Taylor Swift burglary suspect arrested in Trump golf course vandalism in New Jersey
A man accused of causing more than $25,000 in damage to Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey also faces charges in the break-in of Taylor Swift’s Rhode Island home just weeks earlier.
Richard J. McEwan, 26, first took a joyride around President Trump's Bedminster golf course about 5:30 p.m. Sept. 3, when a grounds employee heard music blasting from a Ford sedan and saw the car “doing ‘donuts’” over the 11th hole, according to the Somerset County Prosecutor’s office.
Days later, on the afternoon of Sept. 8, police received a second report of someone “doing ‘donuts’” on the green, this time near the golf club’s 13th hole. A witness told police at the time “a blue Ford compact car with a Rutgers sticker was being driven by a younger white male,” according to prosecutors.
After obtaining witness accounts, evidence left at the scene and partial license plate data, Bedminster Township Police arrested McEwan on a criminal mischief charge Tuesday.
His golf course crime spree caused at least $26,000 in damage, according to the statement.
It wasn’t McEwan’s first brush with the law.
On the evening of August 30, McEwan, who lives in Milford, N.J., slipped into an unlocked door at Swift’s beachside Westerly, R.I., home -- where he took his shoes off and searched the mansion “to find Taylor,” police told The Westerly Sun.
"A pair of orange shoes were found at the doorway where he broke in,” Westerly Police Chief Shawn Lacey told the local outlet shortly thereafter. “When officers asked him why he wasn't wearing any, he told them 'I was always taught that when you go into someone's home, you have to take your shoes off.’ He said he did it because it was polite."
Swift was not home at the time.
McEwan was charged with willful trespass and breaking and entering a home without the owner’s consent.
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Neither Lacey nor Trump National Golf Club immediately responded to requets for comment.