Background: Assumption University (WBTS). Insets, left to right: Isabella Trudeau, Kevin Carroll, Kelsy Brainard, Easton Randall and Joaquin Smith appear in district court as the Massachusetts college students made their first appearance on conspiracy and kidnapping charges in Worcester, Mass, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025 (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The Massachusetts college students who are alleged to have plotted to frame a man and accuse him of being a predator, leading to an assault on him, are now claiming that the charges against them should be dismissed.
Previously reported by Law&Crime, the teenagers from Assumption University are said to have enticed a 22-year-old man to the campus, falsely charged him with attempting to engage in sexual activity with a minor, and subsequently pursued and physically attacked him, all while filming the incident as part of a disturbing trend known as “To Catch a Predator” on TikTok. The students, who are all minors, are now facing serious charges of conspiracy and kidnapping.
Now, the students — Isabella Trudeau, 18, Kevin Carroll, 18, Joaquin Smith, 18, Easton Randall, 19, and Kelsy Brainard, 18 — have asked the judge overseeing the case to drop at least some of the charges against them, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported.
Leonardo Angiulo, a lawyer for one of the students, reportedly described the incident as “a bunch of kids making bad decisions” — but not something that warranted serious charges.
Defense lawyers also said the video that was taken by students to share on social media not only misrepresents what happened, it shows that the man’s movement was not restricted as he ran away. Attorneys also attacked the statement of facts written by police, saying that it relied on the students’ accounts even as officers openly questioned the truth of what they were saying.
At one point, Angiulo argued that the students were simply being students.
“They decided they wanted to confront a person they disagreed with,” he said, according to the Telegram & Gazette. “Isn’t that what college is all about?”
The judge, Central District Court Judge Michael Allard-Madaus, reportedly replied that it “may have been a bridge too far.”
Allard-Madaus reportedly did not indicate how he intended to rule.
Police say that the group used the dating app Tinder to lure the victim to campus, trying “to simulate the TikTok fad of luring a sexual predator to a location and subsequently physically assaulting him or calling the police,” local CBS affiliate WBZ reported.
They lured the man, who was on active duty in the military, to a lounge area in the college’s Alumni Hall, where alleged participants then emerged from “secreted” locations, grabbed the man, and accused him of being a predator. The victim told police the group came from out of “nowhere and started calling him a pedophile and [saying] that he liked having sex with 17-year-old girls,” according to a police report, MassLive reported.
He managed to break free, but the group of 25 or more chased and attacked him. He got to his car, drove away and called the police.
“A few minutes later you see the group coming back in, laughing and high-fiving with each other,” MassLive reported from the court document.
More from Law&Crime: Woman with ‘cold feet’ makes false 911 call to avoid date: Cops
Police said this allegation was bogus. Her “victimization was fraudulently reported to mislead police in believing a sexual predator was on campus to conceal that the subject was lured to campus to be caught as a sexual predator by a group of students lacking legal authority to do so,” WBZ reported, citing court documents. The police investigation reportedly turned up no evidence that the man was seeking underage sex.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that one of the defendants told cops it was “like the Chris Hansen videos where you catch a predator and either call police or kick their a–,” but that this “got out of hand and went bad.” The reference to “the Chris Hansen videos” is a nod to the reality TV series featuring the show’s host, Hansen, confronting men arriving at a house to have sex with a minor and getting arrested.
The victim told cops he was in town for his grandmother’s funeral and went on Tinder to “be around people that were happy.” One of the female defendants invited him to campus to “try and hook up,” the Boston Globe reported.
A university spokesperson said in a statement to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that the allegations are “abhorrent and antithetical to Assumption University’s mission and values.”
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
