She Claimed A Police Officer Raped Her. Surveillance Footage Determined That Was A Lie.

A woman falsely accused a police officer of raping her after she was arrested for shoplifting.

Marley Barberian, 23, was stealing from a Target store in Palm Beach County when she was arrested earlier this year. While in jail, she claimed a Sheriff’s Office deputy had groped her at the store where she was arrested and raped her on the side of the road while on the way to the jail.

“She said he pulled her pants down and raped her on the side of the road after he pulled over to complete some paperwork he got from the police department, the arrest report notes,” CBS 12 reported. “She then told authorities the deputy who raped her drove her and dropped her off at the jail. She also accused the deputy of groping her earlier in a patdown during her arrest at the Target.”

Barberian claimed the deputy who did these things to her was “a big white male, bald or with little hair, and green eyes,” according to CBS 12. She said he put his gun in her mouth “because that probably turned him on.”

Except, a female officer conducted the pat down of Barberian at Target, according to another male deputy. This male deputy also said the accused officer only drove her to Greenacres police station and not to the Palm Beach County Jail, which is when the attack was alleged to have occurred. It was a female deputy who took her from the police station to the county jail.

“Investigators also looked at the in-car video and learned that there were no stops from the time the accused deputy drove Barberian from the Target to the Greenacres Police Department,” CBS 12 reported. “Other surveillance video showed a female deputy escorting her into the jail and booking her there, the arrest report says.”

Based on this evidence, police charged Barberian for making a false report of sexual battery, a false report of crime, and perjury outside of an official proceeding. She’s being held on $3,000 bond.

This false accusation came just weeks after it was determined that another woman, in Bellevue, WA, made false allegations of rape against a police chief. That woman, who hasn’t been arrested yet and may not be because she is mentally ill, created fake email exchanges to claim the police chief had arranged to have sex with her over an “adult sex website.” The only problem? The chief didn’t live at the address mentioned in the emails at the time. DNA also ruled him out.

The police chief was put on paid administrative leave until the charges were dropped. The chief said he believed “people should be held accountable for their actions,” though he also said he worried this false accusation would lead real victims to avoid reporting. It’s unclear how an obvious false accusation would keep real victims from thinking they would be believed.

“I have a deeper appreciation about what it means to be falsely accused, and I also have a deeper appreciation of what it’s like to be on administrative leave,” the police chief said. “And I think it will make me a better chief and a better human.”