Alan and 23-year-old Alex Stokes could face up to four years in state prison if found guilty
Alan and Alex Stokes are twin brothers who make content for their YouTube page, which has 4.81 million subscribers. Most of his videos involve making challenges, or pranks, of his friends.
Despite the content they believe is mostly innocent, the twins were charged by Orange County prosecutors with one felony each, false imprisonment involving violence, threat, fraud or deception, and one misdemeanor each. of falsely reporting an emergency, according to a statement released Wednesday by the county’s District Attorney’s Office.
All this was derived from a video in which they tried to rob banks, this was recorded in October of last year. The 23-year-old siblings dressed completely in black and wore ski masks , while carrying suitcases full of what appeared to be money.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the Irvine resident twins called for an Uber while posing as thieves around 2:30 p.m. (local time). The driver refused to drive the car , but a witness believed the pair tried to rob the driver.
When the police arrived, he was ordered to the driver of the platform to get off of the car at gunpoint. They released him after they realized he was not involved in any way.
The Stokes shared the video on their YouTube channel which they titled “ BANK ROBBERY JOKE! (that went wrong) ”.
In the clip, the pair could be seen running, with their costumes on, and then they reached the taxi. When the driver asked them what was happening, one of the brothers replied that their escape driver had failed them, so they requested the service.
“We are going to a costume party. Could you speed up? ”Asked one of the twins. To which the driver replied that it was all very strange, then ordered them to get out of the car and slowly walked away from the scene.
The recording cuts to when they are being questioned by officers. One of them explained that their actions could leave them hurt, due to the nature of what they were doing.
“Think about what’s going on in the present, think about it man, you have to be smarter than that man. You know more than this. Like I said, I want them to be creative and do whatever they want, but they have to be smarter than this. What do you think people are going to do? They are lucky that no weapon was pointed at them, so please be careful, ”a second officer reprimanded them.
While the first suggested that they record this type of thing in a controlled environment, to prevent any incident, and they emphasized that the Uber driver was very scared.
The video had more than a million visits, however it was put in “Private” mode, so it can no longer be viewed on the platform.
These are not jokes. These are crimes that could have resulted in someone seriously injured or even killed . Law enforcement officers are sworn to protect the public and when someone calls 911 to report a working bank robbery, they will respond to protect lives. Instead, what they found was a kind of devious attempt to gain more popularity on the Internet by unnecessarily putting members of the public and police officers in danger, “prosecutor Todd Spitzer said in the statement.
The Californians have yet to be prosecuted and are not in custody, but they would face a maximum sentence of four years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
