LYKENS — A Reamstown woman was charged by state police at Lykens with falsely reporting she was raped last year.
Amanda Marie Wertz, 26, of 75 N. Reamstown Road, Box 448, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of unsworn falsification to authorities and one misdemeanor count each of false reports to law enforcement, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and false reports to law enforcement authorities.
Wertz will now have to answer to the charges before Magisterial District Judge Rebecca J. Margerum, Elizabethville, at a preliminary hearing set for 9:15 a.m. April 14.
Trooper Joel Zimmerman of the Lykens station said about 2:15 a.m. Sept. 10, 2014, Wertz said she was forcibly raped by a man.
When interviewed, the Lykens man accused of the crime said he met Wertz on an Internet dating site and that the two had consensual sex on two occasions. The man also showed police sexually suggestive text messages Wertz sent to him, Zimmerman said.
On Feb. 26, Zimmerman said, he spoke with Wertz, who said she was telling the truth about the forced rape and she believed the man’s wife sent the sexually suggestive messages from her cellphone.
Zimmerman said he spoke with Wertz on Sunday and she said she spoke about the matter with her mother, who told her to be truthful.
Then, Zimmerman said, Wertz told him she had consensual sex with the man and that she made up the rape charge because she was mad at him and at herself for cheating on her boyfriend.
That same day, Wertz provided a written statement that she made up the rape charge, saying she was mad because after the two had consensual sex, the man was ignorant to her and called her names.
The man who Wertz claimed committed the crime was never charged, court records show.