A popular Russian YouTuber has been sentenced to six years in prison for the death of his abused girlfriend in a disturbing live-stream this winter, media reported Tuesday.
Stanislav Reshetnyak, who performed abusive stunts in exchange for viewers’ cash tips under the nickname Reeflay, had beat his girlfriend Valentina Grigoryeva and forced her to sit outside in freezing weather in only her underwear in a December 2020 live-stream.
Paramedics pronounced Grigoryeva, 28, dead as the cameras kept streaming to thousands of viewers. Law enforcement authorities later said that she died from head injuries, with a medical examination finding traumatic brain injury, cerebral hemorrhage and multiple bruises on her body.
The Moscow region’s Ramensky City Court database said the judge found Reshetnyak, 30, guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday. The state-run TASS news agency reported that Reshetnyak will be sent to a maximum-security prison colony.
It was not immediately clear if Reshetnyak’s defense plans to appeal his sentence.
Grigoryeva’s live-streamed death shed light on a disturbing Russian YouTube trend known as “trash-streaming” where content creators get paid to broadcast violent and humiliating acts. Other high-profile cases involved Russian YouTubers burying alive a homeless man and slamming a woman’s face against a restaurant table.
Her death prompted Russian lawmakers to crack down on trash-streaming with threats of jail for up to six years.
“It’s absolutely obvious that we must react. We’ll consider a bill as soon as it is tabled,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, in February.
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