EDP445 Charged With Sex Crimes After Telling Chris Hansen He Showed Up to Meet a Minor
Bryant Moreland, the former YouTuber known online as EDP445, was arrested in Las Vegas on Wednesday and charged with felony sex offenses in Kern County, California.
The charges stem from a vigilante sting operation that filmed him arriving at a Bakersfield apartment complex more than five years ago to meet someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl.
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Court records show prosecutors filed the charges on Monday against Moreland, whose full name is Bryant Turhan Emmerson Moreland. He faces counts of attempted lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, going to an arranged meeting with a minor, contacting a minor with sexual intent, and sending pornography with the intent to seduce a minor.
The Kern County District Attorney’s Office said the Las Vegas Police Department helped with the arrest and that he will be transported to Kern County. Detectives were reportedly travelling to Nevada to interview him, with extradition proceedings expected within weeks.
Bail, a plea and a court date have not been made public, and Moreland has not publicly responded to the charges. All of the allegations remain unproven, and he is presumed innocent unless convicted in court.
Prosecutors said the original 2021 investigation stalled because the people who reported the incident did not cooperate with authorities. The case was reexamined after the release this year of a YouTube documentary, “The Sick Mind of EDP445,” and the district attorney’s office concluded that Moreland’s own statements in the film, together with other new evidence, cleared the bar for filing charges.
Chris Hansen, the former “To Catch a Predator” host who interviewed Moreland for the film, announced the arrest on X and said the on-camera admissions gave prosecutors enough to seek a warrant. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the arrest, according to Hansen.
The documentary was directed and produced by Mike Clum, who filmed parts of it in Bakersfield and said the city was central to Moreland’s story. Clum said all proceeds go to RAINN, a nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual violence.
In his interview with Hansen, Moreland said he went to the apartment complex that day trying to meet an underage girl. He also said he did not believe he belonged in prison. Those remarks were made for the film, not in a courtroom, and have not been tested in court.
The 2021 encounter was recorded by Alex Rosen and Chet Goldstein of the group Predator Poachers, who used an adult decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. Moreland allegedly exchanged explicit messages with the decoy, then showed up at the Pineridge Apartment Complex in east Bakersfield, where Rosen confronted him on camera.
The exchange became known online as the “cupcake incident,” after Moreland said he was there to pick up a cupcake. Rosen said he called the Bakersfield Sheriff’s Department as Moreland drove off and followed up with a detective days later.
The Kern County Sheriff’s Office would not confirm that, citing its practice of not discussing such contacts. Moreland was briefly detained for questioning but was never charged, and YouTube removed his channels in the aftermath.
Moreland had built an audience of more than two million subscribers since he began posting in 2010. He was best known for vlogs, mukbangs and profanity-laced rants about the Philadelphia Eagles.
Earlier allegations from 2020 claimed he had held conversations with underage girls, but they also went nowhere for lack of evidence. In 2023, the YouTuber JiDion tracked him down in a separate confrontation, and the Kern County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it was investigating him. No charges followed.
The case has renewed debate over evidence gathered by private citizens. Legal commentators have long noted that decoy operations run by civilians instead of police face admissibility problems, and the Predator Poachers footage from 2021 has never been presented in court.
Hansen drew the distinction in the documentary, contrasting his network-era investigations, coordinated with law enforcement and leading to arrests, with the independent “predator catching” channels that now dominate social media.
He criticized some of those creators for putting content ahead of accountability. Rosen’s group has continued its stings across the country, and some have resulted in arrests of other people. Rosen himself was arrested in Missouri in March 2025 on a felony harassment charge tied to a confrontation at a fast-food restaurant.
Moreland’s attorney, if he has retained one, has not been identified.
