NY man arrested for YouTube baby food threat

REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service

Jul 31, 2008 15:14 EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man who claimed in YouTube videos that he had directed others to poison millions of containers of Gerber baby food with the intent to kill babies was arrested Thursday, federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Gerber had not found any evidence that its product had been tampered with, and the man was charged with making threats and falsely claiming to have tampered with a consumer product.

Anton Dunn, 42, who called himself "Trashman," was behind a series of videos posted on YouTube and other sites. The videos claimed that Gerber employees acting at his direction had poisoned millions of bottles of baby food, said prosecutors at Manhattan federal court.

In several videos, Dunn -- wearing a black mask -- said the baby food has been poisoned with cyanide, prosecutors said.

A representative of Gerber, which is owned by Nestle SA , was not immediately available to comment on Dunn's arrest.

The videos, posted between April and July, also claimed that the affected food had been shipped to consumers and it was "too late" to do anything about it, prosecutors said.

On July 24, similar videos appeared on the websites Worldstarhiphop.com and Mediatakeout.com.

Dunn, a Manhattan resident, faces charges of sending threats and falsely claiming to have tampered with a consumer product. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Some of the videos can still be viewed online. (Reporting by Edith Honan, editing by Vicki Allen)

Source: Reuters North American News Service