3rd Simi Valley Teen Lies About Assault

For the third time in less than a week, a teenage girl has admitted lying to the Simi Valley Police Department about being abducted from city streets and sexually attacked.

Police said a 17-year-old Royal High School student was arrested on suspicion of filing a false report and issued a citation to appear at the county Probation Department. She was released to her parents.

The girl, whose name was not disclosed because of her age, told investigators she lied about the May 3 incident because she was seeking attention from her parents.

Last week, two other teenage girls confessed to Simi Valley police that their stories of being pulled from city streets and sexually assaulted were fabrications. Both were arrested on suspicion of filing a false police report, issued a probation citation and released.

Sgt. Joseph May, a department spokesman, said the false allegations have frustrated police. He said parents needed to make the teens aware of the gravity of their actions.

“One, they’re committing a crime,” May said. “Two, they’re taking resources away from people who may need us. And three ... they’re letting down all the people who pour their hearts into providing services for sexual assault victims.”

The 17-year-old girl told authorities she was walking home from school about 3:40 p.m. near Royal and Crosby avenues when two males wearing ski masks grabbed her. She later told police they blindfolded her and carried her to a green sedan. She said the car sped off, stopped a short time later and the masked men got out.

She said that the driver attempted to assault her, but that she put up a fight, escaped and ran to a relative’s home nearby. The girl and her parents reported the incident to police about 10 p.m.

In an incident May 5, officers were dispatched to Sinaloa Middle School after receiving a missing-person’s report regarding a 14-year-old girl from Granada Hills. She was not at the school when her father came to pick her up, May said, and a short time later the department received a call about a girl who approached a resident and claimed to have been kidnapped.

Her original story was that a man riding in a van forced her inside after she refused a ride. She claimed another male drove and that the passenger grabbed her, removed her clothes, then fondled and sexually assaulted her for 60 to 90 minutes before releasing her.

While being questioned by police, the girl admitted that she made up the kidnapping tale because she was afraid of being punished for poor grades.

The next day, a 15-year-old Royal High student told police she had been abducted in January by two males wearing ski masks. She told officers the men took her to the school’s athletic field and sexually assaulted her.

The girl later admitted that she had lied about the incident in an attempt to get attention from her boyfriend.