A married South Dakota woman admitted she made up a rape report in Florida to get a free STD test after cheating on her husband – when police discovered she bought the rope she said she was tied up with from Walmart.
Renee Dawn Skoglund, 30, will spend two years under community control – a form of house arrest, eight years on probation and will have to pay a fine of more than $17,000 – the cost of the investigation into her fake claim.
STD tests cost as little as $24 in Hillsborough County, Florida, where Skoglund reported on March 8 that she’d been the victim of sexual battery.
According to 911 audio that was released, she claimed she pulled over to the side of a road with car trouble, a man tied up her hands and feet, put a towel on her head, shoved her in the car and raped her.
But cops became suspicious when she was too specific about the type of rope used to bind her – one which was sold at a local Walmart, where cops requested security footage and spotted Skoglund herself buying the cord.
‘Following this discovery, detectives recovered video from multiple places Mrs. Skoglund visited in the time surrounding the attack, refuting her initial statements,’ the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
‘She attempted to change her statements before eventually admitting to fabricating the entire incident.’
In a bizarre twist, it was then revealed that then-married Skoglund fabricated her assault in an attempt to get a free STD test after she had a one night stand.
‘She had consensual sexual intercourse with an individual in Hillsborough County,’ prosecutor Jessica Couvertier said in court, FOX 13 reported.
‘Then she felt guilty about it because of her marital status, and she wanted to get checked out for a sexually transmitted disease.’
Skoglund was arrested and charged in Sioux Falls on March 10 with misuse of a 911 system, false report of a crime and fabricating physical evidence.
She now owes a total of $17,245.26 to the local sheriff’s office for the money they spent on investigating her claim.
