Was It All a Hoax?
Desiree Nall, former Holt student, is formally indicted and charged for false claims made in November 2004 regarding an alleged sexual assault.
Karina Mc Cabe
Issue date: 4/15/05 Section: News
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Media attention on the criminal investigation of last November's notorious sexual assault incident has been quiet for months now following the news that the police department found significant inconsistencies in the woman's story to suggest that it was simply a hoax. That is, however, until her husband, Jeff Nall, reported his convictions of her innocence to the press last week.
Nall's wife, Desiree, formerly a part-time student at Rollins, is also a renowned women's rights activist as the president of the Brevard Chapter of the National Organization for Women (Now.org). This fact, combined with the coincidence that the rape occurred during the campus-wide sexual assault awareness week sponsored by Voices for Women, convinced many that Nall was trying to make a statement by calling attention to herself in a fake rape case.
However, Nall stated that the media has simply misconstrued the fact of her participation in NOW to suit their theories, when, actually, he attests, "She just became the president two weeks ago." It would seem, then, that her participation in the female activist group is merely a response to the case, rather than a cause of it. In any case, Nall defends that sexual assault cases such as this are not one of the platforms of NOW. Likewise, he explains of his wife and himself, it had "never really been our platform."
Several inconsistencies, including the reported time of the incident, alerted the police that the statement was fraudulent. Consequently, the Winter Park Police Department report indicates that Mrs. Nall was indicted for two misdemeanors, a false police report and a false official statement. For these, she could possibly receive up to one year in jail in addition to large fines to cover the extraordinarily high cost of the police investigation.