Inmates at 2 jails falsely cried Ebola, officials say; one defendant now faces a new charge
It isn’t just the general public that is thinking about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
At least two criminal defendants being held at U.S. jails have falsely claimed to have the potentially deadly disease, authorities say. That sparked a full-bore response not only at the jails but in a courtroom where one was being arraigned, just in case the unlikely claims were actually true.
In Florida, a judge cleared the courtroom and asked the sheriff to investigate after noticing that a police report said Joseph Britton had allegedly claimed to have Ebola. Britton now denies that he said so, the Sun Sentinel reports, and he is not expected to face any additional charges, a spokeswoman for the Broward County sheriff’s department told the newspaper.
However, Sheriff Scott Israel said any copycats who falsely claim to have Ebola will be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, a man held over the weekend at the Clark County Detention Center now faces a new misdemeanor charge of making a false report to a police officer, in addition to an earlier burglary case.
Authorities said David Lee, 29, claimed to have recently returned from Africa with Ebola symptoms, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In fact, Lee does not have the disease and has not been out of the U.S., the article reports.
