OKEECHOBEE — A local woman contacted the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office to report a text she said she received from a man through Facebook messenger. The woman said it was a sexually explicit text and caused her to remember a time when she was young and this person had attempted to molest her. While she was speaking to Deputy Jose Garcia, she claimed to received another message from the same person. Detective Tyley Ott was assigned to the case.
The woman claimed the person who was messaging her now had molested her once as a child but since no one had seen it, nothing was done about it.
When Detective Ott looked at the Facebook account the messages were coming from, he found nothing but a profile picture, no statuses, events or friendships. The only thing viewable was the profile picture. The person who supposedly sent the messages denied having anything to do with it and the individual’s phone showed no evidence of logging in to that account.
An attempt to set up a controlled phone call through Facebook messenger did not work.
The woman was told they needed to hear the person, so it could be captured on audio. She then reportedly received audio recordings via messenger detailing what allegedly happened when she was a child.
The woman gave OCSO permission to keep her phone and they were able to find evidence that she set up the Facebook profile and sent herself the audio recordings.
Afterward, she reportedly confessed to creating the fake account so the person would get in trouble.
She was charged with two counts giving false information during a felony criminal, perjury and two counts tampering with evidence. Her bond was originally set at $33,000 but was lowered to $18,000.