arrested by the police<\/a>.<\/p>\nThey were arraigned on Thursday in criminal court on multiple charges, including burglary and reckless endangerment.<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Mr. Beerkus, who is identified in court documents as Ivan Kuznetsov, told the police he wanted to \u201cdo something special for his engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ms. Nikolau and Mr. Beerkus, who live in East Orange, N.J., their stunt in Midtown Manhattan was not their first terrifying ascent.<\/p>\n
The couple, who are from Russia, were the subjects of a 2024 documentary, \u201cSkywalkers: A Love Story,\u201d about their romance and quest for thrills and fame. They have climbed commercial buildings worldwide, often posting about it to their large social media following.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office said the couple engaged in \u201cextreme risk-taking behavior,\u201d and \u201ccontinually create a risk to their own lives, as well as the lives of New Yorkers and first responders.\u201d<\/p>\n
After their arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on a litany of charges, they were given supervised release and ordered to return for a court date in August.<\/p>\n
Their lawyer, Jason Krinsky, said his clients were \u201covercharged.\u201d The couple was not a risk to anyone but themselves, he said, adding that if they had lost their footing the hexagonal platform below the antenna would have prevented them from falling further.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors \u201cwanted to make a message out of my clients, and that\u2019s why they charged them so harshly,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cThis was a message of love, not a message of hatred or violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The criminal complaint said that a lock on a security door on the Empire State Building\u2019s 104th floor, which has access to the broadcast antenna, had been broken. The cost to repair the damage is estimated at about $2,000, according to an investigator.<\/p>\n
The couple then climbed the broadcast antenna approximately 1,400 to 1,500 feet above the ground, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
To arrest them, officers with the New York Police Department\u2019s Emergency Services Unit had to wait 30 minutes for the antenna to power down before they scaled the building. The antenna \u201cemits high-frequency radio signals that are powerful enough to cause harm to the human body,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the couple emerged from court hand-in-hand, still wearing the black athleisure they had been recorded wearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Beerkus said he had chosen to unfurl the banner with the message, \u201cWhen the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,\u201d because, \u201cWe believe in the power of love.\u201d<\/p>\n
He confirmed that the couple was engaged at the apex of the Empire State Building and that the ring was currently in police custody.<\/p>\n
A scrum of reporters followed the pair as they made their way from the courthouse down to the Chambers Street subway station, where they stopped on the steps and shared a long, drawn-out kiss for cameras.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two people who illegally ascended the needle of the Empire State Building on Wednesday trespassed onto the Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37399,109331,85972,97607,43405,9,24,11,10,49,51,50,109084,56,109085,90103],"class_list":["post-285190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-angela","tag-beerkus","tag-empire-state-building-manhattan","tag-ivan","tag-midtown-area-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-nikolau","tag-ny","tag-stunts-and-stuntmen","tag-weddings-and-engagements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}