Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Three beautiful woman make horrific false accusations and get busted

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

When a woman accuses a man of rape, there are serious consequences for the alleged rapist even before the investigation is completed. But when the investigation reveals the accusations are false, there can be serious consequences for the woman. Nancy Grace explores several cases in which women are prosecuted for falsifying evidence and lying about sexual assaults. Her experts include defense lawyer Troy Slaten, child advocate Ashley Willcott, psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael, prosecutor Wendy Patrick, and Heavy.com reporter Jennifer Dzikowski. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Serious felony accusations. People's lives at risk. Jail time. Hard jail time. And then suddenly we discover the accusations are false. Made up. Fabricated. Today, three examples, known examples, tried and true.

Three women make heinous charges against innocent people. But why? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. What acts like this do to the criminal justice system, it's hard to measure. Because every time a jury sits in a box and tries to determine guilt or innocence, they remember cases like this. For instance, let's just start with Breonna Harmon, nearly 20 years old. She rushes into a small church in Denison, Texas, wearing only a shirt, a bra, and her underwear.

Screaming and crying, claiming she had been kidnapped from her car, raped by two men in the woods behind the church while a third man held her down. Joining me right now, Jennifer Zekowski with heavy.com, one of my favorite sites. Jennifer, what can you tell me? Let's just start at the beginning. So everybody's sitting in church there in Denison, Texas, And in comes Brianna, gorgeous young girl covered in blood. Yes. Take it on, Jennifer.

Absolutely. As you said, heinous. Nowadays, I guess it's not that shocking to me, unfortunately, which is very sad with all the stories that I cover. By all accounts, Brianna truly appeared to be living a life that so many would dream of. She was young. She was attractive. She had a handsome fiance. And, you know, what really could have been the start of a great future.

Brianna's fiance, well, obviously now an ex-fiance after what she put him through, his name is Sam Hollingsworth. He isn't sure of what her motive was. Even he didn't know. One thing I do know is that Brianna's fiance was set to join the Army. And he, of course, may have had to move for that reason. Nancy, here's what the former fiance had to say on Fox 4. There were a lot of people in the war tanks for us. I was hurt. It was hard to take in whenever I found out about everything.

Someone who I actually trusted and was planning on spending the rest of my life with could actually do something like that to me and everybody else in this community. I spoke with a friend of her fiancé, Autumn Jones. She said that, you know, this had been Sam's dream for a very long time in the Army, and for whatever reason, Breonna was wholeheartedly against it. She did not want to move, and they had really been arguing about it.

So the only thing, Nancy, that I can come up with is if she felt like she could make him feel really horrible. If maybe she made up this horrible, horrific crime, that he would somehow be at her beck and call. That he would want to make her comfortable as possible, not want to hurt pressure her to move as he had wished or even maybe as he would have been required to do through the Army. So I really think it was her way of gaining control of the situation. And what's so, well, it's all odd. It's all odd. With me, Jennifer Sikowsky with Heavy.com, reporter Wendy Patrick California prosecutor Dr. Chloe Carmichael clinical psychologist and founder of askdrcc.com and Troy Slayton veteran defense attorney Jennifer Sikowsky I want to establish a few more facts before I open it up to our panel. This, I mean, it was so well planned out because it all started with a man calling 911, the fiance, and frantically telling police that Talbot's vehicle had been found in a parking lot of Creekmore Apartments,

there on Texoma Parkway, with the driver's door wide open, hanging open. Her keys, her phones, her cell phone were in the car and a shoe artfully found near the car as if she had been dragged away, kicking and screaming, digging her heels in, then carried off into a wooded area behind a church. She bursts into the church. I'm looking at the church right now. I can only imagine where these giant doors were opened up. People were in there. I guess it must've been a Wednesday night. She breaks in covered in blood, wearing a shirt, a bra, and underwear, screaming that she had been attacked and raped by a group of men. All right. The havoc that caused.

But the reality, Jennifer Zagowski, this took a lot of planning to stage the scene. I mean, with the car door wide open like she had been carjacked and somebody dragged her out of the car. Even thinking that special touch of leaving her shoe beside the car, Jennifer. Yes, and how someone could go through that and go through all of that planning, I cannot even imagine. And then to come up with a story that she did, that she was raped by three black men. Of course, that caused a huge controversy, a huge stir online. There were so many headlines, horrible headlines that actually don't want to repeat all of them right now. But as you can imagine.

All right, Jennifer, blame the black man. Here's Denison, Texas Police Chief Jay Birch. Rumors and other information out there quickly spun out of control. A lot of our citizens became fearful. There were rumors that there was either individuals or groups of individuals that were randomly going around town abducting women, and that just wasn't true. Many people saw it on social media and believed it. But almost immediately, from our point of perspective, our investigators just were not able to put the pieces of the puzzle together as it was reported to us as to what happened.

As a result, we really found no evidence of kidnapping and no evidence of sexual assault. So the crime scene, as we believe it, starting with her vehicle all the way to the point that she walked into the church, was staged. The injuries that she had, the cuts and the bruises, she confessed herself there were no suspects even though initially people were supplying us a name here and there as possible persons of interest our investigators actually checked one or two people they very quickly were found to have uh outliers that we were able to confirm so from the early stages we did do our diligence in following up it reminds me of susan smith she's all slung up with her rich boyfriend she he doesn't want a ready-made family. So she drowns all her children, buckles them into the car and pushes the car in the lake, then blames the black man.

I'm telling you what, I'll never forget, Jennifer, when that happened. I was sitting in court choice late, and you're going to love this story. You've been in court a million times like me. I'm sitting in court with my partner, a tall, thin black male. And all the reports come out. And I looked at the sketch, Troy, and I looked over at Herman. I said, Herman, where were you? The sketch looked exactly like Herman, who I might add is now a judge. And he looked, he went, oh, dear Lord in heaven, the black man has done it again.

I mean, it's just such a, blame the black man. So she runs in to the church, Troy. I'm sure you're about all set to defend her and blames three non-existent black guys. And what that did to that community. I mean, Troy, what is your defense? This is clearly a girl who is suffering. Suffering from what?

Self-aggrandizement? Self-centeredness? What is she, one of the ultimate mean girls? I mean, suffering from what? I noticed you paused right there. Suffering from, let me think, let me think, let me think, let me think. What mean, suffering from what? I noticed she paused right there. Suffering from, let me think, let me think, let me think, let me think. What's she suffering from? Some sort of mental disease or defect where she would go to such an extent where she would

actually cut her body. The reports are that she caused cuts and lacerations that resulted in blood dripping from her entire body. That is not something that a person who is in control of their faculties would do, Nancy. Yes, I agree with you. Not in control of her faculties. Or maybe she was just a self-centered little, well, I don't allow my twins to curse and I'm not going to do it either. I gave it all up when I had twins. My sailor mouth is gone. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, please help me.

Throw me a bone here because just to me, self-inflicted wounds, I mean, you can spot them a mile away, number one. But number two, this is the height of self-centeredness. A, possibly trying to make your boyfriend give up his military career he's dreamed of his whole life and stay in town with you. Get attention. It's all about me, me, me, me. And then blame the black community who's minding their own business until Breanna busts up in there blaming them? Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. I've got the easier argument on this one. Poor Troy. That is what the defense has to struggle with in cases like this. If you've got someone suffering from pathological narcissism to the extent that they will actually go, and by the way, I suppose it's

good that we have an admission to go with all this just to make sure. But the level of sophistication, planning, drama, and willingness to subject a community to a false belief where, like you said, Nancy, you are looking with suspicion at people that might fit the profile is just beyond the pale. And that's one of the reasons that when we have righteous claims of kidnapping, you have these crying wolf incidents that make people less able to actually look at righteous claims in the light that they should be looked at because we're suspicious when people like this do what they did. Well, I guess I've lost my mind here because I'm going to a reporter, a prosecutor, and a defense lawyer on this.

I've got a shrink, people. Dr. Chloe, no offense, guys, because you're all unique and special in your own individual way. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, askdrcc.com, clinical psychologist. This woman has confessed that she did this. She made it up. She itself inflicted the wounds. So it's not like I'm speculating she made it up. She admits she made it up after the police and the sheriffs in that town say, we don't think three guys kidnapped her. We think this was staged and there's no indication she was raped. She broke down and confessed. Dr. Chloe, take a listen to this. Of course, the problem with this being a hoax is it made our community, at least some of our

community, fearful. And even though we know the story now to be a hoax, there's going to be people down the road that are going to remember this, and they may not remember the outcome, and that may put a stain on our community that we can't get rid of. That's always a concern. Plus, Breanna Talbot hoaxed with insults into our community, and certainly insulted to our African American community due to her description of so-called suspects in our hopes. And the anger and hurts that are caused from such a host are difficult. And sadly, it's so unnecessary. This never needed to happen.

And it's unfortunate that Ms. Dallin took this direction to waste the police office, police department time. We put all of our cases on back burners that we are currently working. So we have not been able to perform our duties for our other citizens in our community because we've been so focused on this alleged crime. Dr. Chloe, please make sense of it. Oh, absolutely, Nancy. It sounds, frankly, very much like sociopathy. So a sociopath would be someone who has absolutely no regard for anyone else except for themselves. And it certainly does sound like she had a motivation to be seeking sympathy and claiming a victim role so that her fiance would make special allowances and accommodations for

her. Moreover, it doesn't sound like she confessed out of guilt. It sounds, again, very self-mot sounds again, very self motivated that she realized basically that she had been caught. And it was now time to switch and play a different type of victim card and you know, maybe claim that she's mentally disturbed or something like that. But she sounds actually like someone who's very much in control of her faculties to me. Man, can you imagine Wendy Patrick, when this girl grows up? Oh, dear Lord. She's just, she's just, well, I can't curse. Let me think. An evil mastermind

in training. I got to tell you. Okay. She's still a teen. What's going to happen when she's grown up and has real problems like bills and children and a house payment, a car payment. What's going to happen then? Yeah, I got to tell you, one of the things that just struck me is what your last guest said, a different type of victim, switching different types of victim roles as she grows up, Nancy. What is that going to look like? Unless this cycle is broken right now, who knows how bad this could get? Because we already know by, like you said, that absolutely having not the kind of remorse, guilt, shame that one would expect having put on this type of an elaborate show gone to the extent that she did staging the car and the shoe and all the rest of it. I really hope she gets the help she needs before we learn what kind

of an adult she's going to become. I just love the shoe. I mean, that's the icing on the cake for me. Take a listen to this. Can you be a little bit more specific about some of the things that you said just weren't adding up about her story? I'm thinking, you know, maybe along the lines of her injuries or are there any other things that you can touch on that maybe kind of tick off and say you know these were some of the red flags right off the bat that didn't make sense um i'll give a couple of them um first of all the apartment complex where this happened is a very good and safe apartment complex we just don't have that many calls out there and the location within the apartment complex if you looked at it there's only one place in and one place out this allegedly occurred in the very far back of the in the cul-de-sac area of the

complex which would not be typical of somebody trying to grab somebody and get away quickly typically they're not going to go deeply into such a complex where it may be difficult for them to get out the second part of the original allegation was the time of day when this allegedly occurred. There's broad daylight, it's around the time kids are getting out of school, getting home from school, there's a lot of people around and that again is just not typical that someone would grab somebody and brought they like that would be good chance of being seen by women and of course we talked to everyone around there, and no one saw her or even heard of any of that at that time. I just believe that it's heavy.

Back to Jennifer Zekowski with Heavy.com, investigative reporter. So Jennifer, she admits that she made the whole thing up. She was charged with two counts of tampering with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with a government record. Three of the charges are felonies and carry a maximum of 10 years. What she did is absolutely terrible. Like you said, not only to those around her, her loved ones, her fiance, but to the black community itself. For her to get off with something like probation, I think it would really be offensive to those who have actually gone through a horrible assault like she had lied about going through. Alan, what's the end to this story? What happened?

Nancy, Brianna Harmon has entered a plea of guilty to four felony charges of tampering with physical evidence and government documents. Her lawyer says she's, quote, very remorseful for what she did and what she said, and that's why she's decided to plead guilty. And the Denison police chief says his department will be seeking restitution

from Breanna. We spent a significant amount of cost and resources to pursue this case. In fact, in our meetings that we've had over the last couple of weeks, I think we've put as much more into this as we do the murder investigation. So that's how serious we believed it was, and we accepted it for that. Once we found out and confirmed it was a huggins, I think it's only fair from a taxpayer's perspective that we ask for those costs to be reimbursed to us because we spent significant taxpayer money on regular time and overtime work in this case.

And we also want to send a message that if you want to lie to the police and make up a story, especially a major story like this, that is what I call a quality of life type of crime, that there's consequences for that. Breonna Harmon shall be sentenced on March 20th, and prosecutors have agreed to a plea deal with two possible punishments for the judge to choose, either regular probation or deferred adjudication. That's where it would allow the conviction to be dismissed from her criminal record after she successfully completed the probation period. Of course, the defense wants that deferred adjudication. Well, the reality is that what this does is hurt so many legitimate victims. Legitimate victims are now going to be testifying in front of juries with this

in the jurors' minds, Breonna Harmon. And now we head to South Setauket. A gorgeous young girl, like long, beautiful. Jackie, look at this girl. Long, beautiful, dark brunette hair. Perfect skin. A perfect little cupid bow mouth. Just precious in every way. Much like the Brianna girl. Just a gorgeous, beautiful physically.

Who knew about the snakes writhing in their heads? This university student claims that she is dragged into a bathroom at a party and raped by two football stars. Never been arrested, never had a problem, and both of them, both of the football players, had great grades. Never been caught driving and drinking, urinating in public, causing a disturbance, peeking in windows disorderly nothing squeaky clean joining me right now jennifer zakowski with heavy.com wendy patrick dr chloe carmichael and troy slayton renowned defense attorney jenniferowski, what happened with Nikki Uvino? Well, what it really sounds like to me, she wanted to get, she was hoping to win the sympathy of another male student. And so she came up with...

Oh, no, not all this for a guy again. Oh, if you got to work this hard to get a guy, just forget him. Move to the next one. They're like buses. There's a new one coming along every 15 minutes. No offense, Troy Slayton. Don't take it the wrong way. Okay. Sorry. I interjected. Go ahead, Jennifer. You were just saying, Jennifer Zuchowski, that this is all to get the attention of a boyfriend. Okay, go ahead. It's just disgusting that you could, you know, for three months, because it did take three months for her to recant her story. These men, these football players who had so much going for them,

they were seen as monsters because of her false accusations. Of course, she's claiming to be suffering from a psychiatric illness. So it's kind of tough to say what's really going to pan out in the end. As far as, you know, why did she do this? You know, was she a pathological liar? I was thinking about that. And pathological liars, they lie without reason or purpose. Again, you know, without reason or purpose. She had a reason.

Nikki had a reason. And in my opinion, that was selfishly to put her own lust over that of two young football players. Again, those football players who had everything going for them. And any ounce of integrity that she may have had went out the window at that moment when she made that choice to make these false accusations. It's been reported that these players lost their football scholarships. And that means a lot because I remember when I met my fiance, Keith, he was on baseball scholarship and that paid for him to go to college. And that means a lot to people. My sister went to university on scholarship. It's another harrowing case of a rape occurring at a college party where underage students are drinking. This girl claims she was repeatedly assaulted by two Sacred Heart University football players in a tiny little bathroom where the party was going on outside. The players were dismissed from the team. They withdrew from school, reportedly lost their football scholarships.

Her lawyer insisted that she was horribly assaulted. When suddenly a new line, a new theory, a line of facts appear, did she make the whole thing up to gain the attention of a boyfriend? Okay, Troy Slayton, you're the veteran defense attorney. What are you going to do with this? It's going to be difficult, Nancy. Just like all of these cases where a person like this is accused of upending our entire system of justice, where we'd rather a hundred or a thousand guilty people go free than rather have one innocent person suffer a false accusation. We need to look at what it was, all the things in her life that brought her to this. And maybe instead of incarcerating her in jail, we craft a probationary sentence that gets her the help that she is obviously screaming out for and needs.

You know what, Wendy Patrick, I think she can get help behind bars. They're not mutually exclusive. No, that's absolutely correct. And, you know, choice that really hit it on the nail on the head. She did this. She upended the system of justice and that deserves punishment plus rehabilitation. Of course, she can get it behind bars. And there has to be a punishment more than counseling for this kind of a behavior because of the damage it could potentially do in the community. We see cases like this. And like you said earlier, it delegitimizes victims that actually are raped in bathrooms to have people falsely claim that they're not so that we've become desensitized to these allegations as a community, as a society. And jurors will have forefront in their minds these false claims instead of listening to when it does actually happen. So these are great points. And I'm glad we're talking about this, Nancy, because people need to know.

Well, I got an update for you, Wendy. I got an update for you, Wendy Patrick. She just rejected a plea deal. Miss Thing has rejected a plea deal. Wendy, I know you, like me, have tried and investigated so many rape cases. I don't even remember how many. I remember a guy nicknamed the Red Rapist because he always wore red on every rape, and he'd leave a red rose in the room after he raped the lady. And it was very difficult for these victims to relive it on the stand. Some of them could barely speak. I've had rape victims bend over in half on the stand in tears. They couldn't even sit up.

I had one woman refuse. She told everybody about her rape. The evidence supported her rape. She was beaten horribly. When her husband came in the courtroom, she would not say she was raped because of her culture that made her, quote, unclean and dishonorable. And I can't even tell you what we had to go through. Just the shame and the stigma attached to rape victims. Then I had one victim and I remember Court TV wanted to cover this serial rape case live. And I immediately said, no, I don't have a camera in the courtroom on these ladies.

It got back to the women and one of them looked at me and said, why? I'm not ashamed. I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, put it on TV and show his face, not mine or show mine and his. I don't care. And you know what? I went back and I said, well, there's been an unusual change of events. We are, we will do it. And she was right. She was right. It's not her fault. And what this woman does, it attacks the credibility of every rape victim. Listen to this. Jennifer Zagowski, heavy.com. You brought my attention to this, guys. The case of this former Connecticut college student who was charged with lying about a rape by two star university football players is headed to trial. It's reported that 19-year-old Nikki Yovino rejected a plea deal.

They offered her a two-year prison sentence, and a judge offered a one-year prison sentence. One year! I mean, the reality, Troy Slayton on one year, one year. Now, it's important they said one year versus 12 months because if the sentence reads 12 months, that means it's a misdemeanor. When they say one year, that means it's going to be regarded as a felony. So they offer her one year. You know what she'd do on that, Troy, with this kind of charge? She might do maybe two months, eight weeks behind bars before they cut her loose

to open up that bed for a violent felon or a drug dealer. Right? Am I right, Troy? It all depends. Every jurisdiction. Oh, Troy. As to how long they're going to keep somebody. But Nancy, going to trial is possibly a good thing for the defense here as far as strategy,

because in order to get a conviction, they need all 12 jurors to agree beyond a reasonable doubt but as a defense attorney we know that all we need is to turn one juror and that's a hung jury which is a win for the defense police say she admitted to making up all the claims because she was worried another guy would lose interest in her when he found out about the voluntary sex encounter in the bathroom. Okay. To Dr. Chloe Carmichael, clinical psychologist and founder of AskDrCC.com. Dr. CC, help me out here. Nancy, I'm appalled. I mean, really the thing that people are missing, I think, when it comes to, you know, quote, the help that they need, these women, what they need is consequences. What they're suffering from is a sense of entitlement. And the way that we cure entitlement is to provide consequences.

You know, it's wonderful that in our community, of course, people want to rally around a rape victim and bolster them as much as we can. And so for somebody to then just glom onto that and make up a rape because they just want the support of the community, or in this case, this woman wanted to kind of ignite the protective side of a man that she knew, that she thought maybe this would help him to become very protective and caring towards her. The fact that she would exploit that tendency in a man or exploit those tendencies in a community. I think one year is, it's an insult to the honor of the men that she has defamed. You know, you're right. And I'm very surprised. I mean, let's just get real for a

moment. Once she is convicted, which I think she will be since she's confessed everything, and there was no proof that a rape had occurred, once she is convicted, Troy Slayton, don't you think that there will be a civil suit by these guys against her? Absolutely. And in a civil suit, in a case like this, if she is convicted, then the only issue is of how much money. Once a conviction occurs, liability has been determined and the only issue will be how much money. But they don't even have to file a civil suit if there is a criminal conviction because they can recover all of their monetary damages from restitution that can be ordered by a criminal judge that's enforceable as if it were a civil judgment.

Guys, we are waiting for this to unfold, but as of right now, Nikki Uvino has rejected a plea deal. Nancy, although Uvino's lawyer insists she denies lying about the sex assault and she stands by her original story, a police affidavit just made public says that she told investigators that she, quote, made up the allegations of sexual assault against the football players because it was the first thing that came to her mind and she didn't want to lose another male student as a friend and potential boyfriend. The police warrant also says that she stated she believed when the other male student heard the allegation, it would make him angry and sympathetic to her. Jovina is charged now with

second-degree false reporting of an incident and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. The tampering charge is a felony and she could get up to five years in prison for that. She has been freed on $150,000 bond. She is presumed innocent until proven guilty and now the state will take on that burden to prove the case. Now we head to Tuscaloosa and a woman who was now under arrest. Police say there's no doubt about it. She lied about her ex coming in, home invasion, tying her up and assaulting her. Another scary aspect of this, she's a mom. I wonder what effect all of this is having on her child. To Jennifer Zikowski with Heavy.com, an investigative reporter, what can you tell me about what goes down at 5 p.m.

on a lovely tree-lined street, Greystone Drive, and 25-year-old Mariah Jordan Smith? What happened, Jennifer? Well, you know, she called police. She claimed to have been raped and tied up by an ex-boyfriend. I'm not sure if that was for revenge or what a motive could be behind putting such a terrible allegation towards someone, accusing them of something so horrific. And the reason I say she's really not smart, she didn't even realize that he was actually out of town.

So police, from the beginning, they found discrepancies in her story. But once they were able to verify that the ex-boyfriend had beenation of rape, you're hurting every single true sexual assault victim out there. It's appalling. And I say this as someone, Nancy, who has a very close family member, who was kidnapped. She was brutally raped. This was my sister. This type of behavior, it's offensive to my sister, to those who have actually lived through the reality of a true rape, a total and utter nightmare. And with this woman, I believe they need to make an example while all of these women,

but also with Mariah, they need to be punished to the full extent of the law. No, not only, you know, as an example, but to prevent the destruction of other lives. So that maybe someone else who is thinking of doing something so absolutely crazy will stop and think, oh, you know, what Mariah went through and what Brianna went through, what Nikki went through, and maybe they'll stop and think what the consequences are and hopefully not go through with destroying more lives. Joining me, Wendy Patrick, Southern California prosecutor, Dr. Chloe Carmichael, and Troy Slayton, veteran defense attorney. The facts laid out by police are as follows. Tuscaloosa police were sent around five in the afternoon to a Greystone Drive home with a report of sex assault. The alleged victim, Mariah Smith, tells them there's no doubt about the idea of the perpetrator that it was her former boyfriend who enters her home uninvited through an unlocked door that's still a burglary, goes in her bedroom.

Now, catch this, the level of detail. He ties her legs to the bed, ties her hands together, and rapes her, and then leaves the home. Well, it didn't take long for them to find out. He wasn't in the state at the time. He was out of the state the entire time. Hood, the police chief, corroborates his alibi with local law enforcement. If she hadn't been so dead sure as to the perp, they may have been on a wild goose chase for the real perp, in quotas. But she was sure, positive she ID'd her ex-boyfriend, no doubt about it. He was out of the state. What's interesting to me, to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, founder of AskDrCC.com, is the level of detail in these lies. When I would prosecute

or cross-examine, I would listen to the level of detail in various people's stories, because that takes some thinking, you know, to make up a lie rich with detail. It certainly does. She did that here, Dr. Chloe. Yes, it certainly does, Nancy. And the level of detail in this case, it almost suggests, frankly, on the level of fantasy, you know, which is something else to consider as well. You know, what type of relationship or what type of attention, you know, that she might have been seeking, we really don't know. But the level of detail, I agree, is absolutely captivating. And I'll tell you, Nancy, as a clinical psychologist in New York City, I have had women come into my practice and in their privacy of closed doors, confess to me that they

have absolutely made up a rape or made up a sexual harassment because they wanted to get some money out of their company or whatever the case may be. So these things really do happen. And as has been said before, and I agree 100%, it really cheapens the pain that actual victims of harassment and actual victims of rape do go through. And I'm so glad that you're finally breaking the taboo because as a society, we have such an emphasis on believing the victim, which is important, but we have to remember that sometimes the victim is actually a perpetrator. To Troy Slayton, defense attorney, in this one, it was that absolutely rock hard, solid, 100 percent positive ID of her ex that did this story.

Normally, I criticize police for engaging in what I call a confirmation bias, where they are looking for evidence to confirm that they believe a certain person committed the crime. But here the police actually did some real good old-fashioned police work and were able to disprove several of the allegations that she made, the biggest one being that her boyfriend wasn't even in the state. But as we move as a society into really a different phase with the entire Me Too movement, I think this is an excellent story because a lot of men have had a lot of clients who have been wrongly accused, and we're at a point where people are just automatically believing every accused. Well, hold on. Hold on just a moment. See, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, this is the problem.

Now we're talking about all these guys who are claiming, they're like, oh, yeah, I was wrongfully accused. B.S. Okay? This is few and far between. And with the technology we have today, you can scientifically prove whether or not someone was raped. In many cases, a rape kit shows that a nurse at a rape exam can determine trauma in the pelvic area. There's so many ways to corroborate the story. And the guys are claiming in so many cases, the same old thing.

It was consensual. Another issue here is this is a young mom. This Tuscaloosa mom arrested for false report after she admits she lied about her ex raping and tying her up. She is a nurse. I mean, do you want her hovering around your bed? I mean, if she's going to lie to police about this, you know, there was a jury charge, Wendy, and I'm sure you've heard it. If the jury believes a witness, be it defendant, victim, or witness, has lied in part on anything, even if it's small, the jury can then discount their testimony in its entirety. Oh, absolutely, Nancy. And, you know, one of the things I'm glad you brought up is false reports are few and far between. I'm glad we're publicizing them today because they actually

do exist. But the fact that they're few and far between and is important component of this whole me too mix where more people can say, oh, yeah, I was also falsely accused. The reason these ones came to light that we're discussing is diligent police investigation caused the original stories to begin to unravel. That is not the case in many of the crimes that we see. They are corroborated forensically, Nancy, as you say. They are corroborated through other witnesses, through victims, through a patterns make the predator type of serial victim sometimes. In other words, there's far more than just one statement in isolation

that can then be matched with, well, gosh, where was the perpetrator? Who saw him? What other evidence is there? So the fact that these are few and far between should be kept in the mix because it's not true that every time we get another allegation, we should automatically assume it's false just because we've caught some of the false ones. I'm glad we've caught some of the false ones because we don't want anybody to be accused unjustly. We also don't want it to affect the legitimacy of the real allegations and the true allegations. Exactly.

Now, I want to point out that these ladies are innocent until proven guilty or until they plead guilty. And especially this one concerns me. I don't know what was going through their minds when they thought this was a good idea or how smart they thought they were that they could pull this off. But one of these ladies has a little girl, a child she is raising. And one day she's going to have to explain this to that child. And that's going to be a conversation I don't want to listen to. Nancy Grace, hoping justice will prevail. Crime Stories, signing off.

Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.