Twin YouTubers Alan and Alex Stokes have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment and reporting false emergencies in connection to a series of fake bank robbery pranks orchestrated back in October 2019.
According to a press release from the District Attorney’s Office of Orange County, California, the popular content creators “each faced a maximum sentence of five years in jail if convicted on all counts.”
“The guilty pleas were in exchange for a judge reducing the felony false imprisonment charge to a misdemeanor,” the release states, adding that “prosecutors objected on the record and in a trial brief to the court’s offer to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.”
Both brothers were ordered to complete 160 hours of community service, and were sentenced to one year formal probation. Additionally, they were ordered to pay restitution.
They were also ordered to stay away from the University of Irvine, where one of the pranks went down. As part of the plea deal, the twins were also ordered to “stop making videos that mimic criminal behavior.”
has reached out to the Stokes brothers for comment.
The events in question occurred in October 2019, and were documented in a since-removed video they posted titled “BANK ROBBER PRANK! (gone wrong).”
The 24-year-old twins donned black outfits and ski masks, and carried duffel bags filled with cash. They then ordered an Uber and pretended to be bank robbers.
The driver refused to drive them and a passersby who witnessed the prank called the police, believing that the two were trying to carjack the driver. The police approached the Uber driver with guns drawn before they determined he was not involved.
Police at the time issued a warning to the Stokes brothers, and explained the inherent danger of their behavior, but let the go with a warning. Four hours later, the two tried a similar stunt on the campus of UC Irvine, and documented their interactions with police officers, which were edited into the original video.
“These were not pranks,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement released by his office last August. “These are crimes that could have resulted in someone getting seriously injured or even killed.”
