A Muslim woman who claimed she was verbally attacked by Donald Trump supporters on the subway has been charged with filing a false report, the New York Daily News is reporting.
Yasmin Seweid, 18, was charged with filing a false report for the story and obstructing governmental administration, police sources told the Daily News and other media outlets on Wednesday. Police told CBS New York she was in police custody on Wednesday afternoon.
Several weeks ago, the Muslim student claimed three men shouted “Donald Trump” and called her a terrorist before trying to rip off her hijab while on the 6 train in Manhattan.
She admitted to detectives the story was fabricated, according to reports.
“This isn’t something we normally like to do but she had numerous opportunities to admit nothing happened and she kept sticking by her story,” the police source said.
“We dedicated a lot of resources to this—and don’t get me wrong, this is what we do—but we had guys going back and forth, looking for video and witnesses. And we couldn’t find anything.”
Investigators said they spent NYPD resources trying to verify her claim but were unable to find witnesses to the incident that could corroborate her story, police sources told DNAInfo.
Seweid told police that she made up the story because she wasn’t getting attention at home, sources told DNAInfo.
Her father, Sayeed Seweid, told the website that his daughter went missing for a few days after the incident but was later found at a friend’s house.
“She’s a bright, good girl. She’s young and maybe she was foolish here,” he said. “Young kids, you know, you don’t understand their mentality.”
Yasmin Seweid told CBS NY of the alleged incident: “I heard them talk, but I had my headphones in, I wasn’t really listening, I had a long day. And they came closer and I distinctly heard them saying, ‘Donald Trump.’”
She had claimed the men, who were drunk, verbally assaulted her.
“They were surrounding me from behind and they were like, ‘Oh look, it’s an [expletive] terrorist,’” she said. “I didn’t answer. They pulled my strap of the bag and it ripped, and that’s when I turned around and I was really polite and I was like, ‘can you please leave me alone?’ and everyone was looking, no one said a thing, everyone just looked away.”
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