Back in June Def-Con News brought you the story of Althea Bernstein, an 18-year-old biracial woman, who claimed that 4 white men set her on fire. We speculated that it was actually her pants that were on fire because she was lying her ass off. In the biggest non-shocker of the year, the Madison, Wisconsin police have determined that there is no validity to her story or, in other words, she made up the entire thing.
First, here’s the original report:
Madison police and the FBI have launched a hate crime investigation after an 18-year-old biracial woman was set on fire.
The assault took place early Wednesday morning when the woman was driving and stopped at a red light and “heard someone yell out a racial epithet,” according to a police incident report.
The woman is not named in the report, but a family spokesperson identified her as Althea Bernstein, a college student and a volunteer EMT.
“She looked and saw four men, all white. She says one used a spray bottle to deploy a liquid on her face and neck, and then threw a flaming lighter at her, causing the liquid to ignite,” read the report, which was filed over the phone.
Bernstein then “patted out the flames, and eventually drove home,” the report said. “Her mother encouraged her to go to a hospital.”
The Madison Police Department unceremoniously released a statement with regards to the “hate crime” and it appears they don’t believe it ever happened:
The Madison Police Department is closing the investigation into this case. After an exhaustive probe, detectives were unable to corroborate or locate evidence consistent with what was reported.
The Madison Police Department dedicated significant resources to this case. The investigation was led by the MPD Violent Crime Unit, with support from the Forensic Services Unit and Central District. Detectives conducted numerous interviews, reviewed extensive video, and analyzed physical/digital evidence during the course of the investigation. MPD was assisted in these efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
Case findings were also reviewed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Both independently evaluated the facts and reached the same conclusion as MPD.
The MPD also released all of the case files related to this sham and one of the more interesting aspects is the search of city traffic cameras. Bernstein was unable to give an exact location and time of the alleged attack, but the cops went through everything and could not, “locate Bernstein or the four male subjects described by Bernstein on city cameras in the area or time that Bernstein stated the incident occurred.”
This is all a very nice way of saying that Bernstein made the story up. Missing from the MPD statement is any indication that they intend to charge her for making a false police report.
Also missing is any national coverage of the hate hoax. When Bernstein first fabricated this lie, the liberal media spread the outrage pretty thick, but now that she’s been exposed as a fraud, it’s nothing but crickets.
Hell, Meagan Markle was a vocal supporter of Bernstein and so was the NFL. Todd Gurley of the Atlanta Falcons and Oren Burks of the Green Bay Packers wore her name on their helmets. Will they now wear helmets stickers calling her out for being a liar?
