NEW YORK -- With a smirk splashed across his face and handcuffs around his wrists, New York disc jockey Troi Torain -- arrested for his X-rated on-air remarks about a competitor's 4-year-old daughter -- proclaimed himself "the new Lenny Bruce."

Images: DJ Fired Over X-Rated Racial Slurs

Torain, 42, was released on bail late Friday night. "You're looking at the new Lenny Bruce," Torain said defiantly as police led him out of the First Precinct in lower Manhattan following his arrest earlier Friday.

He is scheduled to appear in court again on May 30, when he will likely have to answer charges, court officials told NewsChannel 4.

Torain was arraigned before a Manhattan judge sometime after 11 p.m. on Friday and posted a $2,000 bail within an hour, police and prosecutors said. He had been arrested Friday morning and spent the day in jail awaiting the court appearance.

Torain, known on the air as DJ Star, faces charges of endangering the welfare of a child for a broadcast on Power 105.1 FM, during which he hurled racist insults, threatened to sexually abuse the 4-year-old girl, and offered a $500 bounty for information about where she went to school.

Torain hosted the "Star & Buc Wild Morning Show" on WWPR-FM, one of the city's top hip-hop stations. His on-air rants, which began May 3, were directed at a DJ on the rival hip-hop station WQHT-FM.

Torain called DJ Envy's wife a "slant-eyed whore," and his daughter a "little half a lo mein eater," according to a transcript of his show. Both mother and daughter are partly of Asian ethnicity.

Torain and his brother Timothy Joseph, known on the air as Buc Wild, were the hosts of Clear Channel Radio's syndicated morning drive show on Power 105. The company fired Torain on Wednesday after city officials complained. Two days later, he was arrested.

Benjamin Brafman, Torain’s lawyer, said his client's conduct was inappropriate but not criminal, and was "never intended to frighten the family." He said the case raised First Amendment issues.

But any comparisons between Bruce, the envelope-pushing comedian, and Torain don't quite cut it, according to a prominent First Amendment attorney.

"If he has a First Amendment issue at all, it's extremely weak," lawyer Floyd Abrams said Saturday. "The First Amendment doesn't protect true threats. If the argument is that it wasn't a threat ... that's a defense in front of a jury.

"But it's not a First Amendment issue," Abrams said.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who brought a charge of endangering the welfare of a child against Torain, said the same thing Friday after the DJ's arrest.

"We are strong supporters of the First Amendment, but we are also supporters of protecting children," the veteran prosecutor said.

Ron Kuby, a defense attorney and a radio show host, said he believed Torain's "vile and despicable" comments qualified as free speech. "None of his statements arguably endangered the welfare of a minor," Kuby said. "He's therefore entitled to protection."

Comedian Bruce was convicted of obscenity charges after a November 1964 performance in Greenwich Village where he used more than 100 "obscene" words. Four decades later, he's generally viewed as a groundbreaking performer who reinvented stand-up comedy.

Abrams was among a group of First Amendment attorneys who successfully lobbied to win Bruce a posthumous pardon. Both he and Kuby fail to see the parallels between Bruce's comedy and Torain's radio rampage.

"Lenny Bruce challenged and parodied powerful people and powerful institutions," Kuby said. "He never threatened to urinate on a 4-year-old child."