making prank phone calls, but claims he could not have called in bomb threats, citing a February 15 phone call to Purdue University that ended up getting that school's entire mechanical engineering building evacuated. Lundby says that at the time of the call, she and her son were driving home together from church. A former fan of Tyrone's, however, recorded several of the boy's called-in bomb threats -- which he also made live online -- and passed them on to investigators, who raided the Lundeby home and confiscated Tyrone's computer.

Well, we hope Tyrone stashed away some of those $5 donations for a good lawyer, because it looks as though the evidence (recorded phone calls to five different schools) is stacked decidedly against him. [From: Wired and WRAL]

Tags: 4chan, bomb threat, BombThreat, court, crime, prank call, PrankCall, pranks, students, teens, top

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