Friday, October 31, 2008

US teenager jailed for 'grandmother gangster rap video'

By Tom Leonard

Marie Huertas as a 'gangster rapper' - US teenager jailed for 'grandmother gangster rap video'
Marie Huertas, 85, was shown wearing a black balaclava and uttering gangster rap style phrases

Michael Alfinez, 18, from Lake Worth, Florida, was jailed for 18 months after he admitted to abusing the elderly and various firearms charges.

He was arrested in April after police examined footage from his video camera during a routine traffic stop.

The footage showed Marie Huertas, 85, wearing a full black balaclava and, after repeated instructions, uttering a number of gangsta rap phrases that included expletives.

A sheriff's report said Alfinez had admitted dressing up his grandmother and persuading her to flash a gun and money at the camera.

Alfinez, who will serve his sentence in juvenile detention, also pleaded guilty to charges of firing out of a moving vehicle and into a building.

Alfinez is said to have told deputies he knew that there was something wrong with his grandmother's memory.

According to the report, when a detective showed Miss Huertas the video, she said: "They are making a criminal out of me." She said she was ashamed and didn't normally use that type of language.

Alfinez said he got the idea from a Gangstas & Thugs DVD - which show real footage rather younger hoodlums in action - and "knew (his) grandmother could be like that, too, or better".

His family has claimed that the incident was a misunderstanding.

Alfinez's mother told the Palm Beach Post: "This is my mother. This is his grandmother. Just today when he called me he said, 'Tell grandma I love her very much.' And she told me, 'Tell Mikey I love him, too.'"

Original here

No comments: