Law&Crime Sidebar - College Students Busted for Staging ‘Catch a Predator’ Sting

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

As part of an alleged TikTok stunt, Massachusetts police say Assumption University student Kelsy Brainard, 18, lured a 22-year-old man to the campus. The man says he was then accosted by multiple other students who claimed he was a pedophile trying to meet an underage girl for sex. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber got insight on the vigilante sex sting with Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get a FREE title history report AND a 30-day free trial of Triple Lock Protection TODAY by going to https://www.hometitlelock.com/sidebar and using promo code SIDEBAR HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Six college students are in big trouble right now, facing felony charges after police say they lured a man to the college campus, chased him down, accused him of being a pedophile, and a sexual predator, which he wasn't. Turns out this was all staged for social media, but the victim's complaints brought the suspects to a real-life courtroom. Welcome to Sidebar.

Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. To catch a predator is a cultural phenomenon. How many of you watched it out there, right? Everybody knows that when Chris Hansen asked somebody to take a seat, they're about to be busted for some sort of very inappropriate behavior, usually with. teens and children. But when amateur vigilantes get involved, that is when things can get pretty dicey. I mean, we just told you the other day about a group of YouTubers in Chesterfield Township, Michigan that busted alleged predators by pretending to be a 15-year-old boy on back-to-back

days. I'm honestly not a pedophile. I think those guys are disgusting. You do realize how serious this is, right? You're talking about a kid, 15-year-old. Here to be a 15-year-old boy. Hey, buddy, buddy, buddy. Stop. Stop antagonize them. Just stop. You got your point across. The group called police had them deal with the men, 23-year-old Dylan Bishop, 37-year-old Christopher Paul. But now we go to Massachusetts, because police in Massachusetts say not only did a group of college kids take matters into their own hands, it spiraled out of control in a really bad way. So to talk about this, I want to bring back on friend of the show, Genesee County Michigan Sheriff Chris Swanson, who actually does predator bus with Chris Hanston.

Hansen. So good to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time. You know, these busts, they seem really thrilling, a way to get the potential bad guys off the streets, but it can get tricky. Wouldn't you say better left to the professionals before even get into what happened here? You would agree, no matter what the case, even as what happened in Michigan, leave it to the professionals, right? Right. 1,000 percent. Chris Hansen is not a vigilante. Chris Hansen works with law enforcement. That's why we have a very powerful model. Because what's the danger, right? You talk about these amateurs. Let's say, again, not even getting into what happened in Massachusetts yet. We talk about, okay, these are people who pretend to be somebody online. They communicate with people in a chat room or on dating profiles, and then they get them. They catch them. And then they'll call law enforcement or they'll capture them on video. They'll make sure the videos go viral. What is the problem for a prosecutor for law enforcement if you're having these amateur vigilance? These are these amateurs going out and doing this. What's the problem there? So let me answer it by first highlighting the danger of vigilantes doing this without any law enforcement. These individuals they're confronting are about to commit a life offense. And when you're in that phase of a crime, that mindset, and something is going to either expose you or ruin your life,

they have no idea what that individual could do. and there's no backup. They're not certified officers. They don't have weapons, thank God, and they don't have the ability to call in backup. They're only doing it to build a social media platform. And I understand that it's sensational journalism, quote to speak. I understand that people want to do it, but there's no value when it comes to holding people accountable. On top of that, whatever chat that they have, whatever conversation, whatever they confront, it completely undermines the evidence process that we need, that that can be brought into the actual case. We don't have, it's called fruit of the poisonous tree. If any evidence comes that's not

protected, that we can't use it. Doesn't matter what happens. So you put your life at risk to try to do something with, in my opinion, with ill intent. And then you bring somebody in that could probably kill you or at least do some damage. And in this case, we have the ones that are posting it actually committing the crimes. Yeah, this is a really, disturbing case. And look, the stories we cover here on Sidebar are quite disturbing. They show that the world can be pretty scary. It's true. And for those of you thinking, you know, how do I go about protecting myself from all that's out there? Well, I'll tell you what. If you think about protecting your home, I mean, what property is more important than protecting your home?

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this is, this is a private Catholic college in Massachusetts. This incident happened back in October. And according to police, a 22-year-old North Carolina man who were not going to be identifying was in town and sent a message on Tinder to an 18-year-old Assumption student named Kelsey Braynard. So the criminal complaint, which was filed in Worcester District Court, says that Kelsey's Tinder profile states her real age is 18. So she and the man, they message back and forth on the app, eventually switching over to Instagram, where they sent explicit messages, according to the complaint. The man then agreed to meet Kelsey on campus.

Now, minutes after he arrived, security camera footage shows the man running from the building, chased by dozens of students all yelling and screaming at him. Police responded to this disturbance, and this is what they found out that happened. So the criminal complaint reads, subsequent investigation revealed that the disturbance was the result of a Tinder app contact coming to campus to meet an assumption student identified as Kelsey Brainerd. Miss Brainerd reported that a creepy guy came to campus looking to meet an underage girl. It was reported to responding rest life personnel that the male just came to campus made Kelsey Braynard. Braynard feel creepy and she texted to a friend Easton Randall who came down to help Kelsey with

the sexual predator. The subject was subsequently chased off of campus by this male friend. The man reported that he was communicating with this girl Kelsey Braynard on Tinder and they were going to try and hook up. He reported that Braynard invited him to come and meet her specifically asking him to meet her at Alumni Hall next to the Kennedy building. He reported he was led to the building by Ms. Brainerd and was only there for a few minutes when a group of people came out of nowhere and started calling him a pedophile and accusing him that he liked having sex with 17-year-old girls. The subject reported that he was surrounded by the group and became fearful when he was unable to leave due to being grabbed and held back from leaving. The subject reported that he was

able to break free, ran up the stairs being chased by the group of 25 or more people. He reported he was chased to his car and was assaulted, punched in the back of the head, had his car door slammed on him, and his vehicle kicked by the pursuing group. Officers observe surveillance footage, which depicts Ms. Brainerd escorting him into the building and down the stairs to the lounge area. Shortly thereafter, you can see him running up the stairs, followed by a large group of students, including Ms. Brainerd, all with their cell phones out in what seems to be a recording of the whole episode. A few minutes later, you see the group coming back in, laughing, and high-fiving with each other, Ms. Brainerd is included in the group. Wow. So, Chris, this is not,

you know, this is very different than what we just talked about before. Your thoughts on what we're hearing from this criminal complaint. Well, you have almost a reverse crime because the ones that are perpetrating this are only doing it for content creation. And so they brought in an adult that they had communicated with on a dating app, Tinder, in order to come and meet an adult. There is no crime. And when he came there expecting to meet somebody and was overwhelmed by this group,

you could see by their actions, their own intent was to just build up their content, and that's where things went sideways. This, quote, predator that they called is now the victim in this case. And that's why people that don't understand the law, that don't understand these operations cannot be involved. Now, police said they tried to get the truth from Brainer.

Tell us what happened here. But according to them, she was trying to avoid getting in trouble, namely saying that this man was a predator, that she was scared. She didn't know he was going to show up, that she texted a friend who ran after him. But the criminal complaint says the volume of students seen ascending the stairs in pursuit of him is in direct contradiction of the information provided by Ms. Brainer. The interaction depicted in the footage occurred. from start to finish in 2.35 minutes and does not appear to be a random occurrence,

but a deliberately staged event. And this confrontation and investigation led to charges against six people, five who are 18 or older, one identified, unidentified juvenile who is 17. So charges were filed in December, and the students were in court this month to enter guilty pleas. Kelsey Braynard faces three charges, kidnapping, intimidation of a witness, juror, police or court official, and conspiracy, all felonies. The intimidation charge appears to be connected to misleading police in their investigation. A friend, Kevin Carroll, reportedly admitted to police that he assaulted this man as he was trying to get away, allegedly hitting him with that car door as he tried to escape. So in addition to kidnapping and conspiracy, he faces

a charge of assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Now, the juvenile suspect is also accused of assaulting the man by allegedly hitting him in the head. And three other students were also charge with kidnapping and conspiracy, Isabella Trudeau, Joaquin Smith, and Easton Randall. Chris, now they're facing significant charges here as a result of whatever you want to call this a prank, a good time. And the video evidence, I guess they didn't think that far ahead that all of this could have been captured. Jesse, that's why your platform and your message is so vital to get this out to people who may be thinking or maybe three weeks from now, somebody comes up with the idea because you just had a situation where not only did an individual who came to the

campus thinking there was going to be a legitimate connection, get assaulted, you've got six individuals whose lives will be changed forever. And on top of that, it was done at a college campus. So now the college is brought in because under the Cleary Act, all these incidents have to be reported. So now you've had long-term damage for people looking up and trying to think what kind of students go here. You've completely undermined the system, you've filed a false police report, you've, you know, tarnished the reputation of a great university. That's why people need to just think about what they're doing and think of the long-term ripple effect. Predator investigations are not entertainment. We don't do these in order to get clicks.

Even at the sheriff's office, we do them to send a message that if there are predators that are going to seek underage or vulnerable victims, that there is going to be an operator on the other side of that door, whether it's Chris Hansen, law enforcement, or just the sheriff of Genesee County, you better be ready to confront somebody. But when somebody uses those and they undermine them and usurp them for entertainment value, it totally demeans and takes away the good that we're doing. And by the way, right, I mean, I'll emphasize this again. This guy's completely innocent. He wasn't doing anything illegal. But even if he was, so even if you're dealing with underage people and you're dealing with a predator to run up against him and to beat him up, that's still

problematic on money ways, right? Yeah. I can tell you, the law does not allow us to use people that are not agents of law enforcement. That's why there's a process. We use confidential informants. People like Chris Hanson are in the field. They're part of the operation. But if I got a call that somebody had already started the conversation, they already started chatting, they have their own decoys, they got them held down. That's the problem. You know, I would much rather, if they have information that somebody's reaching out to turn that right over to us, and we'll work with you. And you can still feel like you're part of the solution to try to end human trafficking.

But to do it with that motive and intent, that is not the right way to do it. Yeah, according to police, going back to Braynor, she tried to deflect blame multiple times during interviews with police, quote, when confronted with the fact that the information that she was providing was not factual, but falsification and lies, Ms. Brainer acknowledged that to be true. Ms. Braynor continued to diminish her responsibility by indicating that she didn't know what was going to happen. Ms. Brainer continued to allude to her not being a part of this incident when confronted about the lies she reported last night and the lies she continued to tell

during her recorded interrogation, she could not respond except to lay blame at the feet of her friend Easton Randall. But police determined this was all set up from the very beginning. The goal of the Tinder invite was to simulate the TikTok fad of luring a sexual predator to a location and subsequently physically assaulting him or calling the police. Mr. Randall reported that Catch a Predator is a big thing on TikTok currently, but this got out of hand and went bad. Mr. Randall reported that they all made suggestions and agreed to what information was texted to the victim and that the others joined the conspiracy, knowing of the unlawful plan intending to carry it out. But Easton Randall told officers that things really got out of hand when someone in a dorm group chat

used the word underage to describe the person that the victim was trying to meet up with, and that brought a whole surge of people coming down to the lounge area, according to the complaint. But that criminal complaint made clear the subject is not in any way designated a sexual predator. And by the way, it's important to note that not only is this guy innocent, but even if the victim had been told that this girl was 17, which there's apparently no evidence of, sexual relations would have been legal because this age of consent in Massachusetts is 16, just a little caveat there. But Chris, going back to you, this idea of, okay, it's one thing. Now we want to have that we're jumping onto this fad, this is another dangerous fad. We're seeing on social media, but also group think. The more people get involved, the more it amplifies.

And one little thing, you know, saying underage is how you got apparently all these other groups of people coming in. I mean, according to his account. What do you, what's your takeaway from that? Yeah, it's called pack mentality. People lose common sense when there's a number. of people and let's just say there was one voice in that group that thought maybe this isn't a good idea they're drowned out by all the other ones who can't think straight because all they want to do is grab the content and then when you use trigger words like underage or vulnerable it gets

everybody emotional trust me i get it i that's why we do these predator operations and i've arrested hundreds of predators because i want to get those individuals that are seeking underage and vulnerable people but when it's not true it has a 10x effect on damage and that's what happened in this case The kidnapping charge on its own, which they're all charged with, carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison, the assault and battery charge that Kevin Carroll faces and Kelsey Brainerd's intimidation charge. They also carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. All the students have entered not guilty pleas. They were released on their own recognizance. They're going to do back in court at the end of March.

What do you think should be the appropriate punishment for these defendants? Well, I don't think they've even seen the end of it because the civil liability that they open. themselves up to because all but one is an adult. So they're going to be sued. I can only imagine from this guy who was brought into this trap. Who knows what that's going to do? But I'm going to tell you, there has to be accountability. And we see that in cases when there's juvenile offenders that make a threat against a school, just like in this case, this has a ripple effect. This isn't just a small crime. So I got to believe that the university is going to take harsh action, that their criminal behavior. Do I think they're going to go to prison? No. But I do think they're going to be held

accountable in a severe level because this has reached a number of audiences, including yours. This has to send a message that you cannot do this. If you desire to work with law enforcement on an operation involves human trafficking, then work with law enforcement. All right. I think that's a good message. And hopefully people hear it. You know, we talk a lot about it, but it's really the idea of these things that are done by the professionals is really to make everybody aware of what is happening on the online chat rooms or what's happening on social media, what's happening on dating apps. So just again, don't take matters into your own hands and particularly here where I don't even know if they're going to say they targeted the wrong guy

or it was a mistake or was blown out of proportion. Look what happened. You now have a guy who was beat up who's a victim of this crime and you have six people who their lives are effectively ruined and may never be the same. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, thanks so much for coming on. Great seeing you. You too, my brother. Take care and thank you for your audience. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.