dropped on one knee more than 1,000 feet in the air<\/a>.<\/p>\nAngela Nikolau and her boyfriend Ivan Beerkus climbed to the top of the Empire State building in New York City during the stunt. Instagram\/@angela_nikolau<\/p>\n
Angela Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov walk out together after being arraigned in court. Steven Hirsch for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the most powerful power: love,\u201d Kuznetsov intoned in a thick Russian accent, shortly before playing serious tonsil hockey with Nikolau on the Chambers Street subway station\u2019s steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikolau didn\u2019t wear her engagement ring that she flaunted on Instagram moments before NYPD cops also scaled the spire and arrested the perpetually posting pair Wednesday. The ring remained in a police station, Kuznetsov said as they navigated a swarm of reporters.<\/p>\n
The exhibitionist lovebirds\u2019 shameless smooching contrasted with their clear nervousness in court, where they were arraigned on charges that could send them to prison for up to seven years, if convicted.<\/p>\n
The charges are also not eligible for bail under New York law, meaning the pair couldn\u2019t be held behind bars ahead of their next court date Aug. 24.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors did successfully request the thrillseekers be put on supervised release owing to the dangerousness of their foolish feat.<\/p>\n
The alleged break-in caused $2,000 worth of damage and required the Empire State Building\u2019s broadcast antenna to be powered down in order to prevent police rescuers from being exposed to dangerous high-frequency radio signals, prosecutors contended.<\/p>\n
The duo are believed to have bought tickets at the Empire State Building Tuesday at around 9 p.m., before hiding at the Midtown landmark overnight, law-enforcement sources said.<\/p>\n
Video showed them emerging from a hatch on the 102nd floor at roughly 5 a.m. the next day, the sources said.<\/p>\n
Angela Nikolau and her boyfriend, Ivan Beerkus, climbed to the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, holding a sign that says \u201cWhen the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.\u201d\u0094 Instagram\/@angela_nikolau<\/p>\n
Kuznetsov then used tools to loosen brackets for metal cables stretching across a stairwell, which they then allegedly entered, according to the sources.<\/p>\n
What happened next was captured on numerous cameras, including the pair\u2019s own \u2013 they scrambled up the building\u2019s 1,454-foot-high antenna and unfurled a banner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,\u201d was the banner\u2019s utterly clich\u00e9 message.<\/p>\n
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After climbing down to a platform, Kuznetsov \u2013 who goes by Ivan \u201cVanya\u201d Beerkus on social media \u2013 dropped to one knee and proposed to Nikolau as she still wore a black cat mask.<\/p>\n
The happy couple received King Kong-levels of attention \u2013 even after NYPD officers likewise braved the heights and arrested them.<\/p>\n
Powering down the antenna so NYPD Emergency Service Unit members could safely wrangle the devil-may-care couple took roughly 30 minutes, a criminal complaint revealed.<\/p>\n
The pair were hit with burglary, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief charges, all felonies, in addition to misdemeanor counts of possession of burglary tools, trespass and criminal tampering.<\/p>\n
The couple exiting Criminal Court in New York City escorted by police. Steven Hirsch for NY Post<\/p>\n
Their defense attorney, Jason Krinsky, argued prosecutors overcharged and contended there was no evidence of burglary tools.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the building\u2019s own people, the Empire State\u2019s own people, said there was no risk to tenants, guests on the observation deck or anyone in the building,\u201d the lawyer claimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a message of love,\u201d he said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t say \u2018no.\u2019 So you gotta give him that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikolau and Kuznetsov \u2013 who originally hail from Moscow, Russia, and now reside in East Orange, New Jersey \u2013 are no strangers to extreme climbing adventures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Together, they\u2019ve climbed Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the world\u2019s second-tallest building \u2013 Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur \u2013 and were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary \u201cSkywalkers: A Love Story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They came down from a dizzying height. The dingbat daredevils who got engaged atop the Empire State Building\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":908499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11307,9299,120592,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-908498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-arrests","tag-empire-state-building","tag-engagements","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116852828770312457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}