Police: Man caused car crash while attempting robbery, then claimed to be the victim

Delaware State Police have arrested a man for allegedly causing another
person’s car to crash while attempting to rob a participant in a drug deal, then telling officers
that he was the victim.

The one-vehicle car accident happened around 8:40 p.m. Friday near Christiana Mall in Newark. Troopers found an unoccupied Hyundai with front
end damage that had slammed into a brick wall. Inside, a handgun was lying on the driver’s seat.

Authorities said that, as they were investigating the scene,
41-year-old Middletown man Craig Brown approached and claimed he had
just been the victim of a robbery that occurred inside the car.

Brown allegedly said that he was standing outside the mall when a man
armed with a handgun forced him into the Hyundai, which was being driven
by a second man. According to police, Brown claimed the car crashed after the
driver took ahold of the gun and Brown attempted to wrestle it away
from him.

Troopers said they first learned Brown’s version of the event was not accurate
after reviewing video footage from the mall that contradicted his story.

The Hyundai’s actual owner then contacted authorities to say
that her daughter’s boyfriend, a 26-year-old Wilmington man, had
admitted to crashing the vehicle. That man told the woman’s daughter that he
was, in fact, the victim of an attempted armed robbery inside the car.

A further investigation revealed that the 26-year-old man had agreed to
meet Brown at the mall to sell him prescription drugs, police said.
Brown allegedly got into the man’s car and told him to drive away from
the area, then pulled out a handgun and demanded all the medicine the man had in his possession.

At that point, a struggle for the gun allegedly occurred, causing the
26-year-old to crash the car into the wall. Both men fled the
scene.

Brown turned himself into an Odessa police station Saturday. He is charged with attempted robbery and firearms offenses.

Brown is jailed at the Howard Young Correctional institution for lack of $53,000 cash bail.