5 students face charges over ‘To Catch a Predator’ stunt gone awry

globalnews.ca:

Five of six college students made their first appearance in court Thursday, facing charges after they allegedly lured a man to their Massachusetts college as part of a To Catch a Predator-style trend on social media.

The students, all adult teenagers attending Assumption University in Worcester, Mass., were arraigned on conspiracy and kidnapping charges. Automatic guilty pleas were entered for all defendants, who are listed as Kelsy Brainard, 18; Easton Randall, 19; Kevin Carroll, 18; Isabella Trudeau, 18, and Joaquin Smith, 18.

Brainard was also charged with intimidation, and Carroll was accused of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

A sixth defendant, a juvenile, is also facing charges but is expected to be arraigned separately.

A criminal complaint, filed in Worcester District Court in early December, says one of the students invited a man she met on the dating app Tinder to the campus, where he was ambushed by a larger group of students who accused him of being a sexual predator and filmed the confrontation as part of a “deliberately staged event.”

Two students assaulted the man as he tried to flee, the complaint says, with at least 25 people chasing him.

Police say there was no indication that the man was trying to meet anyone underage on the campus and that the woman who invited him to the campus, 18-year-old Brainard, had her real age listed on her dating profile.

The target — a 22-year-old active-duty military service member — told police that he was in town for his grandmother’s funeral in October and “just wanted to be around people that were happy,” according to a campus police report. He said the student who invited him over led him into a basement lounge.

A few minutes later, “a group of people came