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Man Arrested For "Funny" Swearing Kid YouTube Video
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 26, 2010
Modified Aug 26, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 26, 2010
Modified Aug 26, 2010
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Everyone appreciates a good, cheap laugh at a viral video, whether it involves a newscaster and a chicken or a grape harvest. But once you involve children, things can get creepy pretty quickly. Which might explain why Josh Eastman of Bridgeport, CT. was charged with impairing the morals of a child.
Police say that Eastman, 24 (although...c'mon, no way), coached his 8-year-old neighbor to swear and make racial slurs for a YouTube video, titled "Swearing Kid." The video, according to police, shows the boy in his front yard holding a garden hose and using obscenities and racial slurs. In the background, a male voice can be heard encouraging the boy to make the comments. (some YouTube commenters seem to think this is the video in question, although it doesn't match up with the police description of it).
And according to the child's mother, Eastman paid him $1 to do it. "This has been upsetting for the whole family. It's terrible what he did. This isn't my son. He would never say anything like that, and now it's out there for everyone to see," said the mother, who asked that their names not be revealed. "My boyfriend's sister saw it on the computer and was totally shocked and told us about it," she said. "Here my son is saying, for everyone to see, these things that are disgusting...I just can't imagine why [Eastman] would do something like this." Eastman posted $2,500 bail, and when reached for comment, refuted that the video was disgusting: "It was fun things, funny."
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children
josh eastman
swear
viral
youtube
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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