COPS CORNER: Woman's elaborate lie leads deputies on two-day wild goose chase

Sept. 9

White lie keeps on going

11:47 p.m. — 4900 block of Belle Terre Parkway

False report of a crime. An 18-year-old woman got home later than expected and came up with a little fib to explain her tardiness to her boyfriend, saying she'd been pulled over in a strange traffic stop by an unmarked SUV while leaving the supermarket.

But the woman's lie about a fake cop led to her big questioned by real ones after the boyfriend, suspecting the traffic stop wasn't legit, reported it to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.

Soon, actual deputies were arriving at the woman's home asking for details — and the woman gave them plenty, concocting an elaborate tale about a tall, clean-shaven freckled man in his 30s, wearing cargo pants and a tactical vest that said "Sheriff," who'd pulled her over using an SUV with blue and red lights on the front and falsely told her that her tail light and turn signals were out, and then let her go with a warning.

The next day, deputies checked surveillance footage from the supermarket, but the woman's car never showed up. After one deputy confronted her, she insisted she'd been there, even adding that she'd bought a gallon of milk — store brand, 1%— with cash.

So deputies checked hours' worth of the store's interior footage. But she didn't show up there, either. When confronted again, she at first insisted she wasn't lying, but eventually said she'd made up the story and that she'd really just been "hanging out with some friends and lost track of time," according to a deputy's report.

Sept. 10

Cyclist silliness

10:26 p.m. — 5400 block of North Oceanshore Boulevard

Resisting an officer without violence. A deputy on routine patrol noticed a bicyclist crossing the road without the front and rear lights required for night operation.

So the deputy positioned his patrol car to stop the bicyclist, and activated his flashing lights.

But the just cyclist swerved around the car and kept going.

"I commanded the operator to stop, to which he replied 'F--- off,'" the deputy wrote in a report recounting the incident.

The deputy followed the bicyclist down Oceanshore Boulevard for a mile and a half, shining his spot light on him and ordering him to stop, before another deputy arrived the two were able to stop the bicyclist.

They took the cyclist, a booze-breathed 32-year-old from Port St. Lucie, to the county jail.