TikTok stars Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are criminally charged with breaking lockdown rules and hosting parties in Hollywood Hills mansion and now face up to one year in jail and a $2k fine
TikTok celebrities Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are facing criminal charges after they hosted recent parties in the Hollywood Hills despite the city's ban on large gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said Friday.
The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed misdemeanor charges Thursday against Hall and Gray, who have millions of followers on TikTok and share a $8.2 million rented mansion that has hosted raucous blowouts.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. It was not immediately clear if Hall and Gray had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
City Attorney Mike Feuer said he is not aware of any COVID-19 cases that have yet been linked to the August 8 and August 14 house parties, but the two-week period for symptoms to appear has not passed.
TikTok celebrities Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are facing criminal charges after they hosted recent parties in the Hollywood Hills despite the city's ban on large gatherings
Videos posted online showed guests standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched Hall get a lap dance from a stripper for Bryce Hall's 21st birthday party
City Attorney Mike Feuer said he is not aware of any COVID-19 cases that have yet been linked to the August 8 and August 14 house parties
The $8million 'Sway House' is in an upscale neighborhood of Los Angeles where at least six TikTok stars live and create content together
Los Angeles police responded to both parties, which featured several hundred guests, and issued citations.
'If you have a combined 19 million followers on TikTok in the middle of a public health crisis, you should be modeling great behavior, best practices, for all of us, rather than brazenly violating the law and posting videos about it,' Feuer said during a news conference Friday.
Hall and Gray are accused of violating the city's pandemic health order and a party house ordinance. Penalties include a year in jail and up to $2,000 in fines. The August 14 party was reportedly to celebrate Hall's 21st birthday.
Mayor Eric Garcetti last week authorized the city to shut off water and power to the home. 'Despite several warnings, this house has turned into a nightclub in the hills,' Garcetti said.
With bars closed in town, large house parties can become 'superspreaders' of COVID-19, Garcetti said.
Garcetti's action followed an August 3 party at a different home in the city where hundreds of people gathered without masks or social distancing. The party ended in a shooting that killed a woman and wounded two other people.
Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are seen on August 20, 2020 in Los Angeles, California
A 'notice of violation' attached to their wall with two cable ties said the men had violated city laws by hosting a 'loud unruly party, with 'loud raucous noise disturbing the peace.'
An empty bottle of Tito's Vodka is seen left on the streets after one of the many parties that the influencers at the Sway House have hosted
Los Angeles County has recorded nearly 237,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 5,700 deaths, making it the hardest-hit county in the state.
'It isn't just the party house itself that's affected,' Feuer said. 'These individuals who attend your parties could leave and spread (the virus) to siblings, to parents, to grandparents, to coworkers, to others in the public.'
Earlier this week, DailyMail.com exclusively reported that neighbors of the TikTokkers said partygoers have been defecating and urinating in the street, having sex in cars, smoking marijuana in a fire risk area and blocking the street until dawn.
The livid and distraught residents of the once-quiet street told DailyMail.com the neighborhood has become a 'party warzone', with the TikTok stars' mansion hosting at least a dozen blowouts since lockdown began, including two parties since the influencers moved in at the beginning of August.
Los Angeles Police Department even received a report of a man with a gun at Hall, Beck and Gray's party pad last Friday, and shots were heard nearby.
An LAPD spokesman told DailyMail.com the officers were unable to confirm the reports.
The lead singer of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, lives two doors down from the TikTok stars and has called the police on their COVID rule-breaking parties.
His wife, Anita, told DailyMail.com her 70-year-old husband caught the virus in June and came close to death in the ICU. She said she was furious at Hall and his influencer crew for disturbing her husband's recovery.
'This virus is no joke, I've experienced it first-hand,' she said. 'There was a week where my daughters thought he would die.
'It makes me crazy, the sheer inconsideration. It goes on all day long. There are people in the pool screaming, they're blasting music and there are cars parked all down the street.
'They don't seem to care about public health.'
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti shut off power to the home of TikTok stars Bryce Hall, 21, Noah Beck, 19, known online as the 'Sway House'
Hall hit back at the clampdown posting a TikTok video of him and Gray bopping their heads along to the song 'Electric Love'
Another neighbor, who asked to be named only as Catherine, told DailyMail.com her street had become a 'party warzone' with at least three houses including the TikTok stars' pad hosting blowouts until dawn.
'There have been parties here where a SWAT team has been brought out to shut them down, during the time I've lived here,' the neighbor said.
'There's screaming, drinking, bottles of Titos and solo cups everywhere.
'On July 4 they were setting off fireworks based in mortars. It sounded like we were living in Benghazi.
'I'm afraid it will end in violence. It already has at another house down the street, there was a rape and somebody was shot at a party last year.
'There's damage to property and cars. I've seen someone taking a s**t on the street opposite my home, people having sex in cars. All of a sudden it just feels like the wild west.'