If the story we shared with you last month about a woman getting robbed in the Pittsburgh hotel room of Reds pitcher Aroldis Chapman seemed like a bizarre account with a number of holes in it, that’s because it was. Claudia Manrique, a 26-year-old, told police back in May that she was alone in Chapman’s hotel room while he was still at the ballpark. Manrique said she was attacked by a man posing as a maintenance worker for the Omni William Penn hotel, who she claimed tied her up when she refused to give him a bag that contained $200,000 worth of Chapman’s jewlery. Now, the young lady has been charged with filing a false police report.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, police say Manrique changed her story during 12 hours of questioning. After initially saying the man attacked her disguised as a hotel employee, she later told officers that she encountered the assailant earlier that day at a CVS store and he stole her wallet. She also says he threatened to hurt her friend if she did not tell him her room number at the hotel.
Obviously, her changed story raises a number of questions. First of all, how did he come to find out that she was staying at the Omni William Penn? Assuming Manrique told the alleged assailant out of fear or he discovered a room card on her, how did he know he could hit the jackpot with jewelry by going to that particular room? Did he intend to rob her regardless and happened to be lucky enough to show up at the hotel room of a baseball player who had $200,000 worth of jewelry lying around?
Chapman says he met Manrique in April while he was in Washington, D.C. and that she has traveled to different cities to meet him ever since. From the sound of it, she may also have come up with a complicated scheme to rob him of $200,000 worth of possessions.
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