FAKERS FAIL TO FARE WELL

Two examples of stupid is as stupid does:

MAN PRINTS FAKE OBIT OF MOM TO GET TIME OFF

CBS News
December 10, 2011

BROOKVILLE, Pa. - Authorities say a man published a fake obituary for his living mother in a ploy to get paid bereavement time off from work.

Relatives called The Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper in Pennsylvania after the obit appeared to say the woman was actually alive and well.

The woman herself then visited the paper.

Police charged 45-year-old Scott Bennett on Tuesday with disorderly conduct.

Newspaper editor Randy Bartley says he accepted the obituary in good faith after being unable to confirm the funeral arrangements at press time.

He told The Derrick newspaper on Friday that the woman was very understanding.

Police Chief Ken Dworek says Bennett wrote up the memorial notice because he didn't want to get fired for taking time off.
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CALIFORNIA PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST ACCUSED OF FAKING RAPE
By Don Thompson

Associated Press
December 9, 2011

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Authorities allege a woman was so determined to convince her husband of a need to move to a safer neighborhood that she faked being raped.

She split her own lip with a pin, scraped her knuckles with sandpaper, had her friend punch her in the face, and even wet her pants to give the appearance she had been knocked unconscious, authorities said Friday.

Charges filed by the Sacramento County district attorney allege Laurie Ann Martinez, a prison psychologist, conspired with the friend to create the appearance that she was beaten, robbed and raped by a stranger in April in her Sacramento home.

Police detectives and crime scene investigators spent hundreds of hours on the case, until one of Martinez's prison co-workers came forward to say Martinez had been talking at work about faking a crime at her home to persuade her husband to move, Sacramento police Sgt. Andrew Pettit said Friday.

Martinez, her friend and two co-workers eventually told police the whole thing was a setup to convince Martinez's husband that they needed to move from a blighted, high-crime area three miles north of the state Capitol.

It didn't work. Instead, the couple filed for divorce six weeks after the April 10 incident, according to court records.

"If all you wanted to do is move, there's other ways than staging a burglary and rape," Pettit said. "She went to great lengths to make this appear real."

Martinez, 36, a psychologist for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reported she had come home that day to find a stranger in her kitchen, authorities said.

"As she tried to run away, the suspect grabbed her and hit her in the face," court records say in describing what she told police. "She lost consciousness and then when she awoke she found her pants and underwear pulled down to her ankles."

Missing from her home were two laptop computers, Martinez's purse, an Xbox video game console, a camera and numerous credit cards that Martinez said the stranger had stolen.

In reality, the items were all at the home of her friend, Nicole April Snyder, authorities allege. Investigators say Martinez had Snyder punch her in the face with boxing gloves they bought for that purpose.

Martinez began crying hysterically when police arrived, according to court papers.

Martinez was arrested Monday and freed on $50,000 bond. Snyder, 33, is charged with the same conspiracy counts, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. If convicted of conspiracy, each woman faces up to three years in prison.

Martinez had been a psychologist overseeing other mental health workers treating inmates at California State Prison, Sacramento, said department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. The prison 20 miles east of Sacramento was the scene this week of a fight among more than 150 inmates that sent 11 inmates to outside hospitals.