Here is a an article from the Herald Sun on a case I recently tried in Orange County Superior Court.
Man guilty of false report
BY BETH VELLIQUETTE : The Herald-Sun
bvelliquette@heraldsun.com
Jun 3, 2009
HILLSBOROUGH — In a case that put the UNC campus in a panic just weeks after the murder of Eve Carson, a jury found a man who falsely claimed he was robbed and assaulted by a black man on the UNC campus guilty of filing a false police report Tuesday.
Brian Wallace Sharpe told police on March 28, 2008, that a black man jumped out of the bushes near Wilson Library during the early morning hours and pistol-whipped him, causing a large gash in his head.
His report caused a campus-wide alert that a dangerous man might be on the loose on the UNC campus.
Superior Court Judge Ken Titus sentenced Sharpe to 45 days in jail but suspended the sentence for 12 months. He also ordered Sharpe to pay court costs and a $250 fine.
Titus ordered Sharpe to perform 100 hours of community service for the benefit of the university police department.
“If they need their toilets cleaned, he’s going to do it,” Titus said.
Sharpe was already convicted of filing a false police report in District Court, but he appealed the conviction, so the case was heard again, this time in front of a jury in Superior Court.
Three UNC police officers told jurors how they were called to investigate a report of an armed robbery and assault near the library. The victim, Sharpe, said he was walking to Wilson Library to turn in his time card before 4 a.m., when a young black male jumped out of the bushes and offered to sell him marijuana.
Sharpe told the investigators that he declined, and that the man then asked for his wallet. Sharpe pulled the wallet out to show he didn’t have any money, and that’s when the man hit him in the head with a handgun. Sharpe told the officers he chased the man but lost him.
Because of Carson’s murder, the campus already was in a state of panic, and Sharpe’s story only added to the feeling of terror, said Assistant District Attorney Steve Motta.
As they began to investigate Sharpe’s story, the investigators didn’t find any blood at the crime scene or on the route where Sharpe claimed he chased his assailant.
As the day wore on, they began to doubt Sharpe’s story, so they confronted him about the lack of blood evidence. Sharpe changed his story and said the assault happened in the parking lot, not on the sidewalk, but there was no blood there either.
Sharpe then changed his story once again and said he was assaulted on Franklin Street, but he didn’t want his girlfriend to know he went to a club that night instead of to his job at the library.
As the investigators prepared to call the Chapel Hill Police Department to report that an assault occurred in its jurisdiction, Sharpe changed his story yet again and told the investigators that he had assaulted himself at home after he saw a video of his girlfriend having sex with another man.
“In a bit of frustration, he took the handgun and smashed it against his head,” said Capt. Matthew Ferguson of the UNC Police Department.
Sharpe told Ferguson that he needed medical attention and made up the story because he wanted free medical care at the emergency room.
Sharpe’s attorney, Matthew Suczynski, did not offer any evidence for the defense but argued that Sharpe’s actions did not meet the elements of the crime of filing a false police report because Sharpe didn’t mean to interfere or obstruct a police officer. Rather, his motive was to get free health care, Suczynski said.
Assistant District Attorney Steve Motta argued that Sharpe filed the report to get something for free, taxpayer money intended for real victims of crimes.
“He acted with malicious intent to try to convince these police officers to investigate this story all in an effort to get something he was not entitled to,” Motta said. “He lied every step of the way. He did it to get money.”
