"Lying is the most fun a girl can have"

Timothy McNulty | October 24, 2008

UPDATE 8: From the AP:

Bryant said somebody charged with making a false report would typically be cited and sent a summons. But because police have concerns about Todd's mental health, they are consulting with the Allegheny County District Attorney. She remained in custody and was awaiting arraignment.

UPDATE 7: Todd faces a "M3" or "misdemeanor 3," for which the penalty is up to a year in jail. A lawyer pal sent us the relevant language from state law, with the most pertinent stuff in bold. She would have been in bigger trouble if she had directly identified someone as the mugger:

§ 4906. False reports to law enforcement authorities

(a) Falsely incriminating another.--Except as provided in subsection (c), a person who knowingly gives false information to any law enforcement officer with intent to implicate another commits a misdemeanor of the second degree.

(b) Fictitious reports.--Except as provided in subsection (c), a person commits a misdemeanor of the third degree if he:


(1) reports to law enforcement authorities an offense or other incident within their concern knowing that it did not occur; or

(2) pretends to furnish such authorities with information relating to an offense or incident when he knows he has no information relating to such offense or incident.

(c) Grading.--If the violation of subsection (a) or (b) occurs during a declared state of emergency and the false report causes the resources of the law enforcement authority to be diverted from dealing with the declared state of emergency, the offense shall be graded one step greater than that set forth in the applicable subsection.

UPDATE 6: Video from WPXI of police presser here, reading somewhat directly from the news release that follows.

UPDATE 5: Via Bob Mayo's blog (also referenced below), the official statement from the Police Bureau:

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF
1203 Western Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15223

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: PIO Diane Richard
October 24, 2008

UPDATED INFORMATION
WOMAN ROBBED AND ASSAULTED IN BLOOMFIELD

PITTSBURGH - On Friday, October 24th, 2008 Ashley Todd was asked to return to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Headquarters to be re-interviewed and do a composite sketch. During the subsequent interview with Detectives, Ms. Todd stated "she just wanted to tell the truth."

At that time Ms. Todd stated that she made up the story which snowballed and got out of control. Ms. Todd stated that she was not robbed and there is no 6'4" black male attacker.

She indicated that she has had a prior mental problems and she does not remember how the backward letter "B" got on her face. She stated that she thinks she may have done it herself because she was the only one in the car.

When she looked in the rearview mirror and saw the "B" on her face she said she thought of Barrack. Once she told her friend the story and once the police were called she had to stick with it.

Todd will be arrested and charged with Filing a False Police Report (M3).
We are conferring with the Allegheny County DA office on what charges will placed against her.

UPDATE 4: Todd will be charged.

UPDATE 3: As we wait to hear if police will charge Todd for false reporting, we wonder this: will it affect her status at Texas A&M, which is famous for its Aggie code of honor? "An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do." (UPDATE: It's not clear if Todd attended A&M or is just from College Station. Besides the school, the town is also home to the George H.W. Bush presidential library.)

UPDATE 2: Police will hold a news conference on Todd's admission. From the P-G's Jerome Sherman:

Police have called a press conference this afternoon and are expected to say that the inconsistencies in the story of a McCain campaign volunteer who told them she was mugged by a man who cut a "B" on her cheek when he saw a McCain sticker on her car have led them to believe it is a hoax.

 . . . Ms. Todd originally said she was robbed at knifepoint. But yesterday she said she was struck from behind and lost consciousness. She originally said the attacker used the knife to carve a backwards "B" on her cheek. But in the later version she said that she awoke after the attack and felt a stinging sensation on her face, and only realized that she had been cut when she went to a friend's apartment and looked in a mirror. She did not tell police initially that she had been assaulted, but later said she had been groped during the attack.

 . . . Ms. Todd also said she passed out during the attack. When she regained consciousness, she got in her car and drove to a friend's house nearby and called police. She also was missing $60, although she doesn't remember giving her attacker any money.

AFTERNOON UPDATE: KDKA reports that Todd has admitted making up the story:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

(Editor's note: All the material below was first posted Friday morning.)

Police have noted inconsistencies in statements by McCain staffer and mugging victim Ashley Todd -- so many that conservative blogger Michelle Malkin is saying it has shades of the Tawana Brawley case, or as Salon notes, the Morton Downey Jr.'s fake assault.

From Malkin:

Throughout my career, I've covered dozens of fake hate crimes - campus hate crime hoaxes, Muslim hate crime hoaxes, fake noose hangings, etc., etc., etc. Most were perpetrated by liberals, but there have been some shameful ones on our side of the aisle as well.

I've reported on the great lengths that warped attention-seekers have gone to in perpetrating fake hate crimes, including beating themselves up, carving swastikas on their dorm room doors and walls, locking themselves in bathroom stalls, and burning down their own houses.

Which is why I'm not jumping up and down with outrage over Drudge-promoted story of a McCain volunteer claiming to have been attacked by a black man whom she accused of carving a "B" in her face after spotting her McCain bumper sticker.

She refused medical treatment after reporting the incident to police. Why on earth would she do that?

From Salon:

And the Web site TMZ.com says it has sources inside the Pittsburgh police who say "they have serious questions about the authenticity of the alleged victim who says she had her face cut by a politically-motivated attacker." The site also reports that it has been told "there are several things about the alleged attack that don't add up." Police reinterviewed Todd Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports; the questioning lasted at least five hours.  And the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says investigators plan to administer a polygraph test to Todd, reportedly because her statements conflict with evidence from the scene where she says the attack occurred.

A post-attack photo of Todd that the Associated Press says was not taken by police has been circulating on the Internet. Based on that image, some people on the Internet have been asking why the "B" on Todd's cheek is reversed, as if she did it to herself using a mirror. Others have brought up an incident from the late 1980s, when Morton Downey Jr. claimed skinheads had painted a swastika on his face. His story was similarly questioned when it beca that the swastika was reversed.

The photo also shows Todd with a black eye. Salon showed it to Jennifer Province, an emergency room nurse, who says she believes the black eye was faked. The color of it is wrong, Province said, and there's less swelling than typically seen.

This isn't the first time this year that Todd has claimed to be involved in an election-related incident. Earlier this month, she posted to YouTube a video she shot of a janitor at New York's Queens College. In it, she says, "This janitor took down all of my signs ... and tore them apart ... I am really perturbed. He closed off the bathrooms and is making it very hostile."

Salon was able to find some of Todd's personal Web pages, which we're not linking to in order to protect her privacy. What appears to be her MySpace page, which gives her age as 23 rather than 20, is private. But the quote at the top of it is visible -- it reads, "Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her cloths [sic] off, but its [sic] better if you do."

UPDATE: From the Smoking Gun, Todd's Twitter page, where she mentions looking for the ATM "on the wrong side of Pittsburgh."

UPDATE 2: Bob Mayo from WTAE has some interesting links too. And here is her MySpace page, via TrueCrimeReport.

UPDATE 3: The executive vice president of Fox News writes, "Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it. . . If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator  Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee. If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

Here is the YouTube vid Salon references, where she accuses a black janitor of taking down her election signs, followed by another where Todd introduces herself.

Here's the intro vid: