Raleigh Woman Arrested For Lying About Being Katrina Victim

[Skywatch_NC]

Raleigh Woman Arrested For Lying About Being Katrina Victim

POSTED: 12:36 pm EDT September 15, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A Raleigh woman was arrested Wednesday for lying to the American Red Cross about being a Hurricane Katrina victim, authorities said.

According to the arrest warrant, 23-year-old Tiffany Signal told the Red Cross earlier this week that she was a victim of Hurricane Katrina's damage in New Orleans.

The warrant stated that Signal used a fake name and address and received a debit card with a balance of $665. She also received a 14-day pass to a hotel.

Within 48 hours of receiving the debit card and pass, authorities said, Signal was arrested in Raleigh on Wednesday night.

She has been charged with obtaining property by false pretense. Her bond has been set for $3,000, and she is being held in the Wake County Jail.

http://www.wral.com/news/4977947/detail.html

[JQ Public]

Good Serves her right. I'm ashamed to be from raleigh after hearing that, but i'm sure its a site seen all around the southeast

[Skywatch_NC]

And she's probably not the only one...no doubt across the country who has tried to pull a fast one either like this...

Also, remember when some peeps tried a thing similar to this in the wake of 9/11 over $$?

Eric

[mf_dolphin]

Unfortunately she will have a lot of company.

[beachbum_al]

In Alabama we had two women who were using money (either Fema or Red Cross) claiming they were victims but instead they were not and were using the money for drugs.

[RichG]

I am afraid the looting after the storm will be minor compared to the looting going on right now with some people taking advantage of charities and the massive government spending.

[crazycajuncane]

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

[HurryKane]

She definitely has kin.

While evacuated to my parent's town, I volunteered at the local Red Cross distribution center for a few days. One woman we gave one of the $100 Wal-mart vouchers to kept coming back and raising hell about how she needed another one because the Wal-mart people were mean to her and had torn up her original voucher and on and on. She would come back every couple of hours with a new twist on her story.

Finally someone recognized her as being from the area and she was firmly escorted out and told to go jump. She and others like her have a gasoline-filled waterbed waiting for them in hell as far as I am concerned.

[Pebbles]

We had a case like this during Floyd. While doing damage assessment for the Red Cross, my supervisor and I went on a call to 1 trailer. See people would come in asking for assistance and we would go assess their home if their general area had not already been done. We got to this woman's place. It was located at the top of a hill, no rivers/ponds around, not a tree by her house for over 100 yeards, and all houses around her were in pristine condition.

As we walked up to the door we wondered if we were at the wrong place. But the door was answer and we were at the right place. Everything in the house looked undamaged as this woman began to spin her story about how water came in top of the door and how thousands of dollars worth of cloths were just distroyed and she needed help oh so bad.

We listened to her story and left. By the time we got back to the vehical RC had rented we were nearly ready to explode. We were standing right on the spot the woman said 'so called' cloths were and they carpet had no water spots/damage whatso ever. And if rain was coming in so bad why would you leave cloths laying on the floor right next to the door? We reported in about her fraudualant case and she got nada.

What made matters worse about this one is the house after that truely was a woman in need. A little old lady in a wheelchair had been in her house for 3 days. A HUGE tree had fallen on her roof, causing substantial damage and she waited that long before calling the redcross. Her neighbors who had sustained no damage never even came to check on her and see if she was ok. And for some reason she never called 911 to get help. (Acutally I was amazed this woman was living on her own as she really had some handicaps).