Chris “Birdman” Andersen was the victim of an elaborate Internet hoax that involved child porn and his Denver home being raided by the authorities last year. A woman impersonated Andersen online, causing havoc in the Miami Heat forward’s personal life and damaging his reputation.
Reports the Denver Post:
Former Denver Nuggets player Chris Andersen was the victim of a wide-ranging and complex Internet impersonation scheme when authorities searched his home last year, an attorney for Andersen said Wednesday.
The Douglas County District Attorney’s office on Wednesday confirmed that it will not file charges against Andersen in connection with the search.
Mark Bryant, the attorney, said Andersen was being impersonated online by a woman in Canada. The woman, posing as Andersen, sought relationships and gifts but also threatened at least one person, Bryant said. The woman in Canada was also posing online as other people to Andersen, Bryant said.
Bryant said the woman, whose name he would not release, has been charged in Canada with multiple crimes. She has not yet been charged in Colorado but could be.
What the woman pulled off makes every person featured on MTV’s Catfish look like pure amateurs.
Andersen had a consensual sexual relationship with a 17-year-old from California. Andersen maintains he thought the girl was older but nevertheless the the age of consent in Colorado, where they did the deed, is 17. But it turns out the relationship was engineered by the impersonator in Canada.
According to Sports Illustrated:
Posing as Andersen, the Canadian woman allegedly orchestrated the initial tryst between the player and the California woman. She then began communicating and corresponding with the woman from California. At one point, representing herself as Andersen, the imposter began making demands — some of them, sources say, sexually explicit — of the California woman.
The woman believed that it was Andersen making the demands and felt increasingly threatened. Eventually she went to the authorities. The sexually suggestive threats triggered the investigation of the Internet Crimes Against Children unit. When Douglas County Sheriff’s office executed its search warrant on Andersen’s home in Larkspur, Colorado, 40 miles south of Denver, police took his computer and other electronic equipment.
Wow.
Chris Andersen has officially been vindicated, but his rep is tarnished. You can trust he’ll keep better passwords, though.
As for the catfisher, she has been charged in Canada with multiple crimes including possession of child pornography and extortion.
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Photo: NBA
