Thank Goodness justice has been served, because I feel safer already:
With her once-jilted fiance at her side, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks pleaded no contest Thursday to a felony charge and wept as she was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine.
“I’m truly sorry for my actions and I just want to thank Gwinnett County and the city of Duluth,” a crying Wilbanks told the judge as she pleaded no contest to making a false report.
She was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service. The judge also ordered her to continue mental-health treatment and pay the sheriff’s office $2,550.
If she successfully completes her probation, the felony will be erased from her record, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said.
With this, people will recognize that the law is not something to be mocked. [/sarcasm]
Jason
Run away from a wedding and you become a convicted felon. So damn retarted.
Maybe they should have taken the money used in the prosecution of Wilbanks and used it toward the effort to catch real criminals. Like OBL
Jon H
You’d think she pulled Bart Simpson’s “I’m stuck down a well but it’s really just a walkie-talkie” trick.
Dave Ruddell
John, I was going to say that the sarcasm tag was not necessary, then I realized that for some people, it probably is. That makes me sort of sad.
Flagwaver
Well, at the risk of inviting a flame war, let me assert the contrary position. The REASON for making filing a false police report a crime is because it leads to the misuse and misapplication of scarce police resources – the time spent looking for this stupid bint could have been spent looking for real criminals. She is clearly guilty of filing a false police report – she claimed to have been kidnapped, etc.
I don’t think prosecuting her should have been any kind of priority, but arranging to plead her out for probation strikes me as a good result.
Yes, she’s an idiot. But, SOMETIMES, stupidity does rise to the level of being criminal. I think this case fits.
John Cole
Why would that risk a flame war?
Flagwaver
Well, in part reacting to your concerns in the post immediately below. Your point, stated there, is correct (and I have been as guilty as any, from time to time) that the tenor of discourse over ideas and ideals has grown hysterical. The extremes on both sides seek to paint each issue in the most extreme terms, characterize the position of the other in the most extreme and pejorative manner, etc.
I basically agreed with you about the Schiavo case (it’s a tragedy, but not one crying out for government intervention. It’s a freakin’ FAMILY tragedy, for Bob’s sake!), but didn’t choose to participate in those discussions, because I thought BOTH sides were acting like @$$holes.
So, just a little paranoia, I guess.
Stormy70
Flagwaver – your reasoned discourse makes me want to puke, but since I agree with your position, then it’s all good. Hee, hee.
BumperStickerist
and, Flagwaver, let’s not forget John’s typically liberal/mush-headed inability to see a forest among all the trees in this argument…
… the incidence of ‘Brides Running Away From The Altar Filing False Reports to the Police’ has been waaaaaaaay down since the DA came out forcefully against Wilbanks.
John’s *much* safer now than he was during Wilbanks’s reign of terror … he just doesn’t care to admit it.
Flagwaver
BumperStickerist,
Perhaps my sarcasm detector is out of whack, but are you REALLY suggesting that a runaway bride making a false police report should be treated any differently than any other person making such a report? Just wonderin’
Jon H
Flagwaver, she made the false report in New Mexico, not in Georgia.
She was charged in Georgia.
New Mexico didn’t especially care, because she fessed up quick enough that they didn’t spend much time or money on it, and I suppose because no innocent people were accused and arrested.
Georgia is pissed because they gave in to cable news pressure to mount a full-scale Laci Peterson body hunt. This was expensive, but it was their decision – they were not obligated to rush into it like that.
I don’t think she should be punished because the police in Georgia had bad judgement when the cameras were on.
Flagwaver
So, JonH, if she HAD been abducted (not an unreasonable conclusion to reach – I haven’t heard much that suggested she had spilled the beans to her fiance or family that she was getting cold feet), you would have been FINE with the Georgia cops waiting a few weeks to start looking for her? Just askin’ is all. And, by the way, she filed the false report in New Mexico, but also FROM New Mexico to Georgia.
Again, if I got ticked off at work and decided to take a couple of week’s “vacation,” and to avoid getting my butt fired, I called the cops and told them I’d been kidnapped (a not unreasonable comparison), I’d EXPECT to get prosecuted, and I should. And so should she. I agree that, under the circumstances, her probation is probably a reasonable sentence, but what she did was illegal, and her stupidity is not an excuse, it’s just the reason.
scs
Flagwaver, thank god for you. Finally someone who is reasonable as well as well-spoken(written) on this subject.
I don’t get what this obsession is by the guys to condone false police reports. I suppose its the anarchist in them all.
Cjoffe
Another thing to make us all feel safer is that this is the same DA that refused to file charges against a bunch of cops who tasered a restrained suspect to DEATH… on video. The guy was cuffed to a chair, held down and tasered until his heart stopped… on video.
Jon H
“you would have been FINE with the Georgia cops waiting a few weeks to start looking for her?”
A few weeks? How about a few days? She was only gone about three days. She’s not a child, she’s an adult, and adults aren’t required to tell the police where they are going.
Cold feet was certainly as likely, if not more so, than a sensationalized abduction. Even the Duluth police chief acknowledged that cold feet was a “real possibility”. (And that on Thursday before she was found.)
The news media presupposed an abduction and murder, wanted that to be the case, and acted as if that were true and it was only a matter of time before the body was found.
“And, by the way, she filed the false report in New Mexico, but also FROM New Mexico to Georgia.”
Actually, she called her fiance and the Georgia police *traced the call*. She didn’t make a report to the Georgia police.
In any case, the false report had zero significance for the Georgia police. None. They did nothing because of it. She recanted before they could have started any kind of local investigation.
The false police report simply does not enter into the desire of the people in Georgia to prosecute her.
Jon H
scs writes: “I don’t get what this obsession is by the guys to condone false police reports”
Hey, if the Albuquerque police want to prosecute, that’s all right by me. Luckily, they seem to have a sense of proportion that so many are lacking these days.
But Georgia really has no valid basis for complaining. She didn’t make them go on red alert when she hadn’t even been gone 12 hours.
scs
All of you seem to be hung up on the after-effects of her lie, such as “there were no effects, hence it wasn’t wrong”.
If you used effects to judge wrongdoing, there would hardly be any law at all. Is there really an effect when someone runs though a stopsign and no one else was there, or one someone parks in a handicap space in an empty parking lot, or shoplifts something and then discards it in the parking lot when she is chased, or shoots at someone and misses? According to your logic, none of these offenses would be charged because, “you know, there were really no effects, so whats the big deal”? Thats just ridiculous.
Its the intent and the action that also counts in the law, with or without any effects whatsoever.
Samsung
Note: Most of this is basically a clone of an earlier post by Mr. Cole on the topic; it was so far down that it probably went unnoticed. Sorry for the repeat.
Quote:
___________________________
I am saying that her lying to the police for two hours was not that as big of a deal as you and the Gwinnett County DA are making it out to be.
___________________________
Some interesting details for you:
From a TCS column:
______________________________
…it was discovered that Wilbanks had taken a bus to Las Vegas, and that she had told whoppers to the police about being abducted and sexually abused by a Latino man and his white female accomplice in a blue van …
http://www.techcentralstation.com/052705D.html
_____________________________
The local Latino community might beg to differ, Mr. Cole. For someone who wasn’t too bright she seemed pretty adept at exploiting prejudice against Latin Americans in order to make her story more plausible. This is a slur against the character of the ethnic group in question and will probably not improve race relations in her town. I don’t care if statistics DO show that latinos are more likely to commit felonies; the allegation is still inexcusable. Plus, that’s not even counting the impact that her lies will have on REAL victims of abduction in the future, the money wasted, &c (yes, I do believe the regional authorities have a right to be angry at the squandering of resources over what turned out to be a hoax).
It just doesn’t make sense to be hung up on the fact that there were few consequences this time. Someone could have easily been mistaken for the fictitious Hispanic felon and arrested. He could have been injured or killed while being taken into custody. His life would definitely have been ruined for the short term -if not years to come- and some in the community would always view him with suspicion, regardless of whether or not he managed to clear his name. Would that have been OK? Is everything suddenly cool because she retracted it before such a tragedy DID occur?
Mitchell Morris
Let’s be clear here: Jennifer Wilbanks made no report to Gwinnett County police, much less a false report. Gwinnett County decided on their own to mount a huge manhunt based on a missing persons report that was less than 12 hours old at the time they started.
Last time I checked, adult citizens were not required to report their whereabouts to the police barring an outstanding court order, such as for sex offenders and such. She went somewhere all by herself, as is her right.
Why is this so hard to grasp? I understand you’re angry, but it’s not her fault that they (and you) overreacted. Take some responsibility for your own actions.
Stormy70
My head hurts…make her go away.
jjoats
TOON OF THE DAY: Presidential “Payola”
scs
Mitchell, once again, she called her fiance in Georgia from New Mesico. He passed on the police to her, and the police identified themselves on the line to her and she spoke knowingly and willingly to the police in Georgia, and told them the same fake story she told the police in New Mexico. Thus, that breaks the law.
Jon H
“He passed on the police to her, and the police identified themselves on the line to her and she spoke knowingly and willingly to the police in Georgia, and told them the same fake story she told the police in New Mexico. ”
If she told the police herself, why did they have to trace the call to find out where she was?
Libertine
I can sleep easier tonight in the knowledge that the US now a safer place since justice has been served. ;-)
Samsung
Yes, it is. People who abuse the country’s emergency services put everyone else at risk.
Samsung
Another thing. What’s with this whole “it-isn’t-a-serious problem-like-OBL” mentality? The existence of Osama Bin Laden doesn’t make it unnecessary for law enforcement to deal with comparatively minor crimes. I’d rather have most of my city’s cops focusing on local criminals, who are probably a much greater immediate threat to the average citizen. And yes, that includes people who waste the states’ funds on wild goose chases while real victims are in need of assistance.
scs
Jon H, they had to trace the call because she pretended that she didn’t know where she was.