A teenage daredevil has surrendered to police after videos posted on social media showed him cheating death by dangling from New York skyscrapers.

Police say 19-year-old Justin Casquejo, who gained attention when he climbed the World Trade Center’s centrepiece tower in 2014, handed   himself in on Friday and faces charges of reckless endangerment and trespassing.

Casquejo is from Weehawken, New Jersey. He was sentenced to community service for scaling the 540-metre-tall One World Trade Center.

The recent videos show him perched precariously on buildings and scaffolding near Central Park.

The teen’s lawyer says whether someone acted recklessly in the eyes of the law and whether he acted recklessly in the eyes of the average person are “completely different issues”.

Lawyer Jeremy Saland says there’s more to Casquejo than “what you are seeing on YouTube or Instagram”.