A Pennsylvania woman will spend time behind bars after falsely reporting a rape to law enforcement and illegally recording the man she accused without his consent.
In May, Veronika Rodriguez, 27, was found guilty by a Lebanon County jury on one count each of false reporting, intercepting communications, and disclosing intercepted communications.
On Wednesday morning, she was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 22 months of probation, according to the Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office.
Rodriguez was Busted for Having Sex with Doctor in Parked Car, Accused Him of Rape After National Guard Officials Confronted Them for ‘Fraternizing’
In January 2023, Rodriguez, then a member of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, went on a date with a military doctor. The pair consumed alcohol and had sex in the man’s car while parked at the Keystone Conference Center in Fort Indiantown Gap, located about 30 miles northwest of Harrisburg
Police approached the car for being parked after-hours and the incident later appeared on a police blotter, the prosecutor noted. Rodriguez later claimed the sexual encounter was not consensual and that the man took her glasses so she could not see clearly.
However, the rape allegations were raised only after she and the doctor were confronted by National Guard officials about fraternizing, according to authorities.
Rodriguez Filmed Sexual Encounter with the Doctor Without His Content, Manipulated Footage to Make it Look Like She was Raped
Rodriguez’s lie was exposed by her own recording of the alleged sexual assault. She told local police her phone recorded part of the attack. Police seized her phone, which contained both a conversation between the pair and part of their sexual encounter. She manipulated the video to make it appear as she was being raped.
The ensuing investigation into the phone’s contents contradicted some of the woman’s claims, authorities claimed. Investigators also discovered a later text message exchange between the pair where they set up another date.
Investigators also found that Rodriguez had sent the video and audio footage to another contact after describing her night with the doctor, bragging about the hook up.
“The Defendant had consensual sex that she secretly recorded and bragged about to a multitude of friends. She falsely cried rape only when confronted about fraternization with the victim by her military superior,” Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf wrote in a statement after the verdict. “She then manipulated the secret recording to try and make it appear as a rape. A full review of the Defendant’s cell phone’s evidence was damning and proved otherwise.”
Doctor was Forced to Resign from the Military as a Result of the False Accusation
The prosecutor elaborated on the evidence against Rodriguez during a press conference after the verdict. “Every step of the way, this was consensual,” Graf said. “Not only do you have those messages between the two parties, but you also have the way she described it to her friends and in every text, in every message, it was consensual.”
The prosecutor also addressed the convicted woman for the role she played in the doctor’s forced resignation from his military career. “With her heinous and wholly false report of rape, (Rodriguez) stole his career and his future,” Graf went on. “He resigned from the military, lost his military pension, and still receives continued harassment to this day.”
