A 20-year-old Bristol Township woman who claimed she was attacked at a Middletown shopping center admitted Thursday she made up the incident, a lie that kept an innocent Bucks County man incarcerated for 31 days.
Anjela Borisova Urumova entered an open guilty plea to seven misdemeanor charges, including multiple counts of filing false reports and tampering with evidence on Thursday before Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr.
Urumova faces a potential maximum of 17 years in prison, but the sentencing guidelines recommend probation. She remains free on bail. Her sentencing was deferred until March 31 so a pre-sentencing report could be prepared.
In court, Urumova offered mostly one word answers to routine questions.
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She told the judge she is diagnosed with mental illness for which she takes medication.
Defense attorney Ethan Paraboschi declined to comment on why his client made up a story about being attacked, but said more information would be revealed at sentencing.
“She is trying to do the right thing and this is the right way to handle this situation,” he said after the hearing.
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Prosecutor Kristin McElroy said Urumova has not told the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office what motivated her.
McElroy also is encouraging the man she falsely accused to provide a victim-impact statement at sentencing, but she is unsure if he will appear.
Her office is looking into whether any restitution can be applied on behalf of the victim, McElroy added.
Woman gives false report at Redner’s in Langhorne
Urumova called 911 on the evening of April 16, 2024 claiming that a man attacked her as she got out of her car to go grocery shopping at Redner’s supermarket in Langhorne Square Shopping Center off Lincoln Highway, police said.
Urumova claimed the man attacked her from behind, pulled down her pants, punched her in the face and then tried to carry her toward his pickup truck before she broke free and he got back into his truck, which was parked near hers.
A pickup truck matching one Urumova described the attacker as driving was captured by license plate readers a quarter-mile away minutes before the attack, according to police.
The day after the alleged assault, Urumova identified the pickup truck owner as one of two potential suspects. The man she identified also drove a pickup like the one she described the attacker as driving, police said.
Urumova later confirmed the mug shot of the suspect was “definitely the subject who attacked her,” the affidavit said.
The man was arrested the next day on multiple felony charges including attempted rape and kidnapping. He was incarcerated on $1 million bail until he was released on May 17 after charges against him were withdrawn. He was publicly identified by authorities.
The attack story unravels as Bucks County detectives investigate
Urumova’s story began to unravel shortly after the arrest, when Bucks County Detectives and the Middletown Police Department received information from the suspect’s family that “warranted further investigation,” according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Middletown police reviewed surveillance video that showed Urumova’s pickup truck in the parking lot around the time of the alleged attack, but did not show the man’s pickup truck or any similar pickup trucks traveling through the path Urumova claimed the vehicle took to exit the shopping center, the affidavit said.
A county detective conducted a forensic review of Urumova’s cellphone, which showed all the data associated with a Snapchat app had been deleted from the phone before law enforcement received the device for examination, the affidavit said.
The investigation found multiple inconsistencies and contradictory information with Urumova’s account of the attack, authorities said.
When detectives confronted her with the findings on May 17, Urumova admitted making up the entire incident and confirmed no assault occurred, according to the affidavit.
She told detectives that she did not know the man she accused. She targeted the suspect and his pickup truck because she had seen them both previously at the shopping center, and described the man as “creepy,” according to the affidavit.
When detectives asked her if she planned to tell the truth at any point, Urumova replied that she planned to fess up at some point before the man’s preliminary hearing, which was scheduled for June.
Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Woman pleads guilty to lying about attack in Bucks County parking lot