This is Evan Emory. This past Monday, he posted a video on YouTube that showed (through some simple editing) him singing a sexually explicit song to a classroom full of elementary school students. He didn’t actually sing anything offensive in front of the kids. But he’s still facing 20 years in prison, on a felony charge of manufacturing child sexual abusive material.
The video has, obviously, been pulled from YouTube, but Emory reportedly included two disclaimers with the footage making clear that no children were present as he crooned his off-colour tune (some of the lyrics to which are awkwardly spoken-worded in this HLN report).
So is it a good idea to fake a video of you singing things like that in front of major minors? Of course not! But the idea that this video constitutes abusive material – that, again, the kids weren’t even in the room for – seems pretty patently absurd, doesn’t it? Even beyond any specific legalese in the case, I’d assume that the guy’s got the First Amendment in his favour.
In the meantime, Emory’s awaiting his day in court, hopefully thinking up a way to make his plea entry go viral. [HyperVocal]