The jury of the Loudoun County Circuit Court found delivery driver Alan Colie not guilty in the shooting of YouTube prankster Tanner Cook at a mall food court in Virginia earlier this year.
The court heard that Colie, 31, was doing his daily business when he shot Cook, 21, for following him. Cook is the showrunner and creator behind the YouTube channel "Classified Goons."
The jury found Colie not guilty of aggravated malicious wounding and the use of a firearm in an aggravated malicious wounding. However, he was found guilty of unlawful discharging a firearm within an occupied dwelling,
As for Cook, he insisted he would still continue making prank videos, from which he earned $2,000 to $3,000 per month. This is despite the testimony of sheriff's deputies saying they were aware of Cook and had received calls about previous stunts.
Prank Gone Wrong
The shooting happened on April 2 at the Dulles Town Center, 45 minutes west of Washington. Colie pleaded not guilty as he was acting in self-defense, a matter the jury had earlier divided on.
Colie's defense attorney, Adam Pouilliard, said the conviction on the firearms charge is inconsistent with the law, given his acquittal on self-defense grounds. Pouilliard asked the judge to set aside the conviction. A judge would hear arguments on the issue at a hearing next month while Colie remains in custody, the Associated Press reported.
"[Cook] is trying to confuse people to post videos," Pouilliard said of the prankster's intimidation tactics in his videos. "He's not worried that he's scaring people. He keeps doing this."
However, prosecutor Eden Holmes said the facts do not support a self-defense argument as the law required Colie to reasonably fear he was in imminent danger of bodily harm, and that he could have used no more force than is necessary.
"They were playing a silly phrase on a phone," she added. "How could the defendant have found that he was reasonably in fear of imminent bodily harm?"
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