CCSO Investigating Individual Impersonating Officer

The Cocke County Sheriff’s office is investigating an unknown individual who is impersonating a sheriff’s officer deputy. A Newport man contacted the sheriff’s office Monday saying he had been called by a number with a 423 area code and a 395 prefix. the caller claimed to be Brian Collins with the Cocke County sheriff’s office and told the Newport man that he had a warrant for his arrest and that he heeded to pay a fine to make this go away. He says he hung up and blocked the number. When he tried to call the number back he got a voice mail greeting from a Brian Collins claiming to be a law enforcement officer. The sheriff’s office called the number and got the same voice mail. they have not identified the caller or who owns the number used to call. We did a check and found that number is to a Verizon cell phone in the East Tennessee area. Should you receive such a call as this, do what this person did, hang up, block the number and call police.