2 women charged with having $5,000 in fake Nikes

By Fran Jeffries

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Michael Jordan's hand had too many fingers, and the Nike logo peeled right off a pair of the shoes. Those details helped tip off police that the 78 boxes of shoes in a car were possibly counterfeit.

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Gwinnett County Police Dept Gwinnett County police seized 78 boxes of counterfeit shoes, including this pair, and arrested two South Carolina woman after a traffic stop on I-85. The shoes had a total value of $5,000, police said. Kotina LaShan Feaster and Jessica Pennick were each charged with having forged or counterfeit goods, a felony.

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Gwinnett County police arrested two South Carolina women on I-85 on Saturday and charged each with having forged or counterfeit goods, a felony. Police said the women, Kotina LaShan Feaster and Jessica Pennick,  owned the fake Nike shoes that were valued at about $5,000.

Officer Nicholas Boney pulled over Feaster's Pontiac Grand Prix for following too closely behind another car, according to a police report. He said he smelled marijuana during the routine stop.

Feaster admitted there was marijuana in the car and allowed the officer to search the vehicle, Boney said in the report. During the search, he said, he found the shoes.

"There was a large box in the backseat that was covered up with a jacket. Once I removed the jacket I could see what it was," Boney said. More shoes were found in the car's trunk.

The serial numbers on the shoe's tongue didn't match the numbers on the box, the Nike logos peeled right off, and Michael Jordan's hand had one too many fingers, Boney said in the report.

Police said Feaster claimed to have gotten the shoes for free and that she had no idea they were fake. But police didn't believe her story.

"She came down from South Carolina to get all these shoes, and then she drove back to South Carolina to sell them," Boney told Channel 2 Action News. He said he also found a fake pair of UGGS boots and a fake Louis Vuitton bag. The total retail value of all the alleged fake items came to more than $12,000, police estimated.

Feaster, 39, is from Rock Hill and Pennick, 29, is from Chester, police said.

Police told Channel 2 that running counterfeit goods up and down I-85 is a growing trend. In the past few month, police said they have taken in more than $100,000 in fake goods, especially purses and shoes.