A French teen is charged with mischief and public nuisance after uploading himself licking a vending machine straw and putting it back.
Prank content seems to be on the rise again and getting more and more extreme and annoying. This French teen apparently thought licking a straw of a vending machine and putting it back was a funny thing to do.
Jail For The Licking Bandit
French teen Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, posted a video to his Snapchat and later Instagram story of himself taking a straw out of an iJooz vending machine, licking it and putting it back. The video was captioned with "city is not safe". It went viral and sparked disgusted outrage.
The incident allegedly took place at about 2pm on March 12 this year, in Singapore's Goldhill Centre in Thomson Road.
iJooz, the company behind the orange juice vending machine told Channel News Asia that they saw the video, replaced all 500 straws in the machine and carried out additional hygene checks as well as protocols.
On the evening of Mar 24, iJooz was made aware of a video that has been circulating on social media, of a youth who filmed himself licking a straw from an iJooz vending machine and placing the straw back in to the straw dispenser.
In the light of this incident, we have initiated additional internal checks, inspections, straw replacements and machine sanitation protocols.
iJooz also lodged a police report on March 25 and intends to take this matter "extremely seriously". The damage of the replaced straws reportedly amounts to around S$5 or US$3.90 in total.
According to CNA, Maximilien has now been charged with mischief, for which he could be jailed for up to two years or fined, and with public nuisance, for which he could be jailed for up to three months, fined up to S$2,000, or both.
He has been offered bail set at S$5,000 ($3,927) but has not yet indicated any plea.
The straw bandit is reportedly a student at ESSEC Business School. A representative from his school will act as his bailor until his parents arrive in Singapore.
The school has also taken notice of the "inappropriate behaviour" of its student, as it told CNA.
ESSEC takes matters of conduct and community responsibility seriously, and internal investigations are underway. We respect the legal process and are unable to share further updates at this point in time.
The case was adjourned to May 22.
This is just one example of a row of pranks getting people into legal trouble. Prank content is recently hitting the news more frequently as more and more pranksters get arrested for things like shouting "gun" in a crowded movie theater or messing with police or similar conducts. Some pranks even end up deadly as one recent prank call did. These things aren't just funny videos anymore, they carry real life consequences as they continuously escalate. This time, luckily no one had to be the butt of this disgusting joke but maybe pranksters should think about what is more important here – a (not even) funny video or potential legal consequences for them on top of awful consequences for others. But thinking might not be their strong suit.
