Teen Pleads No Contest in Bomb Plot

Jared Cano, 18, the teen arrested last year for plotting to blow up Freedom High School, has pleaded no contest to the charges against him.

ABC Action News reports that Cano entered the plea Tuesday in front of Judge Kimberly Fernandez and has reserved his right to appeal the judge’s ruling when it is made in December.

Cano is also facing drug charges that were levied when authorities found marijuana at his New Tampa home. He has waived his right to appeal the judge’s decision on those matters, according to ABC Action News.

Although Cano is facing seven years for the drug charges and 15 years each for the pair of bomb-related charges, according to ABC Action News, Cano's defense attorney believes his client will be found to have served enough time already because the plot, the defense says, was nothing but a fantasy.

A then-17-year-old Cano was arrested last August after authorities received a tip from an unnamed student about Cano’s intentions to wreak havoc on the first day of the 2011-2012 school year at Freedom — the same school that had expelled him.