Kodi Koeman received emails and voicemails threatening to kill his family. This happened after Cody offered to help anyone affected by Calton's landscaping.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — “It's definitely affecting my wife and my kids. She's a little worried about our business and how it's affecting us,” Kody Koeman said. said.
On Friday, Cody Koeman spoke to 13 ON YOUR SIDE about the rapid-fire accusations posted about him on Facebook. Most of them accused him of sexually abusing children, defrauding customers, and encouraging people to write negative reviews about him.
The posts were nearly identical and were shared by numerous accounts in Facebook groups from Holland to Ionia, Cedar Springs to Allegan and even as far away as Traverse City. A comment and review from a man named James Campbell was also posted on Wednesday.
“Using my likeness for such purposes is incredibly deceptive and dishonest,” Campbell said.
We spoke with the real James Campbell last week. He lives near Flint and said he has never posted such a message on Facebook.
The 13 Help team tracked down Aaron Culton after receiving a message from a fake James Campbell account threatening legal action if he didn't remove articles about him and his business. He said he had not sent any such messages and was very upset that someone would use his name and photo.
“It's very strange,” said Mr. Campbell. “And this is where I'm really confused, even though I'm not even from the area. I really want to know how or why my profile was decided, how did I show up, was it a recommendation? As you know, I don't live in the area and I don't know anyone. It's all very confusing to me. ”
Many of the accounts were flagged as fake and blocked by some local group administrators. The disparaging post about Koeman has been deleted.
A fake account was also created using Kodi Koeman's own name and his wedding photo as the profile picture. This account was created to appear to acknowledge all the accusations posted about him.
“My 6-year-old daughter says someone is trying to kill us,” Cody said.
And over the weekend, things got even more serious.
“If you don't delete this post, I'm going to kill you and your family,” the source said in Cody's voicemail.
Cody said he received a voicemail on his cell phone at 2 a.m. Sunday.
“I drove by your house last night,” the unidentified person said. “I took the picture while you were sleeping.”
Cody started receiving threatening messages with photos taken outside his house along the road in the middle of the night.
“We moved families out of their homes,” Cody said. “They're in a safe place. That's all I have to say about that.”
He also received screenshots of his wife and children, one of which read:
“If you want your family to be safe, if you don't remove these defamatory posts, I and some Gambinos are going to come to the address below and start destroying your belongings.” I will knock you off the face of the earth,” it says.
Although Cody said he had no idea who was sending him the messages, he felt that sharing our story about Calton's landscaping services on Facebook and offering our support was a malicious attack on him. He said he never imagined it would spark death threats against him and his family.
“Threats don't scare me personally,” Cody said. “You're more or less scaring my family, but you're not scaring me. And I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to back down, it doesn't matter what happens. At the moment my family are safe and I don't worry about anything happening to them, but as a father and whoever did this, I will not stop until justice is served.”
To be fair and complete, we looked into Kodi Koeman's career and his business. Nothing found. He was the source of media coverage about his snowplow business in 2016.
According to the article, he responded to customer complaints and issued refunds to dissatisfied customers. Kooman's current business, Custom Klean and Power Washing, is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and has an A rating.
