A Woman’s Baseless Story of Sexual Assault Puts an Innocent Man in Jail

While pundits look the other way

According to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, sexual assault is the most costly of all crimes. “Taking into account short-term medical care, mental health services, lost productivity, and pain and suffering,” it alleges, “the cost per adult sexual assault is estimated at $87,000 per episode of sexual violence.” The exorbitant number (can this crime be even more costly than murder?) is designed to be accepted without question: who, after all, would dare to minimize the “pain and suffering” of a rape victim?

But what about the pain and suffering of a man falsely accused of rape? A recent example in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, suggests the depth of indifference of law enforcement and the media to male victims of women’s lies.

It is a maddening story that gets worse the closer one looks.

Daniel Pierson, a 41-year-old man from Lower Makefield Township, was kept in jail for 31 days on false charges (and a one-million-dollar bail) after a 20-year-old woman, now identified as Anjela Urumova, reported to local police that he had assaulted and tried to kidnap her in a parking lot on the evening of April 16th. He had done nothing of the kind—he didn’t even know the woman and had never interacted with her—but Urumova told police a lurid story of violent sexual attack that they seem to have believed as eagerly as any radical feminist ideologue could require.

Urumova claimed that a man, parked near her in the Redner’s grocery store lot, suddenly grabbed her from behind after she got out of her vehicle. He punched her and attempted to pull off her pants, dragging her toward his vehicle as she struggled and fought back (it’s almost impossible to picture the scenario, so don’t waste time trying). Eventually, her screams caused him to retreat into his truck and drive off. All of this happened, without anyone seeing or hearing, at around 8 pm on the Tuesday.  

Urumova was able to provide a detailed description of her alleged assailant and of his truck, descriptions which enabled police to track Pierson down and arrest him “less than 24 hours after the frightening [sic]  encounter.” The fact that the vehicle was found at another person’s home (someone related to Pierson), and that Pierson was driving a different vehicle when he was arrested, are mentioned but not explained. Urumova then picked Pierson out of a police lineup.

One full month later, Pierson has been released and all charges against him dropped after the woman, questioned about inconsistencies in her story, admitted she had concocted everything. There had been no attempted rape. She had never met Pierson. She had simply seen him and made him her target.

Many questions are left unanswered by the incident, and will probably never be answered. Will the story be pursued by any reporter? It seems unlikely. Will Pierson be offered restitution? It seems unlikely. Will police or the district attorney’s office make any more comments? All that has been said so far, by assistant district attorney Edward Louka, is that “the wrongly-accused man’s exoneration is the result of taking all allegations of sexual assault seriously, but also seeing the investigation through to the end.” As any first-grader could notice, the statement is patently inadequate.  

The burning question is the one no journalist or public figure has broached: how could it happen that an innocent man was arrested, charged, and jailed with no evidence to corroborate his accuser’s risible fabrication—and was not released until a full month later? Why did it take so long for police to uncover the glaring discrepancies in Urumova’s tale (more on these in a moment)? And why is there no public apology being offered?

Without reporters interested in these matters, it is likely that little more, if anything, will be learned about the shocking case. It would be different if we lived in a society that cared at all about the harms caused to innocent men by reckless, vicious women and feminist-compliant law enforcement. What the Bucks County debacle makes clear is that it is now considered perfectly acceptable for men to be deprived of their liberty and have their lives turned upside down so long as authorities can affirm that “all allegations of sexual assault,” no matter how fake, are taken “seriously.”

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A few more points are worth making. Most news reports about Urumova’s claimed attack tended to be more vivid and personal than those about Pierson’s unjust jailing. “Man Attempted to Rape, Kidnap Woman in Lower Bucks Grocery Store Lot: DA,” read one attention-grabbing headline. The alleged attacker’s name and picture were usually provided. Abundant detail was included to present a graphic scene of what the attacker attempted to do to his victim, and how the valiant young woman fought back. We learned that the man was a known methamphetamine user who had had interactions with the police before. It was a satisfyingly ugly anti-male story.

Over a month later, the average report tells us next to nothing about the woman now charged with a number of counts of false reporting and evidence-tampering. We learn her name, but her picture is not usually provided (this detailed ‘Law and Crime’ piece is an exception). Little detail is given about how her lie was discovered or what the woman’s motive may have been. She is out on bail, and no details about her upcoming court date are provided. We don’t learn if she is facing jail time, or whether she has expressed any remorse about the man she accused.

Even simply on its face, the story—told from the two different angles—shows the skewing of media in favor of the (false) female accuser and against the male accused. The under-reporting of Pierson’s wrongful incarceration serves to minimize reader shock and to lessen justified sympathy for him. Unlike in the stories about his accuser, Pierson’s words are not reported or paraphrased; he is not in any manner humanized. We learn nothing about how the incident affected his life. It is not called a “frightening” experience. It is even suggested that his is a story primarily about women because accusations like Urumova’s “could stop victims of sexual assault from coming forward.” Yes, this article mentions Pierson’s and his family’s ordeal, but it moves away from that sore subject as quickly as possible to focus on harms to female shoppers alarmed or rape victims made hesitant.

Only the official criminal complaint against Urumova yields some hard information about her crime. We learn that police eventually confronted the woman about parts of her story that didn’t add up. She had described the route taken by her attacker after he fled the scene, but his truck did not appear where it should have on surveillance video. Similarly, an app on her phone did not record her movements in the parking lot. Forced to confess her lie, Urumova said that she had chosen to accuse Pierson because she had seen him in the parking lot previously and thought he was “creepy.”

When questioned about the length of time she had allowed her victim to sit in jail, she told officers that she had “planned on telling the truth at some point before court.” It doesn’t seem that she was pressed about when that would have been. The police report states only that “Urumova provided an excuse to law enforcement as to why she falsely reported the attack. The excuse had nothing to do with any prior interaction with Daniel Pierson.” It’s not clear why the excuse, irrelevant as it may have been, was not recorded in the police report. The vagueness may possibly give Urumova the opportunity to develop a more convincing rationalization before her trial.

And that is all there is. Conclusion: It’s a woman’s world.

If Anjela Urumova had been able to maintain a plausible claim of attempted rape, we know that various agencies and women’s groups would have stepped forward to help her. She would have been eligible for the Pennsylvania Victims Compensation Assistance Program, which provides reimbursement of up to $35,000 for the costs of counselling, relocation, and loss of earnings. She would have been eligible for this money so long as a police report was filed within 72 hours of the alleged incident, even if no charges were ever laid: not a bad incentive for a criminal mind. In addition, her local rape crisis center would have offered her counselling and support through the process of the trial and its aftermath. In the feminist press, she would have received abundant sympathy.

If the accuser had believed herself wronged in any way by the police or the district attorney’s office, she would have had assistance in publicizing and pursuing a complaint. Many leaders in her society, including feminist journalists and politicians, would have been glad to stand by her. Crowds of women with placards saying “We believe Anjela” might have gathered on the courthouse steps, as has occurred on other occasions.

In contrast, no similar sympathy or assistance will be available for Urumova’s real victim, Pierson. He will be forgotten right away. It’s unlikely that a lawyer will contact him about suing the police or the woman who attempted to ruin his life. No media outlet will express interest in his story. The few beleaguered men’s organizations that exist will not have the resources to help him present his case to the public. Counselling and other post-trauma services will not assist him in getting back on his feet. Certainly, no crowd of sympathizers will demonstrate on his behalf.

Pierson will likely not expect or perhaps even want any of the above. He is probably anxious to put the episode behind him, as men victimized by women usually are. He may not want to present his story—a story that includes previous interactions with police and drug use—because it would not go well for him. His mugshot will remain on the internet for a long time in connection with the allegation; he’ll be lucky if the retraction is also present. He will not be invited on any lecture circuit. No politicians will champion his cause; no legislation will be drafted in his name; no viral hashtag will become associated with him.

Naturally, no feminist organization will mention him or admit that false allegations are a scourge in our society. This is the gender empathy gap with a vengeance.

All decent people agree that sexual assault is a crime of “profound personal injury,” as stated by the Pennsylvania Coalition against Rape. But being falsely accused is at least equally costly, personal, profound, and enduring. The lonely despair of accused men like Pierson indicts a culture that denies female culpability and can’t manage to care about men’s pain.