What's wrong with this picture?
It was reported just yesterday that Turner Broadcasting Systems and Interference Inc. would pay $2 million in fines for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing campaign that resulted in the city of Boston thinking there was a bomb scare and reacting in kind.
By paying the $2M in fines:
The agreement with several state and local agencies resolves any potential civil or criminal claims against the companies, said Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Yet tonight, a new article has surfaced with a new detail that seems to indicate that at least one of the two men who put what were effectively Lite-Brites in various locations around the city of Boston are not completely out of the woods yet, it seems.
One of the men criminally charged after placing blinking cartoon advertisements around the city videotaped a police bomb squad removing one of the electronic devices, but did not tell the officers the object was harmless.
According to their lawyer, Walter Prince, Peter Berdovsky was caught on surveillance cameras videotaping the police while they were removing one of the Lite-Brites because
Berdovsky had received a call that morning from a friend who told him there was a bomb threat at the Sullivan Square transit station in Boston...Berdovsky grabbed his camera and headed out to the scene, unaware it involved one of the electronic devices that he and Sean Stevens, 28, had hung as part of a guerrilla advertising campaign for Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc.
Walter Prince also extended on this new information by informing that:
"When he got there, he realized what was going on, and he went back to his apartment and called his employer, and they told him they would take care of it. That's not an inappropriate response."
So to recap, for up to three weeks, these devices sat in various locations throughout various cities around the country until Boston freaks out over them. This gets huge media attention, the mayor starts making outrageous statements about pulling FCC licenses and such, these two guys hold a hilarious press conference that does a pretty good job of demonstrating how much of a non-story this really was, Turner Broadcasting Systems and Interference Inc. agrees to pay $2 million to compensate the city of Boston, which 'resolves any potential civil or criminal claims against the companies,' which initially appeared to end this silly little story and yet the two men actually involved are still not out of the woods yet:
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is prosecuting Berdovsky and Stevens on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct, declined to comment on the incident, citing the ongoing criminal case.
Berdovsky and Stevens have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their next court date is March 7.
Again I ask - what the fuck is wrong with this picture?