Reche Caldwell, a former NFL wide receiver who is best known for his stint with the Patriots in 2006, is currently serving 27 months in prison for committing two head-scratching crimes in 2014. First, Caldwell ran an illegal gambling ring across the street from an elementary school in Tampa, Florida. Then, while he was out on bail for that, he got busted for ordering nearly five pounds of MDMA from China after doing a Google search and finding that you could buy it online.
"So easy and out in the open, I kinda did it just to see if it was a scam," Caldwell told ESPN The Mag during an interview in prison for a fascinating new feature. The piece marks the first time Caldwell has opened up about his wild post-retirement life, and it contains several crazy stories.
According to those who were around him when he finished playing in the NFL in 2008, Caldwell's crime spree started as a result of post-career boredom.
"Reche was ill-equipped to handle life outside the NFL," his attorney, Nicholas Matassini, told ESPN The Mag. "He was jobless, he was bored, he had a bunch of money, and he didn't know what to do with himself."
Caldwell felt like a laughingstock in the NFL because of an infamous dropped pass in the 2006 AFC Championship Game against the Colts. The play essentially ruined his career, and it continued to haunt him once he retired. So he moved back to Florida and started driving 45 minutes every day to his old neighborhood in West Tampa, where he was revered for his impressive athletic career. Fueled by his love for watching sports, Caldwell started up a gambling ring with some friends.
It started small, but soon, he was doing $225,000 in wagers a month, most of which he kept hidden in Maxwell House coffee tins. That ring ended in a dramatic SWAT team bust in early 2014 with agents busting down the front door of the home he used to run his gambling ring.
Though he shut down the gambling ring after his arrest, Caldwell wasn't able to keep himself out of trouble. In May 2014, he noticed how in-demand the drug Molly had become, and one day, he went on Google, typed in "MDMA-Molly-China" and ended up ordering $2,000 worth of the drug.
"You got your phone on you? Try it. It's easy," he told the ESPN reporter.
Caldwell's plan was to sell the Molly, which was worth approximately $180,000 on the street, and flip a large profit, but he didn't get the chance to follow through with it. A post office worker flagged the suspicious package that was sent to Caldwell, and an inspection revealed it contained a "white rocky substance." Five days after Caldwell's initial Google search, the SWAT team showed up at his house and arrested him again.
The ESPN The Mag feature paints Caldwell as a bored ex-NFL player who was simply trying to find meaning in his life after football.
"He was just a happy-go-lucky guy who liked to smoke pot, gamble, hang out, and talk about sports," Matassini, the attorney, said, "and that's it."
Caldwell's mom also contributed to the story and said that she is fully aware her son might be the worst criminal in America. She's actually thankful for it.
"Good lord that boy was a bad criminal," his mom said, "and thank Jesus for that."
You can check out Caldwell's entire ESPN The Mag feature here.
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