Florida Man Allegedly Committed Lame $25,000 Fraud by Pretending to Be Nickelback’s Drummer

Seriously dude?

Lee Koenig, a 45-year-old drummer living in Florida, allegedly wanted an Austrian audio company to believe he was Daniel Adair, the drummer for Nickelback. That way, police say, he could allegedly get his hands on $25,000 of audio equipment. Unfortunately for Koenig, law enforcement had to remind him of what he really was. 

The Smoking Gun reports Koenig—allegedly posing as Adair and using a fake Gmail address—tried to order the gear from Lewitt Audio in Austria. Someone who handles the business side of the Canadian rock band’s affairs thought there was something strange about the order and questioned the real Daniel Adair, who had no idea what was going on. Then, according to TSG, Adair decided to find out:

Adair’s sleuthing led him to Facebook pages and a web site for Koenig, who has drummed in a series of bands, including Billy Idol and Aerosmith tribute outfits. One of Koenig’s Facebook pages describes him as a “Hall of fame drummer, Sony Multi platinum session touring drummer.”

Upon examining online photos, the 42-year-old Adair “realized that the suspect’s drum set was the same configuration as his.” Adair also determined that the purported Nickelback publicist named in the e-mail order was actually Koenig’s girlfriend.

Just so we’ve got this straight—guy allegedly impersonates the drummer for Nickelback, and no less than the actual drummer cracks the case. 

Police went after Koenig with a search warrant on Feb. 28 and TSG reports the Florida Man “acknowledged” that he’d emailed the audio company. 

Nickelback gets a lot of crap, is often accused of being unoriginal, but we’d probably watch a Scooby Doo-style show in which a corporate rock band drummer solves crime in his spare time.  

Koenig was charged with two felony counts of fraud and has since bonded out of jail. Nickelback could have told him: it’s hard to cut it as a poor man stealing.

h/t Task & Purpose, TSG