Oxford teen charged in bomb threats wants to be released

HAMMOND, Ind. — An Oxford teenager who was charged after authorities said he used the Internet to make fake bomb threats to schools nationwide is trying to get released from a detention center in Indiana.

According to a motion filed by the teen's attorneys on Tuesday, Ashton Lundeby, 16, is requesting to be released from the St. Joseph County's Juvenile Justice Center while awaiting trial so he can get proper dental care. The motion stated he has two root canals, which have not yet been capped.

Lundeby's mother said she did not want any teeth extracted, which is what the center offered to have done, until her son can be tested for von Willebrand disease. The genetically-based bleeding disorder is linked to blood clotting, according to the motion.

The motion also requests that Lundeby attend public school so he can work toward his high school diploma.

FBI agents and local law enforcement arrested Lundeby at his home on March 5, and he has been detained in the facility since then.

Investigators said Lundeby and unnamed co-conspirators allowed Web gamers to pay fees to listen to and observe police responses to bomb threats at Purdue University and other schools, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Clemson University and Florida State University.

Lundeby, who went by the name Tyrone, and the other conspirators would place calls to locations covered by webcams and then broadcast the video live to as many as 300 subscribers, according to investigators.

His mother, Annette Lundeby, maintains that he was at church the night of Feb. 15 when several threats were called into Purdue University.

She has acknowledged that her son made prank phone calls on the Internet and charged a fee but that her son never did anything illegal, to her knowledge. She has said she believes he was framed after he refused to call in a bomb threat to a high school in Australia.