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ETSU: Student who claimed he was robbed charged with filing false report

By Rex Barber
Press Staff Writer
rbarber@johnsoncitypress.com

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An East Tennessee State University freshman was charged with filing a false report after admitting he made up a story about being robbed on campus, a university spokesman said Friday.

LaDarius Taylor, 18, who claimed he was robbed by two men near his dormitory sometime after midnight on Thursday, told campus police the incident never occurred. Taylor was served Friday with a criminal summons for filing a false police report, said ETSU Media Relations Director Joe Smith.

Taylor also may be subject to campus disciplinary actions, according to the school.

Earlier Friday, Smith said surveillance video from the area where Taylor had reported the robbery yielded no new information. Smith confirmed Taylor’s false report charge a few hours later.

Taylor originally told campus police he was walking in the area of John Robert Bell Drive and South Dossett Drive to his dorm room in Dossett Hall early Thursday when two men with deep, raspy voices walked up behind him and told him not to make any sudden moves, according to a police report.

The men patted Taylor down and took his cell phone from around his neck, telling him not to turn around before they ran off, he had said.

The alleged robbery report prompted ETSU authorities to issue their second safety alert this week. Monday ETSU freshman Matthew Vick, 18, Oak Ridge, reported that he had been assaulted.

Monday’s assault occurred near a railroad overpass on College Heights Road. No description of the assailant was available because the student never saw his attacker, according to a campus police report.

Vick told campus police he left his residence in the Presbyterian Ministry house at 1412 College Heights Road to walk to Governors Hall, a campus dormitory, and when he reached the overpass, he heard what sounded like a skateboard behind him. The next thing Vick knew, he went to the ground and was knocked unconscious, campus police said in the report.

According to a Johnson City police report on that incident, none of Vick’s property was missing from his person and it did not appear that anyone had been in his pockets.

ETSU had increased security on campus in the wake of the cases, particularly in the area where the incidents were reported. Smith said the two incidents were not related, and Vick’s assault was still being investigated.

Taylor had a hearing scheduled for early December, according to an ETSU news release.