By Jill King Greenwood and Andrew Conte
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Buzz up!
A McCain-Palin campaign volunteer who claimed she was robbed and cut by a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama confessed Friday to making up the story, Pittsburgh police said.
Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, is charged with filing a false police report. She told investigators she has had psychological issues in the past, according to Assistant Chief Maurita Bryant. Police said she was taken to an undisclosed hospital for a psychological evaluation.
"She just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said. "She was upset with the media for blowing this into a political firestorm."
story continues below
Todd, who is white, told Detectives J.R. Smith and Scott Evans varying stories about how she ended up with black eyes and a backward letter "B" etched onto her right cheek late Wednesday. Her initial tales involved a black, knife-wielding man robbing her at a Bloomfield ATM before beating, fondling and cutting her because he was enraged by her McCain bumper sticker, police said.
"All of our radars went off from the beginning," Bryant said. "We had some serious cases going on elsewhere, and this has wasted so much time, so much time. This could have blown up into an international incident, and there were racial implications."
During interviews yesterday, Todd told detectives she remembers being in her car, driving around the city and seeing the letter on her cheek when she looked into the rearview mirror. She said she immediately thought of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama when she saw the "B," Bryant said.
"She said she doesn't remember doing it but knows it must have been her who did it," Bryant said.
Todd drove to the Bloomfield home of her friend, Dan Garcia, and told him the attack story. Garcia said he called 911.
"I believed she was telling the truth," said Garcia, 32, a first-year University of Pittsburgh law student. "This seemed like the real deal."
Bryant said the eye injuries are real but police don't know how Todd got them because she won't tell investigators.
"She could have banged her face on the steering wheel to get them, or done many different things," Bryant said.
Todd told investigators she arrived Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh from New York, where she was working as a volunteer for the campaign of Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin.
She initially told police she was standing at an ATM when a man approached her from behind, put a knife to her neck and demanded money. She said she gave him the $60 she had in her pocket and stepped away.
She said the robber saw her nearby car's bumper sticker and became enraged. She told police he knocked her to the ground, punching and kicking her before scratching the backward "B" in her right cheek with the knife.
In a second version, Todd said she was attacked on nearby Pearl Street after walking away from her car. She told police she wasn't sure if it was her bumper sticker or a campaign button on her jacket that angered the attacker.
She said she lost consciousness during the attack just off Liberty Avenue and was groped by her attacker.
"I didn't believe it at all," said Crystle Bonilla, 26, who works next to the bank machine at Steel City Uniform. "A lot of stuff goes down on Liberty, but to have no one see it doesn't make sense. And to bring Obama and racism into it? It's just so wrong."
That stretch of Liberty Avenue is populated with restaurants, bars and stores. None of the surveillance cameras in the area captured the incident and there were no witnesses, Bryant said.
A McCain campaign spokesman initially said the senator called Todd and her family when the incident was first reported. And the Obama campaign released a comment Thursday sending "our thoughts and prayers."
The Obama-Biden campaign declined to comment yesterday. Calls to McCain-Palin spokesman Peter Feldman were not immediately returned.
Todd has a history of making up stories, said Dustan Costine, chairman of the Robertson County, Texas, Republican Party. He and Todd volunteered together on the failed presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a Green Tree native. Costine said Todd told supporters there that her car was vandalized because it had the candidate's stickers on it. He provided an e-mail from Todd in which she said her car tires had been slashed.
Costine said Todd had talked of running for Texas governor in 2006 as a write-in candidate. She said she had been undergoing treatment for cancer, had lost her hair and often wore a wig. Still, he said, she constantly smoked.
Police have no evidence Todd's friends were in on the Bloomfield attack story.
"I don't trust anything she told me," Garcia said.
Garcia said he met Todd among Republican circles in College Station. They were not close friends but had been virtual friends on the Internet site Facebook. Traveling around New York and Pennsylvania to campaign for the McCain-Palin ticket, she had spent the previous Friday and Saturday nights at his house, but Garcia said he had not seen her since then.
Todd called Garcia's cell phone at 8:56 p.m. Wednesday and asked if she could come over. When she arrived, Garcia thought the etched "B" looked like it could have come from the pin of a campaign button.
Garcia said he accepted her story, partly because Todd told him that she was a student at Texas A&M, where he had graduated in May. It was important, he said, to get out the message to other alumni and Republicans.
A Texas A&M official said Todd has never been a student at the school. People who knew Todd from Texas said they believe she has attended Blinn College, a community college in Bryan, Texas. A woman in the Blinn registrar's office said it would be "completely against the law" for her to release, confirm or provide any information about a student's status at the college.
Garcia said he only started to fully doubt the details of the story when police brought them in for questioning Thursday evening, and the session lasted more than five hours.
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Buzz up!
A McCain-Palin campaign volunteer who claimed she was robbed and cut by a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama confessed Friday to making up the story, Pittsburgh police said.
Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, is charged with filing a false police report. She told investigators she has had psychological issues in the past, according to Assistant Chief Maurita Bryant. Police said she was taken to an undisclosed hospital for a psychological evaluation.
"She just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said. "She was upset with the media for blowing this into a political firestorm."
story continues below
Todd, who is white, told Detectives J.R. Smith and Scott Evans varying stories about how she ended up with black eyes and a backward letter "B" etched onto her right cheek late Wednesday. Her initial tales involved a black, knife-wielding man robbing her at a Bloomfield ATM before beating, fondling and cutting her because he was enraged by her McCain bumper sticker, police said.
"All of our radars went off from the beginning," Bryant said. "We had some serious cases going on elsewhere, and this has wasted so much time, so much time. This could have blown up into an international incident, and there were racial implications."
During interviews yesterday, Todd told detectives she remembers being in her car, driving around the city and seeing the letter on her cheek when she looked into the rearview mirror. She said she immediately thought of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama when she saw the "B," Bryant said.
"She said she doesn't remember doing it but knows it must have been her who did it," Bryant said.
Todd drove to the Bloomfield home of her friend, Dan Garcia, and told him the attack story. Garcia said he called 911.
"I believed she was telling the truth," said Garcia, 32, a first-year University of Pittsburgh law student. "This seemed like the real deal."
Bryant said the eye injuries are real but police don't know how Todd got them because she won't tell investigators.
"She could have banged her face on the steering wheel to get them, or done many different things," Bryant said.
Todd told investigators she arrived Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh from New York, where she was working as a volunteer for the campaign of Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin.
She initially told police she was standing at an ATM when a man approached her from behind, put a knife to her neck and demanded money. She said she gave him the $60 she had in her pocket and stepped away.
She said the robber saw her nearby car's bumper sticker and became enraged. She told police he knocked her to the ground, punching and kicking her before scratching the backward "B" in her right cheek with the knife.
In a second version, Todd said she was attacked on nearby Pearl Street after walking away from her car. She told police she wasn't sure if it was her bumper sticker or a campaign button on her jacket that angered the attacker.
She said she lost consciousness during the attack just off Liberty Avenue and was groped by her attacker.
"I didn't believe it at all," said Crystle Bonilla, 26, who works next to the bank machine at Steel City Uniform. "A lot of stuff goes down on Liberty, but to have no one see it doesn't make sense. And to bring Obama and racism into it? It's just so wrong."
That stretch of Liberty Avenue is populated with restaurants, bars and stores. None of the surveillance cameras in the area captured the incident and there were no witnesses, Bryant said.
A McCain campaign spokesman initially said the senator called Todd and her family when the incident was first reported. And the Obama campaign released a comment Thursday sending "our thoughts and prayers."
The Obama-Biden campaign declined to comment yesterday. Calls to McCain-Palin spokesman Peter Feldman were not immediately returned.
Todd has a history of making up stories, said Dustan Costine, chairman of the Robertson County, Texas, Republican Party. He and Todd volunteered together on the failed presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a Green Tree native. Costine said Todd told supporters there that her car was vandalized because it had the candidate's stickers on it. He provided an e-mail from Todd in which she said her car tires had been slashed.
Costine said Todd had talked of running for Texas governor in 2006 as a write-in candidate. She said she had been undergoing treatment for cancer, had lost her hair and often wore a wig. Still, he said, she constantly smoked.
Police have no evidence Todd's friends were in on the Bloomfield attack story.
"I don't trust anything she told me," Garcia said.
Garcia said he met Todd among Republican circles in College Station. They were not close friends but had been virtual friends on the Internet site Facebook. Traveling around New York and Pennsylvania to campaign for the McCain-Palin ticket, she had spent the previous Friday and Saturday nights at his house, but Garcia said he had not seen her since then.
Todd called Garcia's cell phone at 8:56 p.m. Wednesday and asked if she could come over. When she arrived, Garcia thought the etched "B" looked like it could have come from the pin of a campaign button.
Garcia said he accepted her story, partly because Todd told him that she was a student at Texas A&M, where he had graduated in May. It was important, he said, to get out the message to other alumni and Republicans.
A Texas A&M official said Todd has never been a student at the school. People who knew Todd from Texas said they believe she has attended Blinn College, a community college in Bryan, Texas. A woman in the Blinn registrar's office said it would be "completely against the law" for her to release, confirm or provide any information about a student's status at the college.
Garcia said he only started to fully doubt the details of the story when police brought them in for questioning Thursday evening, and the session lasted more than five hours.
