Ex-NFL Player Arrested, Accused of Smollett-Style 'Hate Crime'
A former professional football player is accused of faking a hate crime to profit from an insurance payout, and the apparent stupidity of the alleged crime could make this case a slam dunk for prosecutors.
Edawn Coughman, a former player in the NFL and the Canadian Football League, was arrested and charged Thursday with insurance fraud and filing a false police report.
The police were first alerted to a suspected burglary in progress at Coughman’s Creamery in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
The caller gave police a description of the truck belonging to the suspect, and police soon found it driving down the road — but it was Coughman behind the wheel.
Coughman told police that he was the owner of the creamery, and had filed an insurance claim after vandals wrecked his business.
In the bed of the truck, however, were multiple televisions mounted to brackets, with drywall still attached to some of them.
If this wasn’t suspicious enough, what police discovered at his business tipped them off that this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill burglary.
Officers investigating the vandalized restaurant found “MAGA,” a backward swastika and slurs spray-painted on the walls. The paint was found to still be wet. The back door had been pried open, and officers noted yellow tool marks.
Their investigation was about to get a big break, however.
After obtaining a search warrant, police not only discovered spray-paint cans in Coughman’s car, but also a crowbar with a paint job that was a damning match to what was found on the back door.
Although it’s not quite the mountain of evidence compiled against Jussie Smollett, these discoveries mean Coughman’s defense attorney now has his work cut out for him.
A local business owner is accused of staging a racially-motivated burglary. Edawn Coughman (31) has been charged with False Report of a Crime, Insurance Fraud, & Concealing a License Plate. He was arrested and bonded out of the GC Jail yesterday.
Details: https://t.co/0MEy6iHsT9 pic.twitter.com/imRNVa7WIT
— Gwinnett County Police (@GwinnettPd) September 13, 2019
As for the motive behind the alleged crime, it looks like Coughman may have been trying to scam his way into an insurance windfall after his ice cream business began to decline.
Reviews of Coughman’s Creamery paint a picture of a poorly managed ice cream shop with subpar desserts.
“Coughman’s Creamery is not a good ice cream shop,” one review says. “Their ice cream is clearly bought from somewhere else and is nothing special. They don’t actually have most of the treats they post on Instagram. When we were there, all they had was a stale ‘cookie bowl.’ Since we had made the trek, we tried it and it was terrible.”
“Half-eaten, we threw it out and then headed to a different place for a good dessert.”
With many customers even more displeased than that, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Coughman’s ice cream shop simply wasn’t able to cut it in a competitive market.
The truth about what happened in Coughman’s Creamery will eventually come out, and those responsible will surely face justice.
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