A Cook County judge on Monday sentenced a Riverside woman who filed a false rape report with Riverside police last November to 18 months felony probation and ordered her to reimburse the Riverside Police Department $1,800 for expenses incurred investigating the case.
At a bench trial in July, 47-year-old Mary Ann Malik was found guilty of felony disorderly conduct. At that time prosecutors asked Judge Geary Kull to order Malik to reimburse the police department $2,200, which represented overtime expense associated with the investigation.
In November 2011, Malik claimed she was raped in an alley while she walked home from work to her Forest Avenue apartment building from the Riverside train station. In the wake of that report, police added foot patrols at night in the area of the train station and pulled officers from street duty to work on the rape investigation, forcing the department to pay overtime to officers covering those shifts.
“Overall, many officers and agencies spent numerous hours investigating and on foot patrol in the vicinity of the victim’s home,” said Police Chief Thomas Weitzel in a press release following Monday’s sentencing hearing.
As police investigated the claim, Malik grew uncooperative with police and her story fell apart when police learned she was not at work on the night the rape allegedly happened and when public works employees making sewer repairs that night in the vicinity of the alleged incident said they saw and heard nothing unusual.
Malik reportedly confessed to police that she made up the rape claim a week after she filed the report. Her goal was to convince her daughter to move back in with her by showing her it was unsafe to live alone.
