Army Sergeant Charged with Threatening Judge in YouTube Rap
A Tennessee serviceman in a years-long battle over custody of his teen daughter took his frustrations to the Internet, posting a YouTube rap that brought charges of threatening a judge.
In his rap, U.S. Army Sgt. Franklin Delano Jeffries II mentions a judge but doesn’t give a name, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. The newspaper cites two statements that landed the Knoxville resident in trouble. “I guarantee you, if you don’t stop, I’ll kill you,” he rapped in the song posted in July. Then, when the rap was over, he said, “You don’t deserve to live and I hope I encourage other dads to go out there and put bombs in their [expletive] car. Blow ‘em up.”
Last week Jeffries was jailed pending trial on a charge of using the Internet to threaten the Knox County judge in his case. His lawyer, Ralph Harwell, told the newspaper that his client was merely exercising his right of free speech.
