North Carolina Teenager Faces Bomb Threat Charges

A federal judge says a teen can be charged as an adult after authorities say he used the Internet to make fake bomb threats to schools nationwide, including Indiana.

A three-count indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges 16-year-old Ashton Lundeby of Oxford, N.C., and unnamed coconspirators allowed Web gamers to pay $5 to listen to and observe police response to bomb threats schools, including two in the Carolinas – the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Clemson University.

The indictment said Lundeby and his group picked locations where schools already had fixed webcams.

But prosecutors said the group also made money by offering to call in a bomb threat to any school or business for a fee. They said the group even mad a bomb threat to the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters.

Lundeby was arrested March 6 at his home and has been detained in St. Joseph County's Juvenile Justice Center. The case had been sealed because Lundeby is a juvenile.

Lundeby will be arraigned Friday. A message seeking information about whether he had a lawyer was left after hours Wednesday with the Justice Center.

No other arrests have been made.