NPR: Charges Dropped Against 'Hunger Force' Defendants

Charges Dropped Against 'Hunger Force' Defendants

Remember Boston's great "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" scare of winter '07? I was living in Boston at the time. I remember the traffic jams that resulted.

Well, today all charges were dropped against the two men who planted the light panels (first thought to be bombs) that were intended to promote the Cartoon Network show. When Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens first appeared in court, they treated the entire process as a joke, which outraged almost everyone in town. They quickly changed their ways, and at their subsequent court appearances they were models of decorum. But before charges were dropped, the men did several dozen hours of community service and issued apologies for their actions.

There was a lot of fallout from the stunt. Turner Broadcasting agreed to pay Boston $2 million to cover the cost of responding to what it thought was a terrorist situation, and the head of Cartoon Network resigned over the controversy. Not such a funny stunt after all.

4:57 PM ET | 05-11-2007 | permalink

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