Five college students from a private Catholic university in Massachusetts are facing charges after allegedly luring a man to campus, falsely accusing him of seeking sex with an underage girl, then chasing him down and beating him while recording the attack as part of a so-called “To Catch a Predator” trend on TikTok .
Charges were filed against the students from Assumption University on Dec. 4. The defendants, ages 18 and 19, face charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the case that allegedly took place on campus in Worcester on Oct. 1. One also faces a witness intimidation charge while another faces an additional charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Related Coverage:
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 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.com reported .