Woman Caught Trying To Frame Ex-Boyfriend With Threatening Texts She Wrote Herself

from the yeah,-that's-not-going-to-work dept

Mon, Jul 12th 2010 1:13pm — Mike Masnick

All too often, we hear about law enforcement folks complaining about the evils of pre-paid mobile phones, with the idea being that someone (a terrorist?) might use them with no way to track them down. As with the open WiFi bogeyman, it seems that people are ignoring traditional detective-work. Take, for example, this story that reader Stan sent in, of a woman who tried to falsely frame her ex-boyfriend and his sister-in-law by purchasing a pre-paid phone in her sister-in-law's name, sending herself threatening text messages, and then going to the police and accusing the ex- and the sister-in-law of being behind them. While the police did initially arrest the pair, further investigation (by the sister-in-law and ex-) led them to the store where the woman purchased the phone. The salesman there identified the woman as buying it while pretending to be the sister-in-law. Then, the police began investigating where the threatening texts were sent from (I'm assuming they subpoenaed the phone company for tower info), and the location matched with where the text-forging woman was at the time. So, instead the police arrested her and she's now been sentenced to a year in jail.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: framing, prepaid mobile, texts, threats

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:45pm

Threatening text will get you and those you know thrown in jail /w hearsay proof? really?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ECA (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:46pm

Fun isnt it.
Cops are only there to arrest you..

Judges only to take and decide Information..

WHO acknowledged the charges from the Lady, and did the follow thru?

1. take the complaint
2. CHECK the complaint
3. arrest someone..

What happened to #2?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Keven Sutton, 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:47pm

Evidence
I would hope that the police checked the receiving phone to see what number the threats were coming from (if you were buying a pre-paid phone and already had a phone, why would you let someone know who you were if the entire purpose of buying the phone was to threaten them in an illegal manner?). I'm sure there were plenty of vectors for the truth to come out on this one, from phone records to possession of the offending phone.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:51pm

Re: Evidence
"Deputy District Attorney Mena Guirguis said that after Manunga and her former boyfriend stopped dating in 2008, she took out a pre-paid cell phone in his sister-in-law's name, and started sending the threatening text messages to her regular cell phone."

The phone records would have indicated that the phone was the sister-in-law's.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:55pm

Re: Fun isnt it.
2. Check The complaint.
Police: call CellPhone Company. Who is the person that owns 555-1212
CellPhone Comapny: The name we have in our system for that number is SisterInLaw.
Police: Thank You

move to Step 3.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:59pm

Re: Re: Fun isnt it.
"1. take the complaint
2. CHECK the complaint
3. arrest someone.."

4. ????
5. PROFIT! (For the court system and lawyers)

Holy shit! This time it actually worked!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Phillip Vector (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 2:12pm

Re:
How is tower information hearsay?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Billy (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re:
Tower information is not hearsay. They were arrested before the tower info was obtained, thus, arrested on hearsay.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Red Monkey (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 2:52pm

self service investigation
So the police are now outsourcing detective work to crime victims? What do the police get paid to do? Good thing the police let them out of jail to investigate the crime. I wonder if they had to supply their own badges.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2010 @ 3:12pm

Re: self service investigation
The department of homeland security outsources terrorist suppression to airplane passengers and considers that a systematic success.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
interval (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 3:52pm

Re: Re: Re: Fun isnt it.
Ha ha ha!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pixelation, 12 Jul 2010 @ 3:57pm

This brilliant woman will now get to spend time with the "chili finger" lady.

Dumb criminals are dumb.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Phillip Vector (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 4:48pm

Re: Re: Re:
Ah. I misread. Apparently, It is the ex who had jail time. Wasn't it? Didn't she get jail time after the tower info?

Her ex-boyfriend and his sister-in-law didn't get jail time from what I read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
abc gum, 12 Jul 2010 @ 4:59pm

The real evil of the pre-paid phone is that a person can get the benefits of a mobile phone without paying exorbitant monthly fees. Certainly, only a terrorist would attempt to do this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
McCrea, 12 Jul 2010 @ 6:03pm

Re: in custody
"They were arrested on false charges of making criminal threats and required to post thousands of dollars in bail. The sister-in-law was arrested three times, and spent some time in custody before she could gather enough funds to pay the bail on her third arrest."

The sister-in-law spent some time in custody, which could mean jail.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
McCre, 12 Jul 2010 @ 6:05pm

Re: Re: in custody
Dang, I definitely quote too much. Copyright infringement, sorry.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Loke, 13 Jul 2010 @ 3:13am

Amateur.

She should have used an anonymous telephone. Then stalked the victim and sent herself text messages from locations where the victims where known to have been. The police connects the dots and there you are. Oh and dispose of the phone permanently afterwards. And never have it on between texts.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Niall (profile), 15 Jul 2010 @ 2:25pm

Re:
Except she'd have to leave 'her' phone somewhere else or it would show as in the same area.
[ link to this | view in thread ]