YouTuber Who Pranked Homeless Man With Toothpaste-Filled Oreos Handed 15-Month Jail Sentence

A YouTuber who tricked a homeless man into eating Oreos filled with toothpaste has been handed a 15-month jail sentence.

Kanghua Ren received the sentence at court in Barcelona on Friday and was also ordered to pay his victim £17,683 ($22,338) in compensation.

Mr Ren was found guilty of violating the moral integrity of the man but is unlikely to serve any time behind bars, as sentences of less than two years are normally suspended for first time offenders, according to the New York Times.

The court also ruled that Mr Ren's social media channels - including his YouTube channel ReSet - should be closed down for five years.

ReSet/YouTube

Mr Ren filmed himself in 2017 taking apart Oreo biscuits and replacing the centre with toothpaste. He then put them back together and repackaged them, before giving them to a homeless man he found in the street.

The then 19-year-old YouTuber reportedly said in the video: "Maybe I've gone a bit far but look at the positive side: this will help him clean his teeth. I think he hasn't cleaned them since he became poor."

The 53-year-old homeless man, called Gheorge L, said he threw up five minutes after eating them.

According to court documents seen by Spanish newpaper El Pais, the video earned Mr Ren $2,200 (£1,741) in advertising on YouTube, where he has more than one million subscribers.

ReSet/YouTube

After the video was originally published, it received widespread criticism, prompting Mr Ren to make a second video in which he said: "People exaggerate over jokes in the street [played] on a beggar, when surely if it's done to a normal person they wouldn't say anything.

"I did not know they would say I wanted to poison a poor man. There were two Oreos that I had already tried first with my brother."

Mr Ren reportedly tried to give Gheorge €300 (£259) in the wake of the public backlash to the video in order to keep him quiet and restore his own public image

Defending his actions in court, Mr Ren said: "I do things to mount a show: people like what is morbid."

Handing down the verdict Judge Rosa Aragonés said: "This was not an isolated act."

Topics: Viral, World News, crime, Spain, YouTube

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey