Over Exposure: Football Player Flashes Penis In Yearbook Photo — Prank Nets Him 70 Criminal Charges
Last August, 19-year-old football player Hunter Osborn was standing in the bleachers to get his photo taken with his teammates for the yearbook.
In an impulsive moment, Osborn was dared to expose himself. And he did, popping out his penis to poke above the waist of his pants.
Now, the teen is facing dozens of criminal charges because of the prank.
The photo of the Red Mountain High School football team, complete with the young man’s private parts, was published — as is — in the school yearbook and in the team program, AZ Central reported.
The yearbook was printed, prank photo inside, and distributed before school officials knew anything was amiss. According to the Washington Post, 3,000 copies were printed and 250 students got a copy. Meanwhile, the team program was sold at football games.
Mesa Red Mountain football player's yearbook photo leads to arrest https://t.co/O2ikZhyCsX pic.twitter.com/pL7HNq2aYE
— azcentral (@azcentral) May 3, 2016
High school student hit with dozens of criminal charges for yearbook pic prank https://t.co/NJNzWR7Zi4 pic.twitter.com/w9IwxHrqyd
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 3, 2016
It’s not clear who first spotted Osborn’s peeking penis — the prank photo is very small and its details hard to pick out. But someone did, months after the dare, and now this young man may be in deep trouble.
To Hunter’s credit, he’s admitted to the prank and that he feels “disgusted” by what he did that day, ABC15 added.
At the time the yearbook photo was taken, he was 18. Standing beside him in the photo and off camera are 69 others, both teammates and staff.
And the young man now faces a charge of indecent exposure to account for every single person present at the time of the prank. That’s 69 charges of indecent exposure, a misdemeanor, plus a felony charge of furnishing harmful items to minors, according to Mesa Police Department spokesman Steve Berry.
He was arrested, spent some time in jail and has been released with an electronic ankle monitor. He’s due in court on May 20, Fox News added.
However, the number of charges in the case will likely fluctuate as an investigation into the yearbook prank begins.
His 69 victims are likely a mixture of minors and adults. The adults can ask for the misdemeanor charge filed on their behalf to be dropped. As for the minors, the parents could do the same, according to police.
As the county attorney reviews the case, charges could be changed, added, or dropped entirely.
Once the school’s administrators spotted Hunter’s penis in the yearbook, they called police and are considering disciplinary action as a result of an investigation they’re conducting into the incident.
Officials want to know what could’ve been done to prevent the prank photo from being published in the first place, so that safeguards can be established to prevent another genital exposure in the future.
Yearbook prank lands high school student felony charge https://t.co/c5KCo1EGEN pic.twitter.com/Flj4aOuFXQ
— WNCT (@wnct9) May 3, 2016
In the meantime, the yearbooks have been snatched from students’ hands and the school will be making a “minor but critical edit” to cleanse it of the “inappropriate content.” In a statement, they condemned Osborn’s actions.
“The district is dismayed by the actions of the students involved in the photograph. Their behavior does not reflect the values of Red Mountain High School or Mesa Public Schools.”
However, not everyone is convinced that Hunter should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. A petition has been posted to Change.org to demand the teacher who oversaw the yearbook’s publication be fired.
“(Osborn) didn’t put the picture in the yearbook, he didn’t create the page, he wasn’t the editor that approved it, or the teacher responsible for publishing it and distributing it to students,” the petition, which has 2,000 signatures, reads.
Another one has emerged called “Free Hunter Osborn,” which has about the same number of signatures and argues that the school should admit its failure in catching the prank.
An editorial in an Arizona newspaper argues that the criminal charges he now faces go too far, and that his “indecent” behavior should be “disciplined, not persecuted.”
“Public humiliation is instantaneous and profound these days. Osborn’s lewd little escapade made the TV news, social media, websites, newspapers, radio. And it will be online to follow him and embarrass him and make his life more difficult … forever.”
[Photo by David Lee/Shutterstock]
