Carlee Russell investigation: Alabama police seek to charge woman who lied about abduction
Rachel Schilke
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Alabama police are pursuing two criminal charges against Carlee Russell, the nursing student who admitted to lying about being abducted.
Jefferson County Chief Assistant District Attorney Lane Tolbert confirmed to multiple outlets that prosecutors are considering filing charges against Russell, 25, who disappeared for two days and arrived home safely. She had claimed she was abducted and escaped but later issued a statement through her attorney admitting she had lied.
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Prosecutors are discussing charging Russell with falsely reporting an incident and false reporting to law enforcement authorities. Both are class A misdemeanors in Alabama, and each carries a sentence of up to one year in prison.
If charges are filed, they would be filed by the circuit clerk of Jefferson County, Bessemer Division’s office, Tolbert said to ABC News.
Hoover Police Department Chief Nick Derzis read the statement from Russell’s attorney to reporters on Monday, calling Russell’s disappearance on July 13 a “hoax.”
“My client did not see a baby on the side of the road. My client did not leave the Hoover area when she was identified as a missing person. My client did not have help in this incident, as this was a single act done by herself. My client was not with anyone or any hotel with anyone from the time she was missing,” the statement from Emory Anthony, Russell’s attorney, read.
Derzis told reporters that officers had scheduled a meeting with Anthony to discuss the case and were in talks with the district attorney’s office about “possible criminal charges.”
The chief said the department would announce potential charges “when and if they are filed.”
A Hoover Police Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner they could not confirm whether the department is pursuing the misdemeanor charges “at this time.”
Russell disappeared on the night of July 13 and reappeared on the night of July 15. She claimed a man with orange hair abducted her after she pulled over on the side of the road. She had called 911 to report that a toddler had been walking along the interstate and she was following it in her car.
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Derzis had questioned several details of Russell’s alleged abduction, focusing on internet searches relating to Amber alerts, a one-way ticket to Nashville from Birmingham, and details about the movie Taken, which involves an abduction. Police had also not been able to corroborate the toddler’s existence and no one else called in to report a child missing or on the highway.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office – Bessemer Division for comment.