Remember last week, when a New York Police Department officer arrested tennis star James Blake for his involvement in a credit card fraud ring he *actually* had no involvement in?
ICYMI, here’s CCTV footage that shows the former American No. 1 player being pretty brutally body-slammed to the floor of a Manhattan hotel by the POPO.
Blake’s wrongful arrest came down to the NYPD’s possession of a photo (below) apparently ‘identifying’ the suspect of a credit card fraud ring that had fraudulently purchased a stack of designer footwear from a concierge site called GoButler: a black man with a shaved head, which Blake also happens to be/have.
Except, in a bizarre AF case of mistaken identity, Blake has *literally nothing* to do with the alleged credit card fraud ring – zero, zip, not an iota – and neither does the guy in the photo that police irrationally circulated to the media alongside details of his so-called ‘crime’.
That guy is Aussie entrepreneur Sean Satha, founder of sunglass company Local Supply, who’s so far removed from anything to do with the case that he wasn’t even on the same continent when NYPD officers took down his “twin” (Blake), believed him to be him.
Granted they look similar, and yet – NOT THE SAME PERSON.
James Blake (left) and the image of Sean Satha (right) the NYPD used to crash-tackle the tennis star.
How did this happen IRL? It’s confusing as hell, TBH, but the basic gist is this:
Sean’s *actual* twin brother Marcus (WHAT ARE THE ODDS) was contacted by the NYPD over concerns his credit card may have been one of those used to purchase goods on GoButler, at which point a photo of Marcus was pulled from his personal Instagram page by persons unknown and somehow became the hinge of the entire investigation.
Only the bloke in the photo was Sean, not Marcus, which is how he woke last Saturday to find himself at the centre of a media shit storm after at least half a dozen major media outlets beamed his face all over the interweb alongside claims of “crime”, “theft” and “assault” without first making any attempt to cross-check its validity.
It was srsly a stacks-on of misinformation, with the Daily Mail UK, the New York Post (multiple times), TMZ (they later identified Sean as “misidentified suspect”), Fairfax‘s The Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Daily News and 9 News, all reprinting Sean’s image in relation to the fraud ring.
The Daily Mail UK’s coverage of the story, which referred to Sean as a “suspected identity thief”.
The New York Daily News’s coverage of the story, which ran with the headline ‘Tennis star James Blake resembles man wanted by NYPD for allegedly using stolen credit cards”.
The New York Post’s coverage of the story referred to Satha as “the actual scam suspect”.
Here’s the man the NYPD was looking for when they arrested James Blake yesterday. http://t.co/ZMfMLejzdy pic.twitter.com/O7BhV3VEob
— mike babcock || tmz (@michaeljb1) September 10, 2015
TMZ first published Sean’s image in relation to the scam and later clarified him as a “misidentified suspect”.
It’s now believed the *actual* suspects may be Caucasian – and one of the alleged scam artists has even been named as Jermaine Grey.
That didn’t stop 9 News from not only republishing Sean’s image, but misidentifying him as Grey.
Speaking to P.TV, Sean – who’s remarkably chill about this whole flub-up TBH – reflects on a case of mistaken identity that got real weird, real fast.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING MISTAKEN FOR JAMES BLAKE BY THE WORLD?
Initially I was stoked that I was mistaken for being a professional athlete. Honestly, I don’t think I look like James Blake – but he‘s a good-looking bloke – so I can understand the potential confusion. It’s kinda funny that the NYPD police commissioner is so convinced we looked like twins. Ironically, I actually have a twin brother – but he’s not James Blake.
Sean (left) and his actual twin, brother Marcus (right).
HOW EXACTLY DID YOUR PHOTO END UP IN THE HAND OF THE NYPD AND THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA?I’m told that they grabbed the picture from my brother’s Instagram account. It’s an old photo of me holding my mate’s newborn son. My name is clearly tagged at the bottom of the photo – so I reckon this whole mess could have been avoided if someone had spent 10 minutes doing some research on Google prior to the manhunt.
The photo of Sean that was pulled from his twin brother Marcus’ Instagram account.
HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE AT THE CENTRE OF A REALLY WEIRD MEDIA CIRCUS?I woke up and saw a couple of missed calls from my brother. I called him back and he told me that the detectives handling the internal investigation of James Blake’s botched arrest wanted to speak with him because the story had become very high profile. He then sent me a photo of the New York Post article with a quarter page photo of my face. I think the headline read ‘crook-alike. I spent the rest of the morning reading various articles and opinions on whether or not I look like James Blake.WHY DO YOU THINK YOU WERE SINGLED OUT?I can only assume there was a city-wide manhunt for tall, dark and handsome males – which is why James Blake and I became targets. Seriously though, I heard that they ended up arresting a white male from England for the crime. The whole thing is weird.HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING REFERRED TO AS A SUSPECT BY VARIOUS MEDIA OUTLETS?I don’t appreciate being referred to as a suspect or thief, in any capacity. I feel like I have been a victim of identity theft – by the media and the police – I don’t think it’s ok to publish my photo using that sort of caption. I was home in Australia the entire time, I was never a suspect in this case and I have nothing to do with these crimes.WHAT ARE YOU HOPING COMES FROM THIS?I’d like these media outlets to retract my image, remove any reference to me being a suspect in this case, and also publish a correction.
TBC if that’ll happen, but we’ll update you as the mess story develops.
In the meantime: MAKE DOUBLY SURE ANYONE YOU’RE ACCUSING OF BEING A CREDIT CARD FRAUD RINGLEADER IS ACTUALLY A CREDIT CARD FRAUD RINGLEADER.
Images supplied.
