For most people, fame and fortune seem like the ultimate shield against life's worst outcomes. But as NBA veteran Chris Andersen would come to find out, everything is a fair game when it comes to crime.
What's more, little did "Birdman" know that a woman sitting alone in a tiny house in Easterville, Canada, whom he hadn't met, would orchestrate one of the most bizarre catfishing schemes ever.
If not for a thorough police investigation, the case had the potential to cause Andersen's complete downfall.
It wasn't unusual for attractive women to slide into an athlete's DMs. While not a household name, Andersen was quite popular among basketball fans and a particular type of female demographic . He was literally a colorful figure, with tattoos, piercings, and a flamboyant hairstyle to boot.
"Birdman" was a key figure in the Denver Nuggets' 2009 Western Conference finals run. He was a spark plug off the bench, the team's big man version of J.R. Smith. While Smith provided scoring punch as a reserve, Andersen injected energy by finishing lobs, swatting shots and corralling rebounds.
That visibility, however limited to the hoops faithful, was enough to put him on someone's radar. And in the fall of 2011, that someone was not a fan, a rival or a reporter. It was a 33-year-old woman named Shelly Ann Chartier. She lived in the remote Canadian town caring for her sick mother, which was why she never left her house for over a decade.
Chartier's only window to the outside world was the Internet. She had too much time on her hands one random evening and one thing led to another.
"I was bored one night and I thought, I saw this girl on Facebook on his page and she was like, 'Hey, call me,' like, seeking attention," Chartier said , per ABC News.
Chartier decided to create a fake profile, posing as Andersen and messaged the girl, whose name is Paris Dunn.
"I said, 'Hey, it's Chris. And she said, 'Oh my God,'" Chartier recalled.
That moment of boredom would set off a chain of events that no one could have predicted. Chartier played the puppet master for months as Andersen and Dunn had no idea they were never actually talking to each other.
The two eventually met and exchanged private photos along the way. That's when Chartier's scheme made a dark turn. She posed as Dunn's mother and threatened to expose everything unless she was paid.
Things just got more complicated from there.
In May 2012, Colorado police executed a search warrant on Andersen's home and seized his computers. Dunn, who was 17 at the time, lied about her age, which made Andersen pursue a relationship with her. The age of consent in the state is 15, but the fact that Andersen had her nude pictures qualified as child pornography since she was still under 18.
An NBA player involved in child porn? Now, that's some disgraceful news.
To the investigators' credit, they did further digging and found evidence that Andersen was a victim, not the perpetrator. They traced the IP addresses behind the fake profiles to a house in Easterville, Canada. Chartier was arrested in January 2013 and law enforcement cleared Birdman of all charges by September.
Chartier was sentenced to 18 months in prison and served 12 before she was let out.
"I'm stupid, just plain and simple," she stated. "I've never known people like that, I never knew anybody in the NBA and thought like, I thought that was cool, I guess."
Meanwhile, Andersen continued his NBA career and became a member of the Miami Heat . He carved a role in the Heat's 2013 title run as their energizer bunny and a constant lob target of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
Birdman last played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017 before hanging up his sneakers for good. His reputation suffered at the height of that controversy, but kudos to the guy for fighting through it until he was ultimately emancipated.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Apr 24, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
