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VIDEO: Mayoral Candidate Livestreams Hoax Kidnapping To Discredit Opposition - The Police Tribune
Sumter, SC – Police have arrested a South Carolina mayoral candidate who livestreamed herself faking her own kidnapping and attack, much in the style of former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett (video below). The video, streamed on Facebook Live on Aug. 18, began with 29-year-old would-be rapper and...
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Mayoral Candidate Livestreams Hoax Kidnapping To Discredit Opposition
Tom Gantert 17 hours ago
Sumter, SC – Police have arrested a South Carolina mayoral candidate who livestreamed herself faking her own kidnapping and attack, much in the style of former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett (video below).
The video, streamed on Facebook Live on Aug. 18, began with 29-year-old would-be rapper and Sumter mayoral candidate Sabrina Belcher screaming as a man pulled her hair and ordered her to “f–king drive,” the Daily Mail reported.
“B—h I told you not to f–k with me,” the man said in the video.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please I’ve got kids,” Belcher cried in the video she was streaming of the hoax kidnapping.
“Stop! Stop! Stop this mother–ker right here right now b—h. Stop,” he ordered her to stop the car in the video.
Then the video showed someone off-camera striking Belcher repeatedly with a silver bat.
As he swung, the man ordered the woman to stop “f–king with my people.”
The video showed Belcher held her arms up to protect her face and afterwards, wiped blood away from her nose.
Then man the proceeded to take the bat and smash the windows of Belcher’s vehicle while she screamed.
When the windows broke, Belcher held up her arms to shield her head from the glass, the video showed.
Belcher shrieked at the man to stop as the video ended.
Police said she went to the Sumter Police Department at 11:30 p.m. that night and told officers she had been “assaulted and kidnapped by an unknown man during an attempted robbery,” the Daily Mail reported.
Investigators said Belcher did have injuries and was transported to Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital for treatment.
And that’s when the would-be mayor’s story fell apart.
Belcher gave police a fake name for her attacker, the Daily Mail reported.
But investigators determined the entire kidnapping and video were a hoax that the candidate had carefully planned with 34-year-old Christopher James Eaddy.
“They staged a kidnapping and beating in order to garner publicity, sympathy and votes in the November election,” the Sumter Police Department said in a press release.
The arrest warrant said that Belcher hired Eaddy to help her stage the hoax and make it look like an attack by one of the candidates running against her for mayor, the Daily Mail reported.
“Officers later determined she was in contact with Eaddy whom she had worked with days prior to concoct and stage the reported incident,” according to a press release from the Sumter Police Department posted to its official Facebook page.
Eaddy told police that Belcher hired him to damage her vehicle and fake an assault, the Daily Mail reported.
Belcher admitted to police that she had orchestrated the fake attack against herself.
Police said Belcher committed the crime as an attempt to “discredit a fellow candidate.”
Investigators determined that Belcher and Eaddy had “ongoing plans to smear other mayoral candidates,” the Daily Mail reported.
“This was simply an effort to create disorder and discontent in our community for personal gain,”
Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark said in the press release. “As a result, a valuable number of resources, including personnel, man-hours of the police department as well as local medical professionals, were wasted based on false information.”
Chief Roark said Belcher was charged with filing a false police report and conspiracy and Eaddy was charged with conspiracy.
Both Belcher and Eaddy were booked into the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center on Aug. 19, according to the press release.
Belcher was released on a $10,000 bond, the Daily Mail reported.
Eaddy was also released pending trial.
Police have refused to identify which of the other five candidates opposing Belcher was the target of her misinformation campaign, the Daily Mail reported.
Belcher was the first black woman to run for mayor of Sumter.
Watch the faked kidnapping attempt in the video below. WARNING – Graphic Violence and Obscene Language:
