Democratic firebrand Jasmine Crockett was accused of using the police shooting death of an unarmed black man for political gain, DailyMail.com can reveal. 

Rep. Crockett – who found herself in hot water this week for calling wheelchair-bound Texas Governor Greg Abbot ‘Hot Wheels’ – was hit with a cease-and-desist order in 2022 by the family of 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean, who was shot dead in his apartment by an off-duty police officer in 2018. 

At the time, Crockett was a state representative running for her first term in Congress to succeed retiring Democratic US Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson for the District 30 congressional seat later that year.

She went on to win that race, and has faced no serious challenges since then in her deeply-Democratic Dallas-area district.

‘She’s now trying to raise her profile by saying all these sensational and inflammatory things, and she probably believes she can say whatever she wants because she’s insulated in her deep blue district,’ Republican James Rodgers, who she trounced in the general election, told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

But the 2022 controversy nearly derailed her.

And unlike this week, when she refused to apologize to Governor Abbott, Crockett was pressured into admitting she was wrong at the time. 

Jean’s family accused Crockett of misrepresenting herself as their attorney on her website in a bid to further her political career. 

‘Botham’s name is not an endorsement you can parade, and his legacy is not a sound bite you can use to garner media coverage,’ the family wrote in a scathing open letter to Crockett in March 2022. 

‘For you to misrepresent yourself as one of our attorneys is absolutely disgusting,’ the letter added.

Jean was fatally shot while eating ice cream in his Dallas apartment in September 2018. Amber Guyger, a 30-year-old Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own, was convicted in the killing and sentenced to 10 years in prison. She will be eligible for parole next year.

Jean’s mother Allison Jean told the Dallas Morning News that Crockett’s own campaign website promoted the false narrative.

‘I don’t like politicians misrepresenting my family, especially my son, who is not here to defend himself, for political mileage,’ the mom stated.

After being called out for her misrepresentation, Crockett called it a mistake and had the reference removed from her website.

She issued a statement to the media that ‘as a civil rights attorney, I’d never intentionally inflict additional distress upon any family. There may have been confusion about some information on our website which was remedied as quickly as it was brought to our attention.’

But Botham Jean’s mom went further in her interview with the paper, expressing disgust that in a 2020 podcast, Crockett called Botham Jean’s father one of her greatest admirers.

‘She indicated in her video that my husband is one of her huge fans,’ the mom told the publication. 

‘But that is not true. My husband is not on social media. He doesn’t know Jasmine currently, so I don’t know how you can be a fan of somebody that he doesn’t know.’

The paper reported that Crockett has had conversations with the father and that they posed together for at least one picture. But the family didn’t make any endorsements in the race.

In the end, the controversy didn’t make a difference. 

Crockett went on to win a crowded primary race after a runoff against former congressional chief of staff Jane Hamilton, bolstered by a $2million donation from two super PACs affiliated with convicted cryptocurrency king Sam Bankman-Fried.

She then coasted to victory over Rodgers.

‘She claimed false glory in a legal case she had nothing to do with, then took $2million in Ponzi scheme money from Sam Bankman-Fried, and that was the end of her primary,’ Rodgers told DailyMail.com Wednesday. 

‘And once you buy the primary in the 30th District, you’ve pretty much just bought yourself a congressional seat for life.’

Crockett was speaking last weekend at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Los Angeles when she referred to Abbott, who uses a wheel chair, as ‘Governor Hot Wheels’ – attracting shocked laughter from the crowd.

‘Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there, c’mon now, and the only thing hot about him is that he’s a hot a** mess, honey,’ she told the cheering audience. 

Facing backlash, she later denied she was mocking his disability.

‘I wasn’t thinking about the governor’s condition,’ she posted Tuesday on social media.

‘I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable,’ she wrote.

‘Literally, the next line I said was that he was a ‘Hot A** Mess,’ referencing his terrible policies. ‘At no point did I mention or allude to his condition,’ she stated.

Abbott said Crockett’s comments highlighted the depth of the problems Democrats are facing.

‘It’s another day and another disaster by the Democrats,’ he told Fox’s Hannity.

‘The reality is they have no vision, no policy. They have nothing to sell but hate, and Americans are not buying it.’

Abbott said it was comments like these which would hold Democrats back as they look to reinvent themselves following Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump.

Republican Representative Randy Weber was among critics who did not buy Crockett’s justification for her words.

He intends to introduce a censure resolution against Crockett for her ‘venomous rhetoric,’ he told Fox.

Abbott was left paralyzed from the waist down when he was just 26 years old after a tree fell on him as he was jogging. At the time, he was a recent law school graduate and studying to take the bar exam.

He is not the only person who has been colorfully insulted by Crockett.

She referred to Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor-Green as having a ‘bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body’ and called President Donald Trump ‘a vindictive vile villain.’