Instead of paying two subcontractors the money she owed, a California woman concocted an elaborate tale about being abducted, beaten and robbed by two black men, according to law enforcement officials investigating the incident.
According to an initial report by the Fresno Bee, On Saturday, police in Fresno, Calif., began frantically searching for suspects after 32-year-old Maria Gonzales reported that she was headed to pay two subcontractors for her trucking company when masked negroes, one with a shotgun and one with a handgun, jumped in her car and held her at gunpoint and forced her to drive to the west side of Fresno, where the black people live.
The masked men supposedly pistol-whipped Gonzalez, knocking her unconscious and stole $9,000 out of her purse. She woke up in a field with her hands tied behind her back and escaped to a nearby home, where the homeowner immediately alerted the authorities. When Gonzales arrived at the hospital, she told police that she may have been sexually assaulted by the nonexistent black men.
“The truth is Maria Gonzalez made up this entire story for the purpose of letting someone know that $9,000 had been stolen from her—$9,000 she was supposed to pay to subcontractors. The reality is, she didn’t have the $9,000 to pay the subcontractors, and that’s why she made up the entire story,” Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer told the Fresno Bee.
Police said that Gonzales simply made up the story because her trucking company, M & C Gonzales Trucking, didn’t have the money to pay two independent drivers. She told the truckers that she was on the way just before she was sidelined by the magical kidnapping negroes.
But police began noticing holes in her story and could find no video evidence of her ordeal despite the fact that she said she drove around in the car with the invisible kidnappers for two hours before they beat her to sleep.
Gonzales was released by police, but she is expected to be arrested on charges of suspicion of filing a police report, which is a misdemeanor.
The sad part of this story is that, if only for a second, Maria Gonzales thought people would believe that two masked black guys were randomly standing on a street corner with guns in tow, waiting for someone to pass who just might have some money in her purse.
And apparently, they just happened to have some hand-binding equipment with them.
And when they discovered they hit the jackpot with $9,000, at least one of the black gunmen said: “Wait, since we’re here, we might as well rape too...”
And the worst part of it all?
The police, if only for a day, actually believed Gonzales was credible. They thought she was so credible, in fact, that they alerted news outlets. Even worse, the news outlets believed the story, too!
But then again, it reminds me of how I was kidnapped and tortured by two white dudes as I was on the way to pay my mortgage, cash my winning lottery ticket and mail a box containing an eight-karat flawless diamond with a note asking Lupito Nyong’o for her hand in marriage.
But when I woke up, all that was left in my car was 74 cents in change, a car charger and a french fry under the seat.
Someone should look into this.
“Give it time. I’m sure everyone will forget about it” suggested Gonzales’ adviser, Carolyn Bryant.