Public safety officials are not laughing and a 27-year-old immigrant from Belarus is going to end up in front of a judge for planting illuminated electronic devices throughout the Boston area that brought out bomb squads and raised fears of terrorist attacks.

The first of the devices were found early yesterday afternoon at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of the station and the highway. They turned out to be part of a nationwide publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon by Turner Broadcasting. Most of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

Peter Berdovsky of Arlington was arrested last night on one felony charge of placing a hoax device and one charge of disorderly conduct, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said. He had been hired to place the devices, she said.

Officials early this morning also announced the arrest of a second suspect, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown,

At least 14 of the devices were found, Coakley said. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said there are about 24 more devices around the city.

Berdovsky was arrested at 8:15 p.m. at his lawyer's office, Coakley said. Coakley said Berdovsky planted many of the devices, although he's just charged in connection with one device. He was scheduled to be arraigned today in Charlestown District Court.

The law under which Berdovsky was charged also allows the state to pursue restitution. Menino estimated the security scare may have cost the city more than $500,000.

According to his MySpace.com Web site, Berdovsky, also known as "Zebbler," is originally from Belarus, Russia. Though he won political asylum in the United States, he still has relatives living in Russia and Poland, including his mother, two brothers and a sister, according to information on his Web site.

Berdovsky, the lead singer of the local band Superfiction, graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art last year.

Within minutes of the announcement of his arrest, Berdovsky's friends began posting supportive messages on his Web site. "I stand beside you, Peter," one wrote, while another noted: "Yo, your name's all over the news, boy."

One more friend called the episode "paranoia in the United States at its finest."

The "hoax" forced the closing of roads and bridges and briefly suspended subway service on one line. Even a portion of the Charles River was off-limits to boaters for a short time during the day.

Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement.

Turner Broadcasting said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said. As soon as the company realized the problem, it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in all 10 cities.

Authorities are investigating whether Turner and any other companies should be criminally charged, Coakley said.

"We're not going to let this go without looking at the further roots of how this happened to cause the panic in this city," Coakley said at a news conference.

"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger," a Turner spokesman said. "We appreciate the gravity of this situation and, like any responsible company would, are putting all necessary resources toward understanding the facts surrounding it as quickly as possible."

Local police last night said they wouldn't have done things any differently, even knowing that the devices turned out to be benign. Andover police Lt. Kevin Winters noted that it's better to shut down the city or create traffic jams than to take the risk that people might get hurt.

"You have to err on the side of caution," he said. "People complain because they're being inconvenienced. But they're being inconvenienced for their own safety."

In Lawrence, police Chief John Romero emphasized that in a post-Sept. 11 world, people can no longer leave unusual objects lying around. If they do, he said, emergency crews will treat it like a threat to public safety, regardless of how innocuous it ends up being.

"It's a different world after 9/11," Romero said. "Whose idea was this? How could they not be sensitive to what goes on in the country? Somebody should have had the sense to say, 'Hey, this could alarm people."