LAKEHURST – If you Google “Mark Coleman New Jersey,” you’ll get articles about a man who was charged with threatening to kill his girlfriend and sexually assaulted her.
The charges were dropped, but the articles remain.
Mark Coleman, 25, is living in Freehold now, but lived in Lakehurst at the time of his 2017 arrest.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office has since reported “no bill” on those charges, which meant that when it went to court, there was no case against him.
“Everyone I’m connected to on Facebook saw that article,” he said. The people who really knew him, knew that he was innocent. But the people who didn’t know him all that well didn’t have anything else to go on.
The woman who was making the accusations made contradictory statements to police, he said. “The whole thing unraveled when we went to court.”
But it took a while to get to the court.
“I was in jail for six months waiting for that, with no bail, like a murderer,” he said. He was in the maximum security tier. He was involved in multiple fights. People in jail don’t like men accused of rape.
“My take on it: When you’re in a position to be in a jail like that, it’s comforting to have someone there they can look down on. It makes them feel better about the reasons they are there,” he said.
He had been working for a construction company at the time of his arrest. He lost that job due to the arrest, but was able to find new work quickly after his release.
Now that he’s free, he wants to put it all behind him, and clear his name, when an article on the internet can linger forever.
