Bloomfield 'attack' was self-inflicted
Saturday, May 23, 2009
By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A John McCain campaign volunteer yesterday was sentenced to nine months probation for lying about an alleged attack last year when she claimed a Barack Obama supporter assaulted her and scratched a backwards "B" on her face...........Ashley Todd
Ashley Todd, 21, of College Station, Texas, was approved for a program for first-time offenders after she pleaded guilty to filing false reports last Oct. 24.
She told police that she was attacked in Bloomfield by a tall black man who was upset that she had a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.
She said the man knocked her down, pinned her hands with his knees, and scrawled the backwards letter on her face.
Police doubted her story early in the investigation, and Ms. Todd later admitted it was made up.
A district judge, at the start of a preliminary hearing last November, ordered her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. She then waived her right to have the hearing, in lieu of pleading guilty, to enter the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. Participants who successfully complete terms of the program are eligible to have their public criminal records expunged.
"A lot of you are going to violate, no matter what I say," said Common Pleas Judge Robert C. Gallo, who presided over the hearings for Ms. Todd and the other first-time offenders.
In addition to the probation, the judge ordered Ms. Todd to perform 50 hours of community service within the next six months and to pay court costs.
Ms. Todd's claims of a politically motivated assault with some racial undertones garnered national media attention before the tale unraveled.
After the hoax, she was fired by the College Republican National Committee, which had her working as a field representative in Pittsburgh to the presidential election campaign last fall.
Yesterday, Ms. Todd ran down three flights of stairs at the courthouse to avoid the media. Unable to immediately find the exit, she and a male companion barged through the reporters while declining comment.
"I didn't have any [comment] before, and don't have any now," she said.
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