By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — WABC/Channel 7 weather anchor Heidi Jones was arrested on Monday after allegedly making up a story about how someone tried to rape her in Central Park earlier this year, police said.
Jones, who anchors the local news station’s weekend evening weather and fills in on "Good Morning America," was charged on Monday with falsifying a police report, the NYPD confirmed. If convicted, the anchor could face a fine of up to $1,000 or a year in prison.
Last month, Jones, 37, told police that a man grabbed her from behind while she was jogging in the park on the afternoon of Sept. 24. The man, who she described as Hispanic and in his 30s or 40s, proceeded to drag her to a wooded area and try to rape her, the New York Post reported.
The man stopped his attack when he was scared off by two people who were passing nearby, the paper wrote.
Police were reportedly doubtful about the veracity of Jones' story from the start, according to the Post. Their first suspicion arose from the fact that Jones didn't report the attack to police until two months after the fact, on Nov. 24.
The weather anchor told police on Nov. 21 that her would-be rapist had somehow tracked her down and said to her, "I know you went to the police," the Post reported.
The NYPD followed up on Jones' story, canvassing the area in Central Park where she claimed to have been attacked for witnesses and video. When the search came up cold, detectives spoke with Jones again and realized that there were discrepancies in her story, the paper wrote.
When police confronted the anchor about the holes in her story, Jones reportedly broke down and admitted that she had made the entire thing up, according to the Post. Sources told the paper that Jones said she did so to get sympathy while dealing with some unknown issue in her personal life.
Jones' online persona, however, didn't reflect her reported struggles.
On Nov. 21, the day her attacker supposedly found Jones again and harassed her, she was cheerful on her Facebook fan page, writing "hey guys! here is your turkey day forecast! gobble gobble!!"
