37-year-old weather woman Heidi Jones, who claimed a Hispanic man attacked her in Central Park, showed up in court yesterday in subdued clothing to face formal charges for false reporting, a misdemeanor.
When police questioned her about the alleged attack, the story she told was inconsistent, and she eventually broke down and admitted to making it up to gain sympathy. Incredibly, the police actually arrested her for false reporting, and she was subsequently fired from her job with Good Morning America.
Many have expressed surprise that a woman with such a good job and with so many things going for her would do something so stupid. However, in the vast majority of cases women who make false rape accusations face no consequences whatsoever. Additionally, crying rape can bring an entire army of people to a woman’s aid, which can be helpful if other things are going wrong in her life. Perhaps Ms. Jones had been having problems with a boyfriend, or maybe she wanted people at work to sympathize with her. Unless she comes entirely clean, we’ll never know for sure.
Ms. Jones faces up to one year in jail, although there’s a good chance she won’t spend a single day behind bars. In the US, women are typically given probation for committing a crime that has the potential to land an innocent man in prison for decades.
Although it’s a natural sentiment to feel sorry for someone like Jones, people have to understand that sympathy was exactly what she expected from her crime, so it is important that it does not influence sentencing. Because of the potential consequences of her crime, she should serve the full sentence, which is unfortunately too light for such a grave transgression.
