False reports lead to real charges for Carlee Russell

ALABAMA (WCBI) – Carlee Russell has been in media headlines since her alleged abduction.

Now, she’s on the other side of the law.

False reporting causes havoc among police, local communities, and in this case the country.

“Hoover detectives obtained warrants for the arrest of Carlee Russell,” said Chickasaw County Sheriff James Myers.

Charges have been filed in a case that captivated the country for 48 hours.

Carlee Russell was charged with two misdemeanors of false reporting to law enforcement authorities and falsely reporting an incident.

If convicted, each crime carries up to a year in jail and up to a $6,000 dollar fine.

Myers said false reporting happens all the time in his county but not to the extreme of a nationwide manhunt.

“Somebody gets mad at somebody and they’ll come in and file a report that’s not exactly true. We always try to see if there’s something there we might see on the front end and it kind of leads us to believe that maybe there is a problem. And we always tell them, you know, that filing a false report, especially one of their kinds like ‘he said she said’,” said Myers.

Myers said there’s always more than one victim in these cases.

“Not only is the person that makes the complaint liable, criminally and possibly civilly you know if things were to get to that point,” said Myers. “The citizens are also suffering from that because you know if something seriously gets called in whether that be a false wreck report if the closest officers are not very close during that time span, the public’s not being available to have somebody to come on another call, and we get there and it’s a false report. Well, then we’ve tied somebody up for whether it be 15 minutes or up to an hour.”

The sheriff said false reports start off on the misdemeanor level which is a fine and possible jail time, but as a person makes more than one complaint and gets convicted, the penalty can increase to a felony level.

That’s exactly what happened in Carlee Russell’s case.

“I know that many are appalled that Miss Russell is only being charged with two misdemeanors despite all the panic and disruption her actions caused. I too share the same frustration but existing laws only allow the charges that were filed to be filed,” said Hoover Chief Nick Derzis.

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