A pair of US twins, who posted a YouTube prank video in which they pretended to have robbed a bank and asked people to help them make their getaway, is facing felony charges in the United States, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Alan and Alex Stokes, 23, who run The Stokes Twins channel on YouTube where they have 4.8 million subscribers, have each been charged with one felony count of false imprisonment effected by violence, menace, fraud or deceit, and one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting an emergency.
If convicted on all counts, the duo will face a maximum four years in state prison, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
In the fake robbery video posted in 2019, the Stokes twins were dressed in all black with ski masks while carrying a bag that allegedly contained “a lot of money".
Alan also said in the video that he hopes to achieve 100,000 likes because they had “literally" risked their lives for the prank.
The video also saw the brothers secretly filming strangers asking if they can purchase their clothes to apparently escape from being caught by authorities due to the “bank robbery” incident.
They also hopped into an Uber and asked the driver to help “step on the gas” to help them escape. The driver told them to get out of the car.
In a statement by the Orange Country District Attorney Office, the Uber driver was held at gunpoint by police after a bystander thought he was involved in the bank robbery. He was released after police determined that he was not involved.
Law enforcement officers had approached the brothers in the video to reprimand them for the prank, where they were warned of how it could lead to unwanted incidents.
One of the twins tried explaining that people usually laughed at their prank attempts but was then told to be “smarter than that” by one of the officers. He was also told that he was “lucky” to not get shot at.
However, it was revealed that the Stokes twins later attempted the same prank again at a different location. Police also received another series of emergency calls from bystanders who believed that a bank was being robbed after seeing the brothers running around.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer did not view the prank video as a laughing matter.
“These were not pranks. These are crimes that could have resulted in someone getting seriously injured or even killed,” he said in a statement, and slammed the twins for going too far with the fake robbery prank video just for views on YouTube.
He added: “Law enforcement officers are sworn to protect the public and when someone calls 911 to report an active bank robbery they are going to respond to protect lives.”
“Instead, what they found was some kind of twisted attempt to gain more popularity on the Internet by unnecessarily putting members of the public and police officers in danger.”
Hollywood Reporter stated that the video had 1.4 million views. It is no longer viewable on The Stokes Twins channel.
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