Victorian man sentenced for attacks on men he met on Grindr says TikTok vigilante videos inspired him

The Guardian

2 days ago

A 19-year-old Victorian man who met and assaulted two people after speaking to them on the gay dating app Grindr admitted to police he had been inspired by vigilante-style videos he had seen on TikTok.
Christian Keryakus pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary, common assault and recklessly causing injury after two attacks on men last June in Victoria. He said he had been inspired by TikTok and YouTube influencer who posts videos luring men to meet through Grindr before assaulting them, often with others involved.
According to a county court judgment published on Monday, Keryakus chatted to the first victim on Grindr before moving to Snapchat where he could see the victim's location. The conversation was sexual in nature, and Keryakus sent a photo of a 15-year-old boy instead of himself.
The pair did not arrange to meet but Keryakus went to the victim's house, having obtained his location from Snapchat. He falsely accused the victim of being a 'paedo' as he entered the home with three other men.
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He demanded the victim give him $20,000 and one of the other men – who has not been identified or charged – punched the victim in the face. The victim's Nintendo Switch and wallet were stolen.
On the same night, Keryakus chatted to the second victim on Grindr and, after 30 minutes of messaging, they arranged to meet in a field in Craigieburn.
The victim was confronted on arrival and falsely accused of messaging an underage male, and Keryakus demanded the victim's mobile phone.
Five males approached the victim and punched, hit, kicked and struck him with a cricket bat, while Keryakus videoed the attack until passersby intervened.
Police traced the Snapchat account used to Keryakus's phone number and address, and found screenshots on his phoneof him chatting to other males on dating apps and the video recording of the second attack.
After Keryakus was arrested he was placed in a cell with a police covert operative. Keryakus told the operative he was 'inspired by TikTok videos to create profiles on gay dating apps and pretend to be a 15-year-old boy in order to draw out paedophiles'.
He later told police in an interview that he had got the idea from TikTok and had done it because 'they're just paedophiles'.
In her ruling, Judge Sarah Dawes said she had been told Keryakus's actions were inspired by a TikTok and YouTube personality known as Vitaly, 'who is known for streaming online pranks and vigilantism'.
'It appears that you thought you were superior to the victims that you dealt with and that at the time of your misconduct you tried to take the law into your own hands to dispense justice in this inappropriate fashion,' she said.
Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, a Russian-US online influencer has 9.4m likes and 348,300 followers on TikTok and 10.2 million subscribers on YouTube, with a reported 1.5bn video views on the platform.
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YouTube and TikTok were approached for comment.
The New York Times reported in March that there had been more than 170 violent vigilante attacks of this kind in the US since 2023, quoting one alleged attacker as saying he was like an 'unfiltered' version of Zdorovetskiy's live streams of 'paedophile hunting' on the streaming website Kick.
Zdorovetskiy's Kick page was not online at the time of reporting. His TikTok, YouTube and Instagram pages were still available.
The Philippine government-run news agency reported on Sunday that Zdorovetskiy could face months of jail time after being arrested in April over three counts of unjust vexation for 'harassing and assaulting Filipinos for content'.
Since the Victorian attacks, Keryakus had expressed remorse for his actions, the judgment said, and recognised it was not his 'responsibility to arrest individuals or engage in vigilante justice'.
He was sentenced to a community corrections order of two and a half years, including 250 hours of unpaid community work.
The conviction comes as Victoria police reported making more than 35 arrests in the past few months in association with attacks on men people had allegedly arranged to meet on Grindr under false pretences before allegedly assaulting them.
Grindr users are required to specify that they are 18 or older but the platform does not verify their ages or identities. Grindr has been issuing in-app warnings in Australia in the past few months alerting people to the attacks.