Two men who planted electronic light boards around the city of Boston to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon, resulting in city officials overreacting and shutting down the city, have resolved the criminal charges against them.
Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, issued a public apology and performed a total of 140 hours of community service between them in exchange for having charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct set aside.
The apology, however, was very carefully worded:
“I deeply regret that this incident caused such anguish and disruption to so many people,” Berdovsky said in court Monday.
“I had no intention of upsetting or alarming anyone.”
Not that prosecutors had much of a case.
In exchange for the community service and public apology, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the criminal case. Berdovsky performed 80 hours of service and Stevens completed 60 hours at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center in Boston.
Attorney General Martha Coakley said it would have been difficult to prove to a jury that the men intended to create panic, and that she did not believe they realized the problems the ads would cause.
“We believe this was an appropriate and fair resolution,” Coakley said. — Associated Press
The city of Boston also got $2 million out of Turner Broadcasting after having needlessly spent $750,000 on police response removing the light boards from locations around the city January 31, even after learning they were not a threat. And they managed to overreact to a state-owned traffic control device as well last February.
(Hat tip: Table of Malcontents)
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license.
Video published by this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Sampling+ license.
Bad Behavior has blocked 3291 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Facebook
Digg
del.icio.us
reddit.com
Newsvine
Ryan
May 15, 2007
I don’t think Boston should have gotten one dime out of them. It’s not a broadcasting company’s fault that the city of Boston overreacts to everything.
Jeff Hoyt
May 15, 2007
Much ado about nothing, perhaps, but these two fellows have performed a very valuable service for the United States government. They have shown beyond reasonable doubt that there is at least one major city that is ready to believe that the Martians have landed as soon as The Mercury Theatre on the Air tells them they have.
Chris
May 15, 2007
lol, for real. Here’s a video of Berdvosky, AKA Zebbler, talking to local station Boston.tv
Chris
May 15, 2007
Q
May 16, 2007
boston should be apologizing to them for being so fucking ignorant and judgmental.
geri
May 17, 2007
Appropriate and fair my ass. Those two were scape goats. What kind of world are we living in when you can screw up and, instead of taking responsibility for it, you not only get paid for it but someone else pulls the consequences? There goes all the lectures to my kids right down the drain. Sure, guys, go ahead and do what you want. If you mess up there’s always someone else to take the heat.
Q
May 20, 2007
that shit is ridiculous. the very next week there was another scare cause some dipshit didn’t know what a traffic counter was, is he apologizing for being a moron? what about the “counter terrorism experts” who responded to save the day from the scary evil traffic counters and were also clueless? are they apologizing for for being idiots? is the Boston DOT or whoever owned those traffic counters apologizing, or in any kind of trouble?
today they were laying some traffic counters out in my area, and i noticed something. they were all shiny clean, I’ve never seen that i’m used to them being all rusty and dirty looking, and they all say traffic counter in huge letters with a dot phone number interesting, you know what I do, I let my dog pee on them. I’m in NYC btw.
this country is full of people who should not be allowed out without supervision, seriously. these people should not be allowed to reproduce or in any way influence children.
Aura Firestar
May 23, 2007
Wow. These guys are idiots. Can you believe that your safety is in the hands of people that mistake lite-brites for explosive devices? Don’t you feel safe when people spend $750,000 to defuse a poster? The really sad part is that someone can get paid for their own stupidity and ignorance. This is the type of ignorance that causes incidences like 9/11.
Gamer
May 23, 2007
WOW Nice work fuck tards.