3/4/08 Los Angeles Times: Author admits gang-life 'memoir' was all fiction.  Sister blew the whistle on writer who said she was a foster child in South L.A. , but really grew up with her family in Sherman Oaks,
by Bob Pool and Rebecca Trounson 
    The gripping memoir of "Margaret B. Jones" received critical raves. It turns out it should have been reviewed as fiction. 
    The author of "Love and Consequences," a critically acclaimed autobiography about growing up among gangbangers in South Los Angeles , acknowledged Monday that she made up everything in her just-published book.
    "Jones" is actually Margaret Seltzer. Instead of being a half-white, half-Native American who grew up in a foster home and once sold drugs for the Bloods street gang, she is a white woman who was raised with her biological family in Sherman Oaks and graduated from Campbell Hall, an exclusive private school in the San Fernando Valley .
    Her admission that she is a fake came in a tearful mea culpa to the New York Times, which last week published a profile of Seltzer using her pseudonym. It was accompanied by a photograph of the 33-year-old and her 8-year-old daughter in Eugene , Ore. , where they now live.
    Seltzer was unmasked when her sister Cyndi Hoffman, 47, saw the newspaper's profile and notified the memoir's publisher, Riverhead Books, that Seltzer's story was untrue.
    Riverhead announced Monday that it had withdrawn "Love and Consequences" and canceled a book tour that was supposed to have started yesterday in Eugene .
    Seltzer could not be reached at her home for comment late Monday.
    In a brief telephone interview, Seltzer's mother said her daughter was very upset and contrite about the fabrication, but had been advised by her editor not to speak further about it for the moment. 
    "I think she got caught up in the facts of the story she was trying to write," Gay Seltzer said. "She's always been an activist and she tried to draw on the immediacy of the situation and became caught up in the persona of the narrator. She's very sorry and very upset."
    Gay Seltzer, of Sherman Oaks, said she had been aware of her daughter's book, but had not read it or known that it was a purportedly personal account of gang life.
    She confirmed that Hoffman had revealed the hoax.
    Margaret Seltzer's literary agent, Faye Bender, declined to comment.
    "I'm so sorry, I can't be a part of it. I'm running out" the door, she said.
    But Sarah McGrath, Seltzer's editor at Riverhead, told the New York Times on Monday that the publishing house was stunned by the disclosure.
    "It's very upsetting to us because we spent so much time with this person and felt such sympathy for her and she would talk about how she didn't have any money or heat and we completely bought into that," McGrath told the newspaper.
    McGrath, whom the paper identified as the daughter of former New York Times book review editor and current writer-at-large Charles McGrath, characterized the deception as "a huge personal betrayal" and "a professional one."
    "Love and Consequences" drew admiring reviews from critics. Los Angeles Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds cited "her loyalty to the language, the sense of community, the tight bonds she formed with her gang."
    The review told of how "at 5, Margaret B. Jones, part white, part Native American, was taken from her suburban Southern California home after she came to school bleeding from what the teachers and social workers assumed was a sexual assault. She spent three years in foster care before landing with 'Big Mom,' a hard-working black woman raising four grandchildren in South Central Los Angeles. It didn't take Jones long to fall in with the Bloods."
    The reviewer told of how the book described "Jones" selling drugs at age 12 because she was "eager to earn my own money toward the flame-red Nike Cortez with fat laces that everyone else wore, but even more excited to prove myself worthy of wearing the affiliated color and moving up the ranks."
    Seltzer told the New York Times that although the personal story told in the book was fabricated, other details were based on friends' real experiences. 
    "I just felt there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it," she said.

2/19/08 Columbia University Spectator: "Teacher College Professor Constantine Sanctioned for Plagiarism,"
By Joy Resmovits, Lydia Wileden
    Professor Madonna Constantine has been sanctioned by Teachers College 
for plagiarism, according to a memo obtained by Spectator Tuesday evening. The memo, dated Feb. 18, was hand-delivered to professors on the Office of the President's stationery.
    TC confirmed in a statement later Tuesday evening that after an internal investigation TC had "found numerous instances in which she [Constantine] used others' work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years."
    The statement specifies that "the investigation, which began in 2006, was prompted by complaints from students and one former faculty member who said language from materials they wrote was included without attribution in the articles."
    The statement explained that "The investigation, which was conducted by Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a law firm with a substantial practice representing universities and academic institutions, concluded that Professor Constantine's explanation for the strikingly similar language was not credible."
    Constantine has the right to appeal to the Faculty Advisory Committee, the statement noted. An emergency TC faculty meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday.
    In October, Constantine, a professor of counseling and clinical psychology, was thrust into the spotlight as the victim of an apparent hate crime when a noose was found on her office door. Students and colleagues rallied to her defense, describing her as a scholar who addressed issues of race head-on.  As of last month, the New York Police Department had not identified any suspects in the case.
    The memo commended Professor Christine Yeh, former TC professor and current faculty member at the University of San Francisco, and former TC students Tracy Juliao and Karen Cort for their cooperation.  Yeh did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening. One TC faculty member said that 
nine other students did not come forward against Constantine because  they were unable to seek indemnity in time.
    Jasmine Alvarez, a TC student in Constantine's department, said she was shocked when she learned about the memo from a Spectator reporter.  "I'm shocked. I'm surprised," said Alvarez, who is also the diversity representative for the TC Student Senate. "I wouldn't have expected that.
    From the many publications that she already has written and from her reputation, that just doesn't add up to me."

12/29/07 Associated Press: “Hannah Montana ticket winner loses prize,”
    Garland , Texas - A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay falsely claiming her father died in Iraq isn't going to the show after all.
    The contest's sponsor, a store chain named Club Libby Lu, withdrew the prize Saturday and awarded it to another contestant. It didn't identify the new winner.
    "With this decision, we hope to revive the intended spirit of the contest, which was designed to make a little girl's holidays extra special," Club Libby Lu chief executive Mary Drolet said in a statement Saturday.
    Officials of the Chicago-based chain surprised the girl on Friday at a Club Libby Lu store in mall in this Dallas suburb. Club Libby Lu sells clothes, accessories and games for young girls.
    The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany , N.Y. , and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9.
    The opening line in the essay was: "My daddy died this year in Iraq ."
    The girl's mother had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq , company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said. But the mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue.
    "We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos said in an interview Friday with KDFW-TV of Dallas . "But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said `No, this essay is not true.'"
    The Associated Press was unable to find a phone number for Ceballos on Saturday.

10/10/07 Dallas Morning News: Mom told Dallas police her baby was in stolen car to get them to look faster: Woman arrested after giving wrong information,
by Steve Thompson
    Police say 24-year-old Ashley Yvonne Bennett reported that her baby was inside her husband's stolen car just to get authorities to search for the car faster. 
    If that's the case, it worked. 
    Patrol cars early Tuesday sped to the scene with lights and sirens. A helicopter took to the air.  Undercover officers diverted from other assignments. 
    They soon spotted the Kia Spectra and pursued it until the suspected car thief jumped out and ran. They didn't catch him. 
    But they did arrest Ms. Bennett on a charge of making a false report. 
    The case comes as Dallas police step up their efforts to prevent false reports, which can endanger people unnecessarily, waste department resources and artificially inflate crime statistics. 
    The agency recently began requiring people reporting some types of thefts to sign affidavits attesting to their legitimacy. 
    "In this case, the officers did exactly what you should have done," said Dallas police Lt. Rob Sherwin, who has helped review how the agency handles false reports. "You assume the worst has happened and you bring whatever resources to bear on that problem until you make sure that child is safe. 
    "The longer they questioned her, the more they questioned her credibility," Lt. Sherwin said, "and then when the child was found and the story came out, she went to jail for false report, which is exactly what we're moving to." 
    Tuesday's incident began about 1 a.m. at a gas station in southeast Dallas along C.F. Hawn Freeway. Ms. Bennett's husband, 23-year-old Marlon Sneed, said he drove there to buy a pack of Black and Mild cigars and some other items.     
    While in the store, he said, tires screeched and he realized someone was stealing his Kia. 
    Police say Mr. Sneed initially called and reported only the stolen car. About a half-hour later, though, he called back. This time, police say, his wife grabbed the phone and screamed that the car had been taken at gunpoint with her baby inside. 
    Officers say that as the search progressed and they collected more information, the couple's story began to change. Soon they said it was their 3-year-old child who must have been taken. And soon after that, it was discovered that all three of the couple's children, ages 1, 3 and 5, were safe at home. 
    While waiting for his wife's release from the county jail Tuesday (he said they had paid a $500 bond), Mr. Sneed stood in his driveway on Calle Del Oro Lane watching his two youngest children play with a plastic truck on the sidewalk. 
    He said the false report allegations are the result of a "very big misunderstanding." 
    The way Mr. Sneed explains it, their 3-year-old came to the gas station with him, and he initially thought the child was missing with the car. His wife heard the news from someone else, Mr. Sneed said, and mistakenly thought their youngest daughter was missing. 
    Without his knowing it, Mr. Sneed said, the 3-year-old had escaped from the car, and a friend trying to help during the chaos had taken the child from the gas station to his aunt's house. 
    The account raises several questions. For instance, why didn't he initially report the child missing? 
    "By the time I got ready to tell them all of that, the guy at the store wanted his phone back." 
    Why didn't the friend come forward to clear things up?
    "He didn't want to be involved." 
    Why did his wife think her youngest daughter was missing, when the toddler was at home safe with her? 
    "She [the child] has a tendency to take herself in the closet and hide." 
    Why did he bring his 3-year-old to a gas station at 1 a.m.? 
    "He was still awake; Mom was in the tub. I take my son with me everywhere. I feel like as long as he's with me, he's safe."

3/22/07 Dallas Morning News: Terrell cousins made up story about abduction:  Family apologizes for hoax to cover up missed curfew,
by Richard Abshire
    Turns out, it was all a hoax. 
    Two young Terrell African American women who showed up at a Central Texas gas station Tuesday night after going missing Saturday night in Mesquite spun their tale of abduction to cover a night of partying with friends and a missed curfew. 
    "I'm angry, but I'm glad they're safe," Richard Abney, father of 20-year-old Sasha Abney and uncle of her 17-year-old cousin, Bryshada Ward, said at a news conference Wednesday evening outside Mesquite police headquarters.
    "We found out this was a hoax," Mr. Abney said. "They missed their curfew, got in deeper and deeper and decided they were going to drive south. They ran out of money and ran out of gas, and they were afraid to call us. We are apologizing to everyone." 
    Mr. Abney said Ms. Ward hit his daughter with a shoe to cause a minor injury in an attempt to make the Terrell women's story more believable. As for reports that Ms. Abney was unresponsive when found, that was just an act, he said. 
    "As a parent, you think the worst. A lot of people out there were trying to help," Mr. Abney said, shaking his head over the behavior of his only daughter, a full-time student at Southwestern Christian College in Terrell. 
    "It's out of character," he said. "I don't understand.
    I guarantee they will be punished." 
    Mesquite police Lt. Bill Artesi said the department was just glad Ms. Abney and Ms. Ward, a Terrell High School student, were home safe. 
    "As far as we're concerned, the case is closed," he said. 
    The incident began about 9:15 p.m. Saturday when the cousins left Terrell for a 10 p.m. movie at the Mesquite AMC 30 theater. Instead, Mr. Abney said, they had arranged to meet friends in the theater parking lot and go partying. 
    When they weren't home by midnight, their parents grew concerned. And the concern deepened when a friend reported receiving a 4 a.m. cellphone call in which one of the women screamed, "Please help!" 
    Phone records showed a call was made from the vicinity of Abrams Road and LBJ Freeway in North Dallas . A woman who lives near there called Terrell police Tuesday to say she had heard a woman's screams about the same time. 
    The tip prompted police and volunteers with dogs to search a wooded area behind the woman's home Tuesday afternoon, but they found nothing. 
    Investigators said cellphone records indicate the women traveled to East Dallas, Mesquite , Lewisville and then back to Dallas on Saturday night. The trail went cold after that. 
    Then, shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, someone called authorities to report that a woman had shown up at a Shell station in Kempner, a small town near Fort Hood , claiming to have been kidnapped. The location is about 150 miles southwest of their homes. 
    Both women were taken to a hospital in nearby Temple for evaluation before returning home to their families. 
    The three days of uncertainty was an ordeal for their parents. 
    At a vigil Wednesday night in Terrell, Ms. Ward's mother, Charlotte Morris, led a group of about two dozen in prayer. 
    "Continue praying for my daughter and my niece, and may God bless," she said. 
    Neither of the young women attended the brief service at Friendship Baptist Church . 
    "We all have made mistakes in our lives," Pastor James Turner said during the vigil, "but we know you are a forgiving God." 
    Ms. Morris said it wasn't like her daughter to be out late without calling. "One time she was 10 minutes late and she called," she said. 
    Sherley Abney said it wasn't like her daughter to take off, either. 
    "Whenever she's late, she always calls," she said.
    "She's a very good girl."

12/27/06 Wall Street Journal: A Dirty Game,
by Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson
    It's no secret that hugely disproportionate numbers of the innocent people oppressed by abusive prosecutors and police in this country are African-Americans. Now one of the most outrageous cases of law-enforcement abuse is unfolding in Durham , N.C. , home of the Duke lacrosse case. And African-Americans are leading the cheers for the oppressors. Why? The poison of identity politics, plus class hatred of the prosecutor's three main victims, well-off white men falsely accused of rape by an unstable black "exotic dancer," and a deeply dishonest district attorney.
    Last spring, Durham D.A. Michael Nifong, who is white, was facing a primary in a racially divided electorate. He was badly behind and out of campaign money, excepting almost $30,000 in loans from his personal funds. Then came the accuser's allegations. Mr. Nifong responded by assuming control of the police investigation and making racially inflammatory statements pronouncing the Duke lacrosse players guilty of rape. Even as evidence of their innocence accumulated, he brought rape, sexual assault and kidnapping charges that fed the racial resentments he had stoked. The black vote put him over the top in both the May 2 primary and the Nov. 7 general election.
    Black leaders -- including Durham Mayor Bill Bell, the appallingly demagogic North Carolina NAACP and others -- should know better. So should the powerful, identity-politics-obsessed hard left of Duke's own faculty, 88 of whom issued a statement in April saying "thank you" to protesters who had branded the players rapists. And so should the media, most of which gleefully joined the clamor last spring.
    It has been clear for many months that the rape claim is almost surely a lie. But not until the DA's dramatic dismissal last Friday of the rape (but not the sexual assault and kidnapping) charges did Mr. Nifong enablers such as the New York Times and Duke President Richard Brodhead begin distancing themselves from his oppression of three innocent young men.
    How can we be confident that the charges are false? Let us count the ways: The police who interviewed the accuser after she left the March 13-14 lacrosse team party where she and another woman had performed as strippers found her rape charge incredible, and for good reason. She said nothing about rape to three cops and two others during the first 90 minutes after the party. Only when being involuntarily confined in a mental health facility did she mention rape. This predictably got her released to the Duke emergency room for a rape workup, whereupon she recanted the rape charge.
    Then she re-recanted, offering a ludicrous parade of wildly implausible and mutually contradictory stories of being gang-raped by 20, five, four, three or two lacrosse players, with the other stripper assisting the rapists in some versions. After settling on three rapists, the accuser gave police vague descriptions and could not identify as a rapist any of the 36 lacrosse players whose photos she viewed on March 16 and 21. These included two eventual defendants: Dave Evans, whom she did not recognize at all, and Reade Seligmann, whom she was "70%" sure she had seen at the party, but not as a rapist.
    All of the 40-odd other people at the party have contradicted every important part of the accuser's various accounts. The second stripper called the rape claim a "crock" and said they had been apart less than five minutes. The accuser told doctors she was drunk and on the muscle relaxant Flexeril, whose side effects include badly impaired judgment when taken with alcohol. She has a history of narcotic abuse and bipolar disorder, a mental illness marked by wild mood swings from mania to depression, and spent a week in a mental hospital in 2005.
    In court filings last week, even Mr. Nifong conceded that, contrary to his claims since March, medical records show no physical evidence of rape -- let alone injuries consistent with the accuser's April claim of being beaten, kicked, strangled and raped anally, orally and vaginally by three men in a small bathroom for 30 minutes. Above all, DNA tests by state and private labs, which Mr. Nifong's office had said would "immediately rule out any innocent persons," did just that. They found no lacrosse player's DNA anywhere on or in the accuser and none of her DNA in the bathroom.
    Yet two weeks ago we learned -- only because dogged defense lawyers cracked a prosecutorial conspiracy to hide evidence of innocence -- that the private lab did find the DNA of "multiple males" in swabs of the accuser's pubic hair, panties, and rear after the supposed rape. None of this DNA matched any lacrosse player.
    After the first two photo sessions, it was clear that the accuser had no idea what her rapists (if any) looked like. By the end of March, it should have been clear to any prosecutor that there probably had been no rape at all. But Mr. Nifong had driven the black community into a rage with dozens of guilt-presuming, race-baiting attacks on the lacrosse players like this one, on March 27: "The contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent."
    Such statements flagrantly violated North Carolina ethical rules requiring prosecutors to "refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused." They also poured gasoline on the flames of racial rage.
    Black leaders and voters made it clear that Mr. Nifong's only chance of winning the primary was to put his money where his mouth was by indicting the lacrosse players. He closed his door to defense lawyers offering evidence of innocence and rigged a multiple-choice test with no wrong answers. On March 31, he instructed police to conduct a third photo ID lineup, and to show the accuser (and tell her that she was being shown) photos of only the 46 white lacrosse players.
    On April 4, when this third photo-ID process took place, the message to the accuser was, effectively: Pick three, any three. At random, if you like. You can't go wrong. This setup trashed the defendants' constitutional due process rights and specific Durham , state, and federal principles for identification procedures. To test the reliability of often-mistaken eyewitness ID's, these principles require showing at least five "fillers" (non-suspects) with each suspect and telling the witness that the lineup may or may not include a suspect. Mr. Nifong recently defended his procedure through word games, asking, "What is a lineup?"
    The accuser's responses demonstrated her unreliability in ways too numerous to detail here. For one, she picked four as rapists. For another, the only player she twice identified with 100% certainty as attending the party could prove he was in Raleigh that night. But the accuser gave Mr. Nifong enough to obtain three indictments from a rubber-stamp grand jury. When he went to the grand jury, Mr. Nifong knew that the DNA results were inconsistent with the rape allegation. But he pressed ahead with the charge until the defense exposed his efforts to conceal the forensic evidence. Then he abruptly changed his theory of the crime.
    The case is now unraveling so rapidly as to be ridiculed on "Saturday Night Live." Mr. Nifong is on his way to being disbarred, unless North Carolina 's legal establishment wants to be held up to national scorn. He faces lawsuits and at least a remote risk of federal criminal investigation. As for Durham 's black leaders, and many in the media, and much of Duke's faculty, history will mark them down as enablers of abusive, dishonest law enforcement tactics. They will share responsibility for the continued use of such tactics, mainly against black people, after the Duke lacrosse players' innocence has become manifest to all serious people and the spotlight has moved on.
    Mr. Taylor, a National Journal columnist and Newsweek contributor, and Mr. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center, are writing a book about the Duke case.

10/10/06 Associated Press: 'Runaway bride' sues her former fianc,
by John C. Clark
    Lawrenceville, GA. - The "runaway bride," who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets, including a ladder, a gold sofa and gifts.
    Jennifer Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says John C. Mason purchased through the partnership with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York .
    She also wants $250,000 in punitive damages for alleged abuse of the power of attorney she granted for Mason to handle their financial affairs.
    In addition, she is seeking the return of personal property she claims he has kept, including the ladder that belonged to her father, a gold sofa and wedding shower gifts. Mason's attorney in July wrote to Wilbanks attorney that his client had agreed to deliver those items.
    Wilbanks and broke up for good in May, about a year after her excursion to Las Vegas and New Mexico made international headlines while hundreds of friends and family members searched for her back home in suburban Atlanta.
    Mason has until Oct. 22 to respond to the lawsuit, filed last month in Gwinnett County 's Superior Court. The lawsuit, Wilbanks vs. JCM Consulting and Mason, was filed Sept. 13, according to court records.
    Wilbanks' attorney, Michael Wetzel, and Mason's father, Claude, declined comment Tuesday morning. John Mason's attorney, James C. Watkins, wasn't immediately available for comment.
    The lawsuit says the $500,000 was put into an account of JCM Consulting, based in Gwinnett County . After Wilbanks was "hospitalized and under medication," Mason bought a home in Dacula in his name with the money, the lawsuit alleges.
    The lawsuit claims that Wilbanks asked JCM Consulting during the summer for various documents, but the firm didn't give her records of bank accounts. Through the lawsuit, she wants to inspect and copy those records.
    Wilbanks also claims that Mason used the company to defraud her.
    Wilbanks disappeared four days before her planned April 30, 2005, wedding. Hundreds of police and volunteers searched for her for three days before she called Mason from Albuquerque , N.M. , claiming to have been abducted and sexually assaulted.
    She later recanted, saying she fled because of unspecified personal issues, and pleaded no contest to telling police a phony story.
    She was sentenced to two years' probation and performed community service that included mowing the lawns of public buildings.

3/20/2006 The Dallas Morning News: Sexual assault charges dropped against teacher: Coppell: Former student who alleged indecency fails to show for trial,
by Robert Tharp
    Prosecutors dropped charges against a Coppell teacher Monday after the former student who had alleged that he sexually assaulted her failed to show up for his trial. 
    Prosecutors said they could not find the girl so they had no choice but to drop the charge of indecency with a child by sexual contact against Duane Masengill, a popular ninth-grade geography teacher at Coppell High School . 
    Mr. Masengill has been on paid leave since a 15-year-old accused him of fondling her and asking for sexual favors in exchange for better grades in January 2004. 
    A grand jury declined to indict him in March 2004. Prosecutors presented the case to a different grand jury, which returned an indictment in August 2004. 
    At the time, prosecutors said they presented the case to the second grand jury because new information had surfaced.
    School district officials said Monday that they're eager to have Mr. Masengill return to the classroom.
    "That's good news I know for Mr. Masengill and his family," said district spokeswoman Tamerah Ringo. "We're definitely going to be asking him to come back in some capacity to finish out the rest of the year." 
    Mr. Masengill declined to comment Monday, but his attorney, Ted Steinke, called the experience "every teacher's worst nightmare." 
    "We're just happy that it's over and he can go back in the classroom," Mr. Steinke said. "He's been on an emotional roller coaster for the last month as we did our trial preparation. It hit home that he was facing up to 20 years in prison if a jury believed this girl." 
    After she made the allegations against Mr. Masengill, the girl was placed in Child Protective Services' custody when she accused her stepfather of physical abuse. She has been on "runaway status" for nearly a year, a CPS spokeswoman said.

6/2/05 Associated Press: Runaway Bride Pleads No Contest to Felony,
By Daniel Yee
    Lawrenceville, GA. - With her once-jilted fiance at her side, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks pleaded no contest Thursday to a felony charge and wept as she was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine.
    "I'm truly sorry for my actions and I just want to thank Gwinnett County and the city of Duluth ," a crying Wilbanks told the judge as she pleaded to a charge of making a false statement.
    She was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service. The judge also ordered her to continue mental health treatment and pay the sheriff's office $2,550.
    If she successfully completes her probation, the felony will be erased from her record, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said.
    Wilbanks, whose disappearance before her wedding in April created a nationwide sensation, was wearing a black outfit and running shoes as she arrived at the Gwinnett County courthouse Thursday to make her plea. Her fiance John Mason, whom she was to have married April 30 in a lavish ceremony, was by her side.
    Wilbanks was indicted last week on charges of making a false statement and making a false police report. She could have faced up to six years in prison and $11,000 in fines if convicted of both charges. The misdemeanor false report charge was dropped as part of her plea deal.
    Wilbanks also could also have been ordered to reimburse authorities for the cost of the search, which has been tallied at more than $50,000. She's already agreed to pay part of the tab: On Tuesday, she said she would pay $13,250 to the city of Duluth , Ga. , to help offset the overtime costs the city incurred searching for her.
    Wilbanks, a nurse, disappeared from her Duluth home on April 26, four days before she was to have been married at a high-profile ceremony with 600 guests and 28 attendants. She took a bus to Las Vegas and then Albuquerque , N.M.
    She initially claimed she was abducted and sexually assaulted, but later recanted and said she fled because of unspecified personal issues days before the wedding. The false statement charge under which she was sentenced stemmed from a phone call she made relaying the abduction and assault allegations from New Mexico to Georgia .
    Family members say she has been receiving psychiatric treatment at an unspecified facility.

5/9/05 365Gay.com: Gay Hate Crimes At High School A Hoax Police Say,
    ( Mill Valley , California ) A 17 year old lesbian high school student has confessed to faking a series of homophobic attacks over the past year.
    The student, whose name has been withheld since the incidents began, has been suspended from school and could face charges.
    The attacks began last November at Tamalpais Union High School .
    The girl, who is a leader of the school's Gay Straight Alliance, claimed she had been pelted with eggs, had her locker and car vandalized, and had been flooded with handmade hate messages.
    In February the words "Die Fag" were spray painted in 12-foot letters on the school's wall and on a classroom door. The teacher of the class is also a lesbian and she speculated at the time that she might have been the actual target.
    Police labeled the attacks "hate crimes" but were unable to find the person behind the attacks.
    In April police set up security cameras around the school. That is when police began to suspect the student was behind the incidents.
    In a statement, Mill Valley Police Capt. James Wickham said that "evidence developed during the course of the investigation indicated that the student/victim was actually the person" responsible for the crimes."
    Wickham's statement said that the teen was called in for questioning.
"The individual's own statements substantiated the evidence previously gathered as to the source of the vandalism and annoying phone calls."
    Over the past year, while police investigated, the district school system went on an aggressive campaign to combat homophobia.
    School superintendent Bob Ferguson said that the confession vindicates the student body.
    "The good news is that it validates what we've always thought about our student body - the students are very accepting and embracing of everyone," Ferguson told the Marin Independent Journal.
    Ferguson said that students "kept wondering how this could happen at their school, but unfortunately they were let down by one of their classmates."
    The hoax affected the entire community, he noted. "Not only was Tam High under attack, but the entire Tamalpais-Mill Valley community was under attack," Ferguson added.

4/30/05 Associated Press: Ga. Woman Found, Reportedly Got Cold Feet,
By Mary Perea, Associated Press Writer
    Albuquerque , NM - A Georgia bride-to-be who vanished days before her wedding turned up in New Mexico , claiming at first that she had been abducted, then admitting she had gotten cold feet and "needed some time alone," police said Saturday. 
    Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day.
    "It turns out that Miss Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it," said Randy Belcher, the police chief in Duluth , Ga. , the Atlanta suburb where Wilbanks lives with her fiance. He said there would be no criminal charges.
    Wilbanks, whose disappearance set off a nationwide hunt, called her fiance, John Mason, from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped while jogging three days before, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers.
    But after being picked up by Albuquerque police outside a 7-Eleven and questioned for hours, she recanted.
    Ray Schultz, chief of police in Albuquerque , said Wilbanks "had become scared and concerned about her impending marriage and decided she needed some time alone."
    "She's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the 
stress that's been placed on her family," he said. "She is very upset."
    Schultz said she traveled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque , where she found herself broke. Bill Elwell, an FBI spokesman in Albuquerque , said that is probably why she called home when she did.
    Wilbanks had cut her hair so no one would recognize her, but she gave no indication that she had watched news reports of the search or realized the magnitude of the situation, Elwell said.
    The mood outside Wilbanks' home went from jubilant to somber after Wilbanks changed her story. Family members ducked inside and the blinds were drawn.  Hours later, they expressed relief that Wilbanks was safe.
    "If you remember all the interviews yesterday we were praying, 'At this point let her be a runaway bride,'" said the Rev. Alan Jones, who was to perform the wedding. "Jennifer's alive and we're all thankful for that."
    Jones said Mason had no hostility toward his fiancee.
    "I have never met such a strong person in all my life," Jones said. "He's an incredible man."
    The wedding was to have been a huge bash. The couple had mailed 600 invitations, and the ceremony was to feature 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
    Elwell said Wilbanks, who is a nurse, apparently decided shortly after purportedly leaving for her jog Tuesday night that she was going to run away.  "Based on the information we received, it was a spur of the moment situation," Elwell told The Associated Press.
    Wilbanks was disheveled, tired and thirsty, but was not complaining of any injuries, officials said. Authorities will "get her showered, get her something to eat and then reunite her with her family," Albuquerque police spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield said.
    Elwell said Wilbanks' relatives were en route to New Mexico and were expected to pick her up in the afternoon and head back to Atlanta . 
    Just hours before Wilbanks called her fiance, police in Duluth said they had no solid leads in the case and began dismantling a search center. Relatives offered a $100,000 reward for information and were planning a prayer vigil. 
    The hunt for Wilbanks had consumed Duluth , a tight-knit town. Her picture and newspaper articles about her disappearance were on telephone poles and shop windows. Police had also seized three computers from the home she shared with Mason. 
    Mason had become a target of suspicion and agreed to a private polygraph test. He had been negotiating with authorities for another test.  "That's been the hardest part for me," Mason said after Wilbanks called. "It gives you a feeling like you can't walk outside your home."
    Mason did not speak publicly after Wilbanks said she lied about being abducted. 
    Her uncle, Mike Satterfield, thanked people who had helped in the search. 
    "Jennifer had some issues the family was not aware of. We're looking forward to loving her and talking to her about these issues," he said. 
    Ryan Kelly, owner of the Park Cafe a few blocks from Wilbanks' house, which gave out coffee and sandwiches to searchers, said he was glad Wilbanks was alive and healthy. 
    "But that being said, this is one of the most selfish and self-centered acts I've ever seen. We saw her parents, and you could see the anguish in their eyes.  It was terrible," he said.
    "I don't care where you are unless you're in the Amazon rain forest, you'd know everybody was out looking for you."
    Associated Press writers Kristen Wyatt in Duluth , Ga. , and Harry Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

2/11/05 Associated Press: Woman Makes Up Story About Tossed Baby,
By Curt Anderson
    Fort Lauderdale , FL - The woman who claimed to have seen a baby being tossed from a moving car fabricated the story as a cover to abandon her newborn and hide an unwanted pregnancy from her family, authorities said Friday. 
    "It's not as horrible as we first thought," Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne said. "The baby was never thrown out of a moving car. This is the case of a disturbed woman who gave birth and did not want to keep her child." 
    Jenne said the woman, identified as Patricia Pokriots, 38, kept her pregnancy a secret from her family and others, She had planned to take the baby to authorities, then built her story around seeing two people in a large white sedan arguing. "One story built upon the other," Jenne said. 
    The child was born Thursday afternoon, about an hour before being dropped off by Pokriots at a Broward sheriff's substation in North Lauderdale, about 15 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale, Jenne said. 
    "She has indicated that she does not want the child," Jenne said.
    Pokriots may face a charge of filing a false report, but has not been otherwise charged, Jenne said. She was committed for psychiatric evaluation under the Baker Act, which allows for people who are a threat to themselves or others to be held for 72 hours. 
    Pokriots is a barmaid and has an arrest record including an aggravated battery charge. "She said she may be a threat to herself," Jenne said. 
    The 8-pound, 2-ounce boy, whose umbilical cord was still attached, survived with minor injuries and was hospitalized in good condition Friday at Broward General Medical Center . Nurses at the hospital have nicknamed the child Johnny. 
    Jenne said county officials have been flooded with calls offering everything from teddy bears to college funds, and has even received requests to adopt the child. 
    "The one good thing that comes out of this is there is a great love for this child," Jenne said.
    Pokriots originally told investigators she saw a man and woman arguing in a car, then witnessed the woman tossing the child from the passenger side of the vehicle. Eventually, investigators found inconsistencies in her story and she acknowledged Friday that she concocted the story. Jenne said. 
    State law allows a mother to take a baby to any medical facility or fire station within the first three days the baby is born without any questions asked. 
    "That provides parents or women with an option. You don't have to just abandon your child in way that would endanger his or her life," said Veda Coleman-Wright, a sheriff's office spokeswoman.

1/12/05 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Kidnapping hoax triggers costly search,
By Alex Branch
    Fort Worth, Texas - The girl cried and spoke in a trembling voice as she begged police dispatchers for help.
    A Mexican gang had kidnapped and assaulted her, she said in Spanish. They were holding her in a room with blacked-out windows.
    She had no idea where she was.
    That was the story Fort Worth police heard in several 911 calls made by a 14-year-old girl over three days last week. The search involved dozens of police officers and detectives, as well as agents of the FBI, Secret Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
    On Friday, they finally found the caller -- in class at the International Newcomer Academy in southwest Fort Worth .
    "She admitted that none of it ever happened," said Sgt. Rene Kamper of the Fort Worth Police Department's major case squad. "She had just been there going to school the whole time."
    The girl could face charges of making false 911 calls, Kamper said. Immigration officials are investigating whether her family is in the country legally.
    School administrators will wait until the police investigation ends before disciplining the student, who remains in class, said Valerie Robertson, a school spokeswoman.
    Hours of work were wasted, and the call-tracing equipment is costly. At one point, 18 federal agents were in one area looking for the girl, Kamper said.
    "We thought we had a girl who was in serious trouble," Kamper said. "We and the federal agencies put a lot of manpower and equipment into this."
    The first call to 911 came Wednesday, said Lt. Mark Krey, a police spokesman. The caller spoke only Spanish, sounded genuinely scared and said that five or six men had abducted her.
    Her cellphone had been deactivated, so the service provider could not help investigators, Krey said. Cellphones without service still allow callers to dial 911.
    "It made it more difficult," Krey said. "Each time she would call, we'd try to get more information from her and figure out where she was.
    "Then we would have to just wait and hope she called again."
    The girl called several times Thursday and Friday, gradually passing on more information, Krey said. Using cellphone towers to pinpoint the girl's location was unsuccessful.
    When investigators realized their usual methods weren't working, they contacted federal authorities, who provided agents and more advanced technology.
    Friday afternoon, agents concluded that the calls were coming from an area in west Fort Worth that included the academy, a school for recent immigrants who don't speak English, Kamper said.
    At the school, Detective Ty Hadsell checked school records against personal information the girl had given to police.
    "Not all the information she had given us was true, but some of it was," Kamper said. "When we talked to her, she seemed surprised we had found her. She immediately seemed remorseful about what she had done."
    The girl told detectives that the calls were an attempt to help her sister who was in trouble in Mexico , Krey said. But that does not make sense.
    "Apparently, her sister had disappeared for a while in Mexico , but that situation had been resolved by the time she made the calls," Kamper said.
    No matter the reason, it was a costly hoax, officers said.
    "We had a lot of resources on this we could have been using elsewhere," Krey said. "It was incredibly disruptive."

8/19/04 Los Angeles Times:  Conviction in False Hate Crime Case: Jury finds former Claremont McKenna College professor guilty of attempted insurance fraud and filing a false police report
   A former Claremont McKenna College professor accused of spray painting racist slogans on her car and then blaming students for the vandalism was convicted Wednesday of attempted insurance fraud and filing a false police report.
   Kerri Dunn, 39, a former visiting psychology professor, showed no emotion as a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury in Pomona rendered its verdict. Dunn faces up to 3 1/2 years imprisonment when she returns to court for sentencing Sept. 17.
    The jury, which deliberated four hours, was not asked to determine whether Dunn vandalized her own car. Instead, the panel was asked whether she had made false statements to the authorities and her insurer about the damage.
   News of the verdict spread quickly among students of the Claremont Colleges, who were first outraged that an apparent hate crime had been committed against a professor, then shocked when authorities later accused Dunn of staging the incident.
   "I'm glad justice was done," said Claremont McKenna College junior Richard Carpenter, 19. "She'll get what she deserves."
   Carpenter was one of a number of students who organized large protests at the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges after the apparent hate crime.
   School officials were circumspect in commenting on the verdict Wednesday, and issued only brief written statements.
   "The events of March 9 were damaging to the college and the greater Claremont community, and we are grateful to have a resolution through a court proceeding," wrote Claremont McKenna College President Pamela Brooks Gann.
   The conviction stemmed from a March 9 incident in which Dunn told police that her 1990 Honda Civic had been vandalized.
   Dunn said she was returning from a forum on racial intolerance when she found that her tires had been slashed, her windows smashed and the car covered with graffiti.
   Dunn told police that thieves had also stolen more than $1,700 worth of personal property from the car, including a $500 Coach briefcase and a $600 Palm Pilot.
   But after two eyewitnesses came forward saying they thought they had seen Dunn vandalize her own car, she was accused of staging the incident. Police also noticed inconsistencies in her statements, prosecutors said.
   Shortly after the verdict was read Wednesday, Dunn's lawyer issued a statement saying that his client still maintained her innocence and that Superior Court Judge Charles Horan erred by barring crucial evidence.
   Specifically, defense lawyer Gary Lincenberg said that jurors were not allowed to hear testimony from an insurance expert, saying that the defendant had never actually filed an insurance claim.
   "The jurors convicted because the court did not allow them to hear this important and uncontradicted testimony," wrote defense lawyer Gary Lincenberg. "We intend to appeal the conviction based upon the court's erroneous ruling."
   Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin Bean disagreed, saying that Horan did extensive research on the matter.
   However, Bean acknowledged that it was a difficult issue. "The law regarding insurance fraud makes the definition of claim a bit unclear," Bean said.
   Juror Lilly Walters of Claremont said the verdict hinged on statements Dunn made concerning when she had last seen her car.
   Dunn told police that she had parked her car and left it at a campus parking lot about 2 p.m., while a witness, Dominique Zepeda, said she saw Dunn park her car in the lot about 8 p.m.
   "There was strong evidence that she lied in the police report," Walters said.

7/1/04 Associated Press: Student Who Faked Abduction Pleads Guilty,"
    Madison, Wis. - A college student who faked her abduction and set off a desperate search was sentenced to three years' probation Thursday and ordered to repay the police department at least $9,000.
    Audrey Seiler, 20, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of obstructing officers and read a statement in court in which she said severe depression had caused her to act irrationally. 
    "I'm taking care of myself now, so someday people will see I'm still a girl to be proud of," Seiler said. The Rockford , Minn. , woman withdrew from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after the incident and is in therapy. 
    After her March 27 disappearance, dozens of volunteers slogged through marshes and woods as national TV broadcast surveillance footage of her leaving her off-campus apartment late at night with no coat or purse. 
    She turned up four days later, curled in a fetal position in a marsh, and claiming she had been abducted at knifepoint. 
    Her story soon crumbled, and investigators said she faked the abduction because she was upset over her fading relationship with her boyfriend. 
    Police concluded Seiler made up her abduction after obtaining a store videotape that showed her buying the knife, duct tape, rope and cold medicine she claimed her abductor used to restrain her. 
    She could have gotten nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine on each of the two charges.
    While on probation, she must reimburse the Police Department $250 a month, an amount that could increase to $400 a month if she graduates and gets a job.         
    Prosecutor Brian Blanchard said Seiler deliberately deceived police.
    "She's not in court today because she's depressed. ... She committed a series of selfish acts without regard for others," he said. 
    But Seiler's attorney, Randy Hopper, said she suffered a breakdown and had no idea what she was doing during the days she went missing. 
    "Everybody has different levels of coping skills. She probably discovered her coping skills weren't what she hoped they'd be," Hopper said. 
    Seiler also claimed that someone struck her from behind in February, knocked her unconscious and moved her about a block away. Hopper said Seiler still insists that attack happened. The prosecutor declined to comment. 
    After the hearing, Seiler's mother, Stephanie, thanked the media, police and searchers for their efforts. "The fact remains she was lost in a very real sense," she said.