Braden Peters, the 20-year-old streamer known online as Clavicular, has been charged in Massachusetts with rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and providing alcohol to a minor, according to court records reviewed by NBC News and first reported by The Bulwark.
The Charges
The three charges were filed by prosecutors in a Cape Cod district court on September 8, tied to an incident alleged to have occurred on May 23, 2025. Peters is due to be arraigned on October 14. Online court records reviewed by multiple outlets do not name the alleged victim, as is standard under Massachusetts law in cases involving sexual offenses.
Peters’s representative, Mitchell Jackson, disputed the reporting’s framing in a statement: “Braden Peters has not been physically served. As usual, The Bulwark is exaggerating.” A lawyer representing Peters in the criminal matter had not been identified in court records as of Monday night.
How the Criminal Case Connects to an Earlier Civil Lawsuit
The timeline and details in the criminal charges closely track a civil lawsuit filed in April in Miami-Dade County by Aleksandra Vasilevna Mendoza, an 18-year-old influencer who posts online as Alorah or Alorah Ziva. According to that lawsuit and reporting from IBTimes UK and NBC South Florida, Mendoza alleges she met Peters online at age 16, and that he paid her $1,000 to appear in “looksmaxxing” content before inviting her to his family’s home on Cape Cod in May 2025.
Mendoza’s complaint alleges alcohol was served freely at the home, that Peters then took her to his bedroom and had sex with her while she was too intoxicated to consent, and that she woke the following morning to find him assaulting her again. The lawsuit separately alleges battery, fraud, and sexual misconduct. Peters has sought to have both the criminal charges and the civil lawsuit dismissed, and has denied the allegations through representatives.
Following news of the criminal charges, Peters posted material on social media, including a past video of Mendoza describing him as “super nice” and a clip in which she stated her age as 18, though it’s unclear when that clip was recorded relative to the timeline described in the lawsuit. He also called the lawsuit “petty” in a post directed at Mendoza.
Who Peters Is
Peters, known online as Clavicular, built a following of more than one million as a prominent figure in “looksmaxxing,” an online trend Merriam-Webster recently added to its dictionary, defining it as “the practice of taking one or more sometimes extreme or dangerous measures intended to increase one’s physical attractiveness.” Peters has been particularly known for promoting “bone smashing,” deliberately striking facial bones with a hammer in an attempt to alter their shape, a practice medical experts have widely described as unhealthy and dangerous. He has also promoted unapproved cosmetic injections on livestreams, including reportedly injecting Mendoza on camera with Aqualyx, a fat-dissolving substance not approved by the FDA.
Peters has appeared on a number of prominent podcasts and shows, including programs tied to Barstool Sports, Howie Mandel, and Trump technology adviser David Sacks.
This Isn’t Peters’s First Legal Trouble
The Massachusetts charges are not an isolated incident in Peters’s recent history. In summer 2024, he was arrested following a bar fight and charged with assault and battery; those charges were later dismissed. In February 2026, he was arrested in Arizona on suspicion of dangerous drug possession, a case prosecutors subsequently dropped. In April 2026, Florida authorities separately charged him with unlawfully discharging a firearm, after footage circulated appearing to show him shooting an alligator in the Everglades; he was placed on probation in that matter.
The Bottom Line
Braden Peters, known to more than a million followers as the internet’s leading “looksmaxxing” influencer, now faces rape, drugging, and alcohol-related charges in Massachusetts tied to an alleged encounter with a girl who says she was 16 at the time. He denies the allegations, disputes having been formally served with charges, and is separately fighting a related civil lawsuit in Florida. He is scheduled for arraignment on October 14. As with any defendant, Peters is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.