UPDATE, June 5, 2008: Brahm sentenced
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UPDATE, February 28, 2008: Brahm Pleads Guilty
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It's time for quiet, artsy, friendly Jake J. Brahm to get his fifteen minutes of fame.
I bet he didn't see that coming.
From the Associated Press:
Federal authorities said today they have charged a 20-year-old Wauwatosa grocery store clerk with making a hoax threat that said seven football stadiums across the nation would be targeted by terrorists with radiological "dirty bombs" this weekend.
Jake J. Brahm surrendered to the U.S. Marshal's Service in Milwaukee on Friday morning. He was charged in a sealed criminal complaint filed Thursday in Newark, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said.
...Brahm was scheduled to make a court appearance later Friday in Milwaukee.
He was first taken into custody by police in Wauwatosa on Wednesday, based on information authorities received that Brahm was the source of the Internet threat to bomb football stadiums, federal authorities said.
FBI agents interviewed him that night, and the FBI said Thursday it had determined the threats were a hoax.
...An FBI official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation, told The Associated Press that the man acknowledged posting the phony stadium threat as part of a "writing duel" with a man from the Brownsville, Texas, area to see who could post the scariest threat.
The Texas man corroborated the story, the official said.
How stupid do you have to be to engage in a "writing duel" to post the most frightening threat on the Internet?
Brahm is very, very stupid.
When are people going to realize that what they post on the Internet is actually accessible to others?
When are they going to learn that deleting something doesn't make it go away?
There is a cyber-trail that can be traced.
I think Brahm deserves more than a slap on the wrist.
What did his juvenile Internet game cost taxpayers?
Would Brahm run down the aisles of the grocery store that employs him and yell, "Fire"?
He'd be on the fast track to be out of a job.
The Internet does not provide the anonymity that some (many) people think.
"javness" is just as real and just as responsible for his actions as Jake Brahm.
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Here is more about "normal guy" Brahm.
The suburban Milwaukee man accused of posting a phony Internet threat to blow up N-F-L stadiums is described as artsy and quiet.
Twenty-year-old Jake Brahm is a clerk at Outpost Natural Foods, a co-op around the corner from his house in Wauwatosa.
A store manager Jeremy Layman says he seems to be a "normal guy" who made it to work on time and wasn't a concern.
Mallory McKenney graduated the year before Brahm at Wauwatosa East High School. McKenney says Brahm was artsy, quiet and friendly.
Federal prosecutors say Brahm posted his threat about 40 times on various Web sites.
Sorry.
"Normal guys" don't post dirty bomb threats 40 TIMES.
40 TIMES!
That's more than a harmless little Internet game.
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UPDATE:
Bad news for Brahm.
A Wisconsin man arrested last fall in connection with prank Internet warnings of terrorist attacks against NFL stadiums has been indicted in Newark, N.J., on a federal charge of conveying the false information.
Jake J. Brahm of Wauwatosa, was charged Wednesday on accusations he posted threats to detonate “dirty bombs” at seven stadiums that had games on Oct. 22.
Authorities said his actions wasted homeland security efforts and likened them to the “Internet version of yelling fire in a crowded theater.”
However, Brahm’s lawyer, Walter A. Lesnevich, said the incident was “greatly blown out of proportion.”
“This was a stupid mistake by a kid that nobody took seriously,” Lesnevich said. The 22-year-old Brahm will plead not guilty, the lawyer said.
Wrong.
It was a "stupid mistake" by a MAN that lots of people took seriously.
