YouTuber EDP445 has been arrested and is facing criminal charges after acknowledging on camera that he attempted to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex.
The Kern County District Attorney’s Office announced that Bryant Turhanemmerson Moreland, known online as EDP445, was taken into custody following comments he made in director Mike Clum’s documentary The Sick Mind of EDP445.
Moreland faces charges including attempted lewd acts on a child, meeting a minor for lewd purposes, contacting a minor with the intent to commit a sexual offense, and distributing or displaying pornography to a minor.
“The charges stem from an alleged incident involving a child under 14 years old that occurred on April 17, 2021,” prosecutors said. “When the Kern County District Attorney’s Office initially reviewed the incident in 2021 and 2022, there were significant challenges in pursuing prosecution, particularly due to the lack of cooperation from the reporting parties.”
The case was reopened after Moreland agreed to appear in the documentary, which was uploaded to YouTube in August, and spoke publicly about attempting to meet the person he believed was a teenage girl for sex.
“In light of recent statements made by Moreland in the documentary, the Kern County District Attorney’s Office and the Kern County Sheriff’s Office reopened the investigation,” authorities said. “Following its review of the new evidence, the District Attorney’s Office determined that the evidentiary threshold for filing criminal charges had been met.”
Moreland was arrested in Las Vegas and is expected to be extradited to California. He has not yet been arraigned and has not entered a plea.
Bryant Moreland, a.k.a EDP445, Was Allegedly Caught in YouTube Sting
The documentary revisited a 2021 amateur YouTube sting in which an adult creator allegedly posed as a 13-year-old girl named “Sophie” while communicating with Moreland.
After prosecutors initially declined to bring charges, Moreland agreed to speak with journalist and former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen for an interview featured in the film.
Hansen subsequently published the complete interview on his YouTube podcast Have a Seat with Chris Hansen.
“I showed up to that location that day um, trying to, um, obviously, meet up with an underage girl,” Moreland told Hansen. “I guess you can say, um, I don’t know. Um, trying to have sex.”
After Hansen described the conduct as “predatory,” Moreland replied, “Right, I understand.”
“I’m trying to get people to understand,” he added, “you know, where I was in that state of mind at that time.”
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Moreland said that his online success had caused him to feel powerful and untouchable.
“That’s pretty much why I showed up,” he said. “Very lonely, um, didn’t really have any anybody to interact with, you know what I mean?”
According to USA Today, Moreland also acknowledged in the documentary that he “knew that it was wrong.”
“I knew that it was something that was highly illegal that shouldn’t be done,” he said. “I was clearly aware of the law and I was clearly aware of what I was doing.”
Although Moreland said he “felt bad,” he also claimed that “she was like the only person that was really giving me that sort of attention.”
Attorney Michael Pariente appeared in the documentary and warned that Moreland’s decision to participate could ultimately expose him to criminal prosecution.
“There’s definitely a chance that he faces criminal prosecution,” Pariente said. “I think what he’s doing now by quite frankly doing this documentary, it’s just a stupid … idea.”
Pariente, who does not represent Moreland and said he has never met him, later told Oxygen that appearing in the documentary was especially risky because California’s statute of limitations for the alleged offenses had not expired.
“He would never have been prosecuted,” Pariente said of the state charges, “if he’d just kept his mouth shut.”
He added that defending the case would likely have been more difficult after Moreland’s statements, since prosecutors otherwise would have had to rely heavily on the amateur sting operator who allegedly confronted him.
“Because of Mike Clum’s documentary,” Pariente said, “he’s made the case for the state to convict him.”
Moreland is expected to appear at a hearing in Las Vegas on Nov. 9. Pariente said he will likely be extradited to Kern County afterward to face the charges.
It remains unclear whether Moreland has hired an attorney.