Is a little prison time too much to ask? Apparently so….
A North Texas teenager who falsely claimed she was kidnapped and raped by three black men last March will likely serve no prison time.
On Thursday, 19-year-old Breana Harmon of Pottsboro pleaded guilty to four felony charges of tampering with physical evidence and government documents in relation to false reports of kidnapping and sexual assault.
“She’s very remorseful for what she did and what she said, and that’s why she decided to plead guilty,” Harmon’s attorney Bob Jarvis told the Sherman Herald Democrat. No suspects were ever identified or arrested in the case.
Harmon will be sentenced March 20. Her plea deal has two possible punishments: regular probation or deferred adjudication, which often involves fulfilling a requirement, such as treatment or community service. Neither involves prison time.
On March 8, 2017, Harmon was reported missing to the Denison Police Department after witnesses noticed the door to her vehicle was open with personal items, including a phone and keys, scattered on the ground.
A few hours later, Harmon walked into a church wearing only a shirt, bra and underwear. She said she had been kidnapped by three black males wearing ski masks, according to the Sherman Herald Democrat. Harmon claimed the men assaulted her and that she was raped by two men while a third held her down.
Investigators noticed inconsistencies in Harmon’s story within in a few days. Medical workers didn’t find evidence she had been raped, and the holes in a pair of blue jeans discovered at the alleged crime scene didn’t match her injuries, according to the Dallas Morning News.
I will grant you that saying you were raped by 3 non-existent men isn’t as damaging as pointing the finger at a single man, but it still shouldn’t be treated like a prank gone wrong. The police have to waste their time and money investigating a false allegation; the public is scared, “OMG, should I let my daughter go to school when there are ski-mask-wearing rapists prowling the streets?” and the possibility always exists that someone will get falsely accused. It’s not a victimless crime and as a society, we need to stop giving women slaps on the wrist for it.
If a woman gets definitively caught making a false allegation, she needs to spend time in a jail cell. I don’t care if she wanted attention, she was mad, she’s so remorseful now or anything else; she needs to go to jail. The fact that women consistently get away with this so often is a big part of why we see as many false allegations as we do.
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