19-year-old sentenced to community service and probation for role in leaf blower prank at Newport theater
A Newport Beach teenager who helped spark a panic through a leaf blower prank at a Newport Beach movie theater last year has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years’ probation for his part in the crime.
Colin Hunter Davis, 19, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court to three misdemeanors — participating in an unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace and trespassing — in connection with an Aug. 8 incident that terrified moviegoers at the Edwards Big Newport 6 cinema near Fashion Island.
Some people were trampled and suffered minor injuries in the rush to escape, police said.
Davis faced a maximum sentence of one year in jail but agreed to plead guilty for the lesser sentence.
As part of the agreement, prosecutors will dismiss the unlawful-assembly charge if Davis completes his community service and does not violate any terms of his probation for a year.
Superior Court Judge Julian Bailey gave Davis six months to complete the 100 hours of work at a homeless outreach center in the Newport Beach-Costa Mesa area.
Defense attorney David Elden told Bailey that Davis plans to finish the community service before he heads to college.
Davis spoke only briefly in court, answering procedural questions and telling Bailey he hasn’t decided where he’ll attend college.
Outside the courtroom, Davis and his attorney declined to talk to a reporter.
“Nothing to say,” Elden said.
According to prosecutors, Davis and three other teenagers touched off a stampede when they burst into a screening of the thriller “The Gift.”
When one of the teens revved a leaf blower in the theater, moviegoers thought it was chain saw or a gun and scrambled for the exits, police said.
Katrina Wolfe, who was in the audience that night, told the Daily Pilot in August that the prank left her in fear for her life.
“It is no exaggeration at all to say that as soon as I saw people scurrying, I felt that we were in mortal danger,” Wolfe said. “My boyfriend thought the same — we felt that we could absolutely be killed.”
According to prosecutors, Davis, who was 18 at the time, sneaked into the screening and opened an emergency exit from the inside so a co-conspirator could enter with the leaf blower.
In the days after the scare, Newport Beach police released pictures of four people who reportedly had revved a leaf blower outside an In-N-Out Burger near UC Irvine an hour before the theater incident.
Davis and three other teenagers turned themselves in, police said.
The other teens have not been identified because they are minors, and details of their cases have been kept confidential.
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Jeremiah Dobruck, [email protected]
Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck
