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Lawyers: Woman Believed Her Made-Up Story About Rape
By
Ben Muessig
Published Feb 23, 2010
Modified Feb 23, 2010
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Feb 23, 2010
Modified Feb 23, 2010
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The woman whose false rape accusations sent an innocent man to prison for nearly four years claims she was so drunk that night that she started to believe her own lies. Lawyers representing Biurney Peguero Gonzalez—who is currently facing jail-time on perjury charges—say she was so inebriated when she falsely accused William McCaffrey of raping her in a van in Upper Manhattan in 2005 that she lost all memory of the incident and came to believe her own story.
After getting married and undergoing a religious conversion, Gonzalez confessed that she had invented the crime in an attempt to cover up a fight with her girlfriends and make them feel sorry for her. Gonzalez faces between two and seven years in prison for lying to a grand jury and lying during her trial, though she might be sentenced to less time. Her lawyers have asked that she be sentenced to probation, noting that if she didn't come forward, McCaffrey never would have been exonerated.
McCaffrey had his 20-year sentence cut short in December, and said it was "courageous of her to come forward and finally tell the truth."
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perjury
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