The national media slobbered over the news of the vicious anti-gay
hate crime for days on end. Now I haven't heard anything about the
story being made up by the deranged "victim" other than in the local
newspaper. Interesting.

Aug 21, 6:26 PM EDT

Police: Ex-Neb. hoops star faked anti-gay attack

By GRANT SCHULTE
Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- A former University of Nebraska women's
basketball star faked an attack in which she allegedly carved anti-gay
slurs into her skin because she felt it would spark change, police
said Tuesday.

Four days before Charlie Rogers crawled naked and bleeding from her
Lincoln home, screaming for help, she outlined in a Facebook posting
what investigators believe was her motive for faking the July 22
attack, Police Chief Jim Peschong said at a news conference.

"So maybe I am too idealistic, but I believe way deep inside me that
we can make things better for everyone. I will be a catalyst. I will
do what it takes. I will. Watch me," read the July 18 posting,
according to police.

Furthermore, genetic testing on evidence gathered at the crime scene
undermines Rogers' account of what happened, Peschong said.

Charlie Rogers, 33, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to making a false
police report and was released on her own recognizance. She didn't
respond to a message seeking comment left Tuesday at a number listed
as hers, but her lawyer, Brett McArthur, said she maintains the attack
happened and plans to vigorously defend herself.

"This has been a very traumatic event for her, and having the focus of
the investigation turn toward her has been really hard," said
McArthur, who described Rogers as reserved and soft-spoken, and not
the type to seek attention.

"She has no reason to lie about what happened. She's pretty
devastated, when you go to authorities and things kind of get turned
around on you," he said.

Rogers, a lesbian who ranks second all-time in blocked shots for the
Cornhuskers, reported the attack amid a charged debate in Lincoln over
the city's proposed "fairness ordinance," which would ban
discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
The City Council approved the ordinance in May, 5-0, but two
conservative groups gathered enough signatures to force a popular vote
on it before it can take effect.

According to police, Rogers said three masked men broke into her home,
and that one of them pinned her down while another sliced a cross into
her chest, cut the front of her thighs and shins and carved derogatory
words in her arms and abdomen. She said they then rolled her onto her
stomach and cut her buttocks, the back of her thighs and the back of
her right calf. She also said they tried to burn down her house.

Rogers crawled from her home naked, bleeding and screaming for help, a
neighbor told police. The community's gay community responded swiftly,
and hundreds turned out for a rally that weekend outside the state
Capitol.

On Tuesday, four Nebraska gay-rights groups that followed the case
released a joint statement crediting police for conducting what they
believe was a balanced and thorough investigation.

"It is important not to focus on the actions of any single
individual," the groups said in the statement. "As residents of
Lincoln we must continue to bring our community together to declare
that violence and hate are not the values of our city."

According to Peschong, police found a pile of clothes, white knit
gloves and a red box cutter on the living room floor after the alleged
attack. Rogers said the gloves didn't belong to her, but investigators
determined that a lot of the DNA found inside the glove was Rogers'
and that none of it came from a male.

Peschong said investigators discovered that Rogers deleted numerous
text messages she had sent the evening of the alleged attack, and that
she bought cotton gloves, a box cutter and zip ties from an Ace
Hardware Store in Lincoln on July 17. All of the items were later
found in her house, he said. When confronted about the evidence weeks
later, he said, Rogers admitted to purchasing all of the items except
the gloves.

She also sent a photo of a cross-shaped cut on her chest to a friend a
few days before the reported attack, Peschong said.

Investigators say they found no apparent sign of a struggle in the
living room where Rogers said she was attacked, and no blood on the
sheets where the cutting allegedly took place. An FBI forensic
pathologist concluded that Rogers either cut herself, or allowed
someone else to do it.

Peschong said the department spent thousands of dollars investigating
the case, but he stressed that the case will not undermine the
department's trust in people who report hate crimes.

"The FBI, the Bureau of Fire Prevention and the Lincoln Police
Department have spent an exorbitant amount of time and personnel
resources investigating this," he said. "We aggressively investigated
this. Every day since this incident has happened, there have been
investigators working on trying to identify who these assailants
were."