Ashley Todd Fake "Mutilation" Exposed

UPDATE: REPORTERS: MCCAIN AIDE PUSHED OBAMA MUTILATION HOAX

See which media outlets fell for the hoax...

The latest from the AP:

A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B" scratched on her face in what she had said was a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division. Todd was charged with making a false report to police, and Bryant said police doubted her story from the start.

Dressed in an orange hooded sweat shirt, Todd left police headquarters in handcuffs late Friday and did not respond to questions from reporters. The mark on her face was faded and her left eye was slightly blackened when she arrived in district court.

Todd was awaiting arraignment Friday on the misdemeanor false-report charge, which is punishable by up to two years in prison. She will be housed in a mental health unit at the county jail for her safety and because of "her not insignificant mental health issues," prosecutor Mark Tranquilli said.

Todd initially told investigators she was attempting to use a bank branch ATM on Wednesday night when a 6-foot-4 black man approached her from behind, put a knife blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away.

Todd, who is white, told investigators she suspected the man then noticed a John McCain sticker on her car. She said the man punched her in the back of the head, knocked her to the ground and scratched a backward letter "B" into her face with a dull knife.

Police said Todd claimed the man told her that he was going to "teach her a lesson" for supporting the Republican presidential candidate, and that she was going to become a supporter of Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Todd told police she didn't seek medical attention, but instead went to a friend's apartment nearby and called police about 45 minutes later.

Todd could provide no explanation for why she invented the story, police said. The woman told investigators she believes she cut the "B" onto her own cheek, but did not provide an explanation of how or why and said she doesn't remember doing so, police said.

Police said the woman reported suffering from "mental problems" in the past, and that they do not believe anyone put her up to the act.

Tranquilli said Todd will remain jailed over the weekend pending a psychiatric evaluation, which won't happen until Monday at the earliest.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate Todd's family.

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

Todd worked in New York for the College Republican National Committee before moving two weeks ago to Pennsylvania, where her duties included recruiting college students, the committee's executive director, Ethan Eilon, has said.

"We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit, Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions," College Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ashley Barbera said in a statement.

Police reported Todd's claims Thursday, as a photo of her injuries made it onto numerous blogs and news sites. By Friday, police said they had found inconsistencies in Todd's story. They gave her a lie-detector test, but wouldn't release the polygraph results.

Police interviewed Todd after she contacted police Wednesday night and again on Thursday, Bryant said. They asked her to come back Friday, ostensibly to help police put together a sketch of the man. Instead, detectives began interviewing her.

"They just started talking to her and she just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said.

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

More...
Ashley Todd from BuzzFeed
Ashley Todd Admits to Lying...

Comments

[FJRinLA]

04:42 AM on 10/28/2008

WHY WESTERN PA FOR THIS HOAX? PART ONE

JUST A COINCIDENCE?

I don't think so.

I have empathy for her, patsy or not, but we really do need to investigate if she was encouraged and/or compensated in any way by McCain supporters in PA or TX where she is from.

Does anyone really believe it's just a statistical analomy, a political freak of nature that of all the McCain offices in all 50 states that this young woman who was mentally-healthy enough to leave the sanctity of her home in Texas to travel to battleground states in support of the Republican standard bearer, picked western PA, the land of the Reagan Democrats offended by Sen. Obama's guns and religion comment to volunteer and have a nervous breakdown with behavior mimicking several well-known and highly publicized race-baiting and pre-meditated murderers like Charles Stuart and Susan Smith who were found to be not at all emotionally unstable, but rather extremely calculating and depressed only by their inability to persuade others of their race-based theories.

I pray that the media continues to ask questions. She is most likely a patsy that will receive very expensive defense counsel from the RNC which will claim that it is just out of concern for a troubled 20-year old when in fact it will likely be to protect her handlers.

[iowaliberal]

09:31 AM on 10/28/2008

She went to upstate New York first, and then to PA. I'm not sure if that makes it more or less likely that she was encouraged/compensated. If you believe some on the right she was encouraged, by ACORN! Allegedly she confessed to being paid by ACORN on her MySpace page. So now we're supposed to believe her? Obviously she needs help and I hope she gets it and can lead a healthy life, but I agree that there is probably more to this story than we know now. The truth probably won't come out until well after the election.

[eggman]

12:49 AM on 10/28/2008

Have some sympathy for the woman. Clearly she is mentally challenged, not used to media scrutiny, and didn't realize that her flimsy lies would be discredited and she would become a punchline, to the point where even conservatives have started saying McCain never should have picked her as VP----oops, forgot who I was talking about for a minute there.

[sonofthewest]

10:16 PM on 10/27/2008

Step into the light, or the fan of step into the light, must be operating with a burnt out bulb to declare this is not a hoax. Why? The woman who made the complaint is probably mentally ill and can be excused. The hoax is the GOP and the McCain crew directing the media toward the story. It shows the desperation of their campaign and we can now hope that the the McCain/Palin people will step into the light and realize the consequences of the hateful campaign that they have been running. When you stir the pot of racism, classism, and the rest then you encourage and franchise people who are delusional and feed their fantsies and racist hate dreams so that they feel they can act them out in "real life".

[vrgtm]

01:30 PM on 10/27/2008

Take yer pick: that the 'B' is backward hints that either she did it looking in a mirror, or there's a fugitive at large who can't write, or she was helped by a Repug blind to Repug mistakes. Or, could it be Cyrillic script? She may have ambitions to be a political advisor, strategist, or whatever. But suggest she's pursuing a crush on Rush Limberg.

[pporter]

12:53 PM on 10/27/2008

WHAT A LOOOOOOOOSER!

[ellawensmom]

09:19 AM on 10/27/2008

This was a no-brainer. I want to know why this is the first time I've heard that it was a fake. this needs to be national news. A white girl mutilates herself (neatly and backwardly) and then accuses a black man of the crime. Where's the OUTRAGE???
Are McCain and Palin going to take back their nice little sympathetic phone calls?

[BigDifference]

08:13 AM on 10/27/2008

Ashley Todd prefabricated lie about her being assaulted by "a large black Obama supporter" (sic) is just another symptom of what McCain & Paulin campaign and, sadly, the whole Republican party has become: a party run on promoting fear, suspicion, and ultimatelly, hate. This is a cancer that has been eroding our country for way too long. I will vote for Obama&Biden and pray we can eventually come out of the mess that the Republicans have created.

[nanton29]

04:03 AM on 10/27/2008

Meanwhile Joe the plumber is starting to believe his press clippings and is mulling a run for congress. I mean you cannot make this stuff up. After McCain sat on his hands during the heated democratic primary his campaign is coming unglued and McCain is grasping at straws, anything to get an edge, but the irony is that whatever he triesproves to be counterproductive.

Joe should first get a license for plumbing.

[polanyi]

05:59 PM on 10/26/2008

my previous post was cited from:

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/10/the_last_post_in_this_blog_abo.php

[polanyi]

05:56 PM on 10/26/2008

from If any onus is on the McCain campaign at all, it's on the Pennsylvania branch. If Ashley Todd had been properly vetted, this would have been discovered: "In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas [...] Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies."

[jamiewinters]

09:09 PM on 10/25/2008

Anyone remember Morton Downey, Jr? He once claimed he was attacked in an airport restroom (not tapping his toes) and an attacker carved a swastika on his face. When people noticed the swastika was backwards, he admitted he made it up and did it himself. The swastika looked forwards in the mirror!!! It's ALL been done before!

[Anthony K]

10:45 PM on 10/25/2008

YES! I was a fan of his show long ago when he was really the only one of TV with this format. I thought it was fun to watch. I had no idea the format would become mainstream television years later. As I remember, this event tanked his career. His show was pulled a few months later.

[Running262]

07:07 PM on 10/25/2008

She's a real rocket scientist... much like many McCain supporters seem to be.

[JoeTheLiberal]

04:11 PM on 10/25/2008

I can't imagine how she felt when she heard that the 'B' she put on her face was backwards. She probably ran to the first mirror she could find. Then after five minutes of looking at the 'B' she realized what she had done. Oopsie!

[eggman]

12:51 AM on 10/28/2008

No, it would look right in the mirror.

[Ojamas]

03:10 PM on 10/25/2008

Interesting perspective from "True Crime Report", http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/10/the_last_post_in_this_blog_abo.php.

[GSundheim]

03:36 PM on 10/25/2008

Good quote from that site - "Now, if this were a political blog (and by the way, I don't mean I'm apolitical personally -- I'm not -- I just mean that covering politics here would be off-topic and therefore pointless, unless you consider all politicians criminals-in-waiting, but I digress), I'd explore why the hell some folks running the McCain campaign in Pennsylvania actively directed reporters towards this story. I'd ask if perhaps the McCain campaign might have initially seen another opportunity for a "Joe the Plumber" type of narrative."

[IForgotMyName]

03:10 PM on 10/25/2008

I got attacked by a plumber without a license yesterday and after he saw that I wanted to raise the taxes for the rich, he got so mad at me that he carved me a J in my cheek.

[bibimimi]

11:23 AM on 10/26/2008

was he a giant bald d0uc#e?