Man cleared of charges in ransom plot to turn Confederate chair into a toilet

Jason Warnick says ‘police do not always get the right man’ after Alabama prosecutors abandon case against him

A man charged with stealing a Confederate monument during a bizarre ransom scheme that threatened to turn the relic into a toilet said he had shown how “police do not always get the right man” after authorities recently abandoned the national headline-making prosecution against him.

“If anyone out there has had their position changed on that based on my ordeal, then I suppose at least something positive came from it,” Jason Warnick, a New Orleans tattoo shop owner, said in a statement to the Guardian after Alabama prosecutors recently dismissed a theft case they had filed against him.