A Pennsylvania woman was arrested this week for faking her own abduction to avoid having her family find out she’d dropped out of college. Chloe Stein, 23, should have been graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Penn State this year, but instead she stopped attending classes altogether without telling her parents, Pennsylvania State Police said. Instead of fessing up to her decision, she instead staged a kidnapping and is now facing multiple charges.
Stein contacted her boyfriend on Monday night at 10:30 p.m. while driving home from work. She texted him to say she was being pulled over by police and then never messaged him again. He tried to get in contact multiple times but was unable to, so he alerted her family and authorities. Her Volkswagen Beetle was later found abandoned by her family, leading them to file a missing person declaration. A search was immediately launched.
State Police Trooper Steve Limani revealed in a news conference on Tuesday that “tens of thousands” of dollars had been wasted on the search for Chloe Stein, who was eventually traced to a home in Jeanette, about 30 miles away from Pittsburgh. She was safe and sound and most certainly hadn’t been abducted.
Chloe Stein eventually fessed up, but it took her a while
However, not wanting the ruse to be fully uncovered, Stein told authorities during an interview that she was pulled over while driving on Monday “by an unknown male who posed as a police officer.” That person then allegedly blindfolded her and transported her to multiple different locations in the area. How she got free and why she was hiding were not immediately explained.
Police thought her story seemed a bit suspicious, especially since a spokesperson from Penn State had reached out to authorities to set the record straight. Chloe Stein had been listed as a senior at the university but she isn’t actually a currently enrolled student.
“During the course of that phone call we found out that she had not been attending college for quite some time — almost at the point where it’s over a year, maybe two — and graduation was right around the corner,” Limani revealed. “That really led us in the direction that at any point of time there was no police interaction, there was no pull over. None of that happened.”
Eventually, Stein “admitted that she had fabricated all of the information pertaining to the incident,” according to a criminal complaint. She admitted that she didn’t want to disappoint her family by admitting that she dropped out of school and that she was never in danger.
Chloe Stein will appear in court on May 25, where she’ll answer to four charges: false alarm to a public safety agency, falsely reporting an offense that did not occur, obstructing administration of law, and disorderly conduct. Magisterial District Judge Joseph R. DeMarchis will preside, per NBC News.
