The controversial coach at the center of the recent Netflix series Last Chance U is suddenly finding himself at the center of a much more serious drama.
Jason Brown, the now-former coach at Independence Community College in Independence, Kan., was indicted on 10 charges on Friday. Per the Parsons Sun, eight of those indictments were for felonies (four for blackmail, four more counts of identity theft) and a further two were for criminal false communication.
While both the number of charges and the felonies themselves are eye-opening, what Brown is actually accused of doing could have been straight from, well, a Netflix show of some sort itself:According to a story published by the Montgomery County Chronicle, one of the two newspapers allegedly victimized by Brown, the case against Brown results from an investigation into emails sent to the Chronicle as well as the Independence Daily Reporter.
In October 2018, Brown allegedly sent a cease-and-desist email to the Chronicle shortly after the paper published an editorial regarding a fight between the Independence and Garden City football teams. Brown allegedly posed as an attorney in the Cochran Law Firm in California, which was founded by Johnnie Cochran.
It’s not often you find a connection between Johnnie Cochran, junior college football and an internet streaming service but here we are in 2019.
The emails and more like them where Brown posed as a member of the law firm were eventually traced back to his devices by police and eventually led to the charges filed on Friday. The incidents that prompted the threatening emails covered not only the fight with the rival junior college in October, but also what directly led to the coach’s resignation in February after it emerged he sent offensive text messages to a German member of the team.
Brown was actually contacted by FootballScoop after the charges were filed and it seems he was not aware of what was happening from his new home in California.
“I’m surprised as you are, this is crazy,” Brown told the site. “I’m trying to find out what’s going on myself. I’ve not been contacted by anyone.”
So yeah...
While it’s unclear how much Last Chance U will get into all this, the upcoming season four will be released on July 19 and follow Brown’s last campaign at Independence.
