[Rebecca Sebo, Ohio University)(photo credit: Kaitlin Owens video]

You may recall our extensive coverage of the Ohio University incident in which the student Senate President Meghan Marzec conducted an anti-Israel “blood bucket challenge” hijacking the Ice Bucket Challenge designed to raise funds for ALS research.

Pro-Israel students then demonstrated during a student Senate meeting and were arrested at the behest of Marzec.In fact, one student, Becky Sebo, was arrested while reading a Legal Insurrection blog post out loud!

It is clear having listened to the audio that the pro-Israel student was reading statements of university presidents from this Legal Insurrection post, University statements rejecting academic boycott of Israel, specifically the entries regarding statements issued by Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, Hamilton College and U. Connecticut, against the academic boycott of Israel

Four students were arrested and charged with disrupting a public meeting, and those charges were pursued by prosecutors for months.

(Original video link here)

I just received word from Sebo that all charges have been dropped. Here is her email to me:

Due to lack of a speedy trial, the case was dismissed this morning from the Athens Municipal Court. We were supposed to attend a new pre-trial and trial this coming monday and tuesday.

We are clearly thrilled that the case has been dismissed. I personally am excited to be able to focus on the rest of my senior year without anxiety. The amount of support we have received since September has been incredibly helpful and reassuring.

The Cleveland Jewish News further reports:

Kenneth Bossin, the attorney representing Sebo, said he was “thrilled to death” that the charges had been dismissed, and that he doesn’t believe Sebo committed an illegal act. Bossin blamed the university and the OU police department as the reason why the case took six months to be resolved.

“This whole case was driven by the university and the university police department,” Bossin said. “I think they were wrong in pursuing it the way they did and in the way they handled the whole case. It was driven by their desires, not by the City of Athens or the prosecutor’s office.

“I think they handled it poorly. If the university had let the prosecutor’s office and defense lawyers handle the case I think it would’ve been handled a long time ago.”

Congratulations Becky and the others, for standing up for what is right and not being intimidated.