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YouTube Rapper Will Not Face Terroristic Threat Charges

A Boston teen and aspiring YouTube rapper will not be charged with making terroristic threats in the hours following the Boston Marathon bombings after a Grand Jury has rejected his indictment. 18-yea...
YouTube Rapper Will Not Face Terroristic Threat Charges
Written by Josh Wolford
  • A Boston teen and aspiring YouTube rapper will not be charged with making terroristic threats in the hours following the Boston Marathon bombings after a Grand Jury has rejected his indictment.

    18-year-old Cameron D’Ambrosio was arrested on May 1st after officials were notified of Facebook posts containing “with disturbing verbiage,” according to police.

    What did he post exactly?

    fuck a boston bombinb wait til u see the shit I do, I’ma be famous for rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me.

    “He’s telling people to shut up and in order to get some props he’ll have to go kill somebody. He says he’ll go insane and make the news,” said Police Chief Joseph Solomon at the time of the arrest. “And he said people shouldn’t cry when they see what he does because they have it coming.”

    D’Ambrosio has been held without bail for over a month. The charges leveled against him could have resulted in up to 20 years in prison.

    The case drew national attention, as many free speech activists argued that the arrest and subsequent incarceration amounted to a First Amendment violation.

    Noted First Amendment advocates Fight for the Future launched a petition to free D’Ambrosio. That petition received over 90,000 signatures.

    “The post contained no specific threat of violence against any person or group of people, and in the context of the rest of the lyrics and Cams’ rap persona, it was clearly nothing more than a metaphor and rap braggadocio – Cam wasn’t saying he would ‘outdo’ the Marathon bombing, as the media has frequently reported, he’s saying he’s going to be famous rapping, more famous than the marathon bombing. A la Biggie Smalls ‘blowing up like the World Trade.’ It may be a distasteful line, but it’s free speech and it’s protected by the Constitution,” said FFTF.

    “At an initial bail hearing, the prosecution was clearly grasping at straws and brought up incidents from Cam’s past – like the fact that he allegedly bit another student during a fight when he was 11 years old, and the fact that the police were called after a fight he had with his sister several years ago.”

    “There will be a bail hearing this afternoon, after which point he will probably be released, is my educated guess,” said Essex County DA spokesperson Carrie Kimball Monahan.

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