An 18-year-old in Worcester for his grandmother’s funeral went to Assumption University one night in October to meet a girl he’d been talking to on Tinder.
Soon after, police say, he was chased and beaten by a group of students who had accused him of being a sexual predator, there to meet a 17-year-old girl.
The perpetrators of the assault, according to police, were six students at the private Catholic university, five of whom now face criminal charges.
Kelsy Brainard, Kevin Carroll, Easton Randall, Joaquin Smith and Isabella Trudeau are each charged with one count of conspiracy and kidnapping for the Oct. 1 incident.
The student quintet was inspired by a TikTok trend in which an alleged predator is lured to a location and then caught on camera being detained by police, according to court documents.
Brainard faces an additional charge of intimidating a witness/juror/police/court official for allegedly misleading investigators. Carroll faces a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. All five are expected to appear in court later this month.
The incident began Oct. 1 when Brainard informed university staff that a “creepy guy” had come to campus to meet a 17-year-old girl.
She told staff at the university’s Res-Life department that the man made her feel creepy and texted a friend, Randall, for help.
Randall chased the man off campus, according to Brainard’s description of events.
During a police interview, Brainard reiterated what he told other university staff. Officers attempted to locate the “predator” but were unable to find anyone.
Assumption police later received a report from Worcester police that they were assisting an 18-year-old man who reported being in contact with Brainard on Tinder and making plans to hook up on campus.
“He reported that he was led into the building by Mrs. Brainard and was only there a few minutes when a group of people came out of nowhere and started calling him a pedophile and [saying] that he enjoyed having sex with 17-year-old girls,” a police report on the incident says.
The man told police he was chased by a group of 25 people up a flight of stairs to his car, where he was assaulted and had his car door slammed. He fled the campus and called the police.
Surveillance video from the area shows the man and Brainard entering the building before he is seen climbing the stairs and being chased by a large group. This included Brainard, who had his phones turned off, recording the chase.
“After a few minutes you see the group come back in, laughing and making out with each other,” police wrote.
Police later obtained first-person videos taken during the time Brainard and the man were in the building and during the chase, which they say showed Brainard made up the story about a sexual predator on campus.
Instead, the videos show the couple sitting on a couch watching a baseball game before a sudden influx of students arrives.
The man was “lured to campus to be caught as a sexual predator by a group of students who had no legal authority to do so,” the police report said.
As he tried to flee, a group of men blocked his path, then as he ran up the stairs to his car, the man was hit in the head from behind, police wrote.
Police reviewed Tinder messages between Brainard and the man, which showed no indication that he was looking for underage girls to meet. Brainard represented herself as an 18-year-old on the application.
When police confronted Brainard about the false allegations, they say he continued to downplay his role in the events, claiming he didn’t know what was going to happen and blaming Randall.
Randall said the incident began with Tinder messages between Brainard and the man and that the idea of ”catching a predator” came to mind while sitting with the group.
He told police that videos from the TV show “To Catch a Predator” are big on TikTok, but that it “got out of hand.”
Randall, Brainard and the other students facing charges, called by police the “core group,” used a group chat of students living in a residence hall to spread information that the man was a predator sexual, according to the report.
“It was the fabrication of the sexual predator accusation as reported in the group chat thread that sparked a furious student response that led to the victim’s unauthorized confinement and subsequent physical assault and battery ,” the report says.
Police say the group continued to lie during interviews about the exact events of the night of Oct. 1, with Smith and Trudeau denying involvement and deflecting responsibility.
Charges against Brainard, Carroll, Randall, Smith and Trudeau were filed in December, and arraignments for all five are scheduled for Jan. 16.
In a statement, Assumption called the behavior described in the police report “abhorrent and antithetical to the mission and values of Assumption University.”
“While we cannot comment on ongoing student investigations and associated disciplinary processes, Assumption University is committed to maintaining a campus environment where every person is treated with respect and dignity, including guests,” a spokesperson said. the university “We strongly condemn all forms of violence and misconduct, and are dedicated to fostering a community where all people feel safe and supported.”