Marietta Man, 20, Accused of Ruining Roommate's PS5 With Toothpaste

A 20-year-old Marietta man is facing a criminal charge after police say he intentionally ruined someone else's PlayStation by squeezing toothpaste into its disc drive. Charles Edwards Lewis was arrested Monday and booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center on a warrant accusing him of criminal trespass damage.

According to an arrest warrant, the incident happened on August 14 at a residence on the 1300 block of Westward Drive SW in southwest Marietta, where Lewis was present at the time. As reported by the Marietta Daily Journal, Lewis is accused of placing toothpaste into the victim's PlayStation CD drive, damaging the console. Marietta police say the address sits roughly three miles from department headquarters on Lemon Street, per local context cited by the paper.

How Toothpaste Can Kill a Game Console

The mechanism behind the alleged sabotage is more than a prank gone wrong. Toothpaste contains abrasive polishing particles, water, and binding chemicals that can gum up mechanical ejector gears, coat delicate optical laser lenses, and trigger short circuits when introduced into electronic disc drives, according to research from Game Console Repairs. Viral online claims about using toothpaste to polish scratched discs have reportedly led to console destruction when the paste ends up inside the drive itself rather than on a disc.

Repairing the damage is not as simple as swapping in spare parts. Replacing a PlayStation 5 disc drive requires transferring the original drive's internal logic board to the replacement unit, because Sony cryptographically pairs the drive board directly to the console's motherboard, per DVD Game Exchange Repair Center. Out-of-warranty PS5 disc drive repairs and replacements typically run between $99 and $250 through third-party shops or official service channels in 2026, according to BadgerLayer.

Why the Charge Stayed a Misdemeanor

That price range matters for how prosecutors are likely to treat the case. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-7-21, a person commits criminal trespass when they intentionally damage another person's property without consent and the damage is $500 or less, or when they knowingly and maliciously interfere with someone else's use of their property, according to Canton GA Lawyers. Because a damaged PS5 drive falls well under that $500 threshold, the allegation against Lewis fits the misdemeanor standard rather than felony second-degree criminal damage to property, which under O.C.G.A. § 16-7-23 applies once damage exceeds $500 and carries a one-to-five-year prison sentence, per Lawson and Berry.

If convicted, Lewis faces the penalties set out under Georgia Code § 17-10-3, which caps a misdemeanor sentence at up to 12 months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both, as detailed by Justia Law. Sentencing courts retain discretion to impose probation or order financial restitution to property owners in cases like this one.

Marietta Police Have Pursued Similar Cases Before

Lewis is not the first Marietta resident this month to face this exact charge over low-dollar property damage. Marietta police sought a similar warrant on August 8 after a local resident was accused of hurling a rock that dented a driver's car door on Cobb Parkway, a case Hoodline covered in an earlier report. Together, the two cases show local police routinely pursuing criminal trespass damage warrants for intentional destruction that stays under the state's $500 felony line.

The Marietta Police Department issued the arrest warrant for Lewis, and jail records show he was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center following his arrest on Monday. The facility is a 1-million-square-foot complex that houses people arrested on county and municipal warrants while they await bond or trial, according to prior Hoodline reporting.

Lewis, who lives in Marietta, is pictured in a Cobb County Sheriff's Office booking photograph. It remains unclear whether the damaged PlayStation belonged to a roommate, family member, or acquaintance, and whether prosecutors will seek restitution for repair or replacement of the console as part of any bond or plea arrangement. As with any arrest warrant, the charge represents an allegation based on probable cause, and Lewis is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.