LHHATL Karen King issues statement about fraud arrest, alleged Saks Fifth Avenue theft
Earlier this week, Love and Hip Hop Atlanta star Karen “KK” King was arrested and charged with identity fraud after allegedly being involved in a scheme with a Saks Fifth Avenue employee to purchase nearly $5,000 worth of merchandise under another woman’s name. Never one to be quiet about anything, after posting bail, Karen King issued a lengthy statement about her arrest claiming it’s all a big mistake.
Karen says that police arrived at the Level V club in Atlanta Monday night where she was hosting MMMob Mondays. Karen’s first reaction when she saw the police was thinking that something bad had happened to her son Sas — which, according ot the promotional posters for the event, was supposed to be co-hosting that night. From Karen:
Monday night I was doing my show and it was interrupted by the police. Of course, I didn’t know what I was being arrested for and there were so many police officers. In my mind, there were so many police officers because someone died. I thought, “Oh my God, did something happen to Sas?” They come to tell me something happened to my baby. When they got close to me though, they asked, “Are you Karen King?” I said, “Yes,” and they said, “You’re under arrest.” I was like, what?! Now usually if they arrest you, you have a mugshot or a picture from the warrant but they had a print out of the front page of my Instagram.
The “print out of the front page of my Instagram” claim jibes with the narrative from the police report, in which the officer said: “I was unsuccessful in locating an original photo array of Accused King.” That seems really odd given that Karen King was previously on America’s Most Wanted, and it’s not as though her previous mug shot photos were that hard to find. (They could have just Googled it and got them from us!) Of course, she does look a lot different now.
“I kept asking them what they were arresting me for and they said they would tell me at the station,” Karen continues. “Consequently, I had three warrants out for arrest for identity fraud, forgery, and I’m not really sure what the third charge was. I was like, ‘What did I do? What did I take? What do I have? My Maserati? My Jeep? My furniture?'”
Police then explained the Saks Fifth Avenue charges to Karen:
They said, “An employee in Saks Fifth Avenue is one of your employees and he got fired 11 months ago for letting someone come in the store and buy $5,000 worth of men’s clothing.” I was like, “How does that involve me?” They were saying that from the police report when they arrested him, he said the person that came in was Karen King. He never mentioned this to me. I don’t know none of the details yet. My lawyer, was like, “What the f—k?!” I’m a customer at Saks Fifth Avenue. I pull clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue for work. Why would I go to a store that I frequently shop at? It makes no f–king sense. They didn’t arrest [me] then but now that I’m on TV? They’re probably following his Instagram and he’s at all of my events. [This man] worked for me, he worked in my building. I was trying to help him out. When I was ready to leave the courtroom I was told not to contact any of the witnesses, and in my mind, I’m still not understanding all of this, so when I got home and read the blogs, I thought, is this the person I’m not supposed to talk to? So, I called him, I told him, “You don’t know me like that. I’m not going to go to court and plead guilty just to make this go away because I’m on TV now, therefore I’m going to go on trial and if you did anything to implicate me, you’re going to have to testify.”
So the court instructed Karen not to contact any of the witnesses, and one of the first things she does after posting bail is contact the main witness in the case?! That doesn’t seem like a wise move — at all.
As far as Karen having no earthly idea what’s going on, that claim seems to be refuted by the police report narrative that states the transaction in which Karen purchased the merchandise under the name was captured on surveillance video:
On the same date August 30, 2015 a female by the name of Karen Lynn King entered the store and presented Accused Armani Harper with a d.o.b Social, and name Diane Wodey. Be advised Karen Lynn King and Accused Harper purchased $4,946.52 in merchandise. Accused split the items with Karen Lynn King. Ms. Diane Wodey was contact back Saks Asset Protection and confirmed the victim Diane Wodey doesn’t have a Saks Account. (Incident captured on Video Surveillance).
Karen wraps up her statement by indicating she is no longer facing fraud charges, which doesn’t seem right given that she had to post $30,000 for bail.
At the end of the day, I don’t have any fraud charges and that’s not what I do. And if it was anything that I was doing in my previous life, I have never been the person to do something where I live, where I lay my head, to do something I’m not supposed to be doing.
Karen says her court date is June 7.
Until then, it looks as though Karen intends to keep living the “KK” life. She posted this video on Instagram letting her fans and haters know she was headed to the Blue Flame to party for her birthday:
“Anybody that wanna party with KK, come on,” says Karen. “It’s my birthday, I’m gonna party all weekend. I wanna party with everybody. Those who like me can come. Those who don’t like me, y’all asses can come too.” Karen then clarifies that not everybody is welcome: “Don’t bring the police tonight, I ain’t for that bulls**t, OK?”
UPDATE – Karen added this statement on Instagram:
#PLEASEDONTCALLTHEPOLICE (Listen Y’all got to stop this bullshit let me live please, I been on this grind my whole life, I’ve paid my dues in every way possible it’s nothing anyone can do to stop me Last week Monday I went to jail like a proud woman, I walked to the police car like I was walking the red carpet, when the cops rolled up on me I thought they were coming to tell me my baby was dead when they said u r under arrest I was happy( I’m protected by a force that can’t be penetrated) GOD ( I’m going to win no matter what