The Lie That Just Happens

A Seattle paper reports about a man suffering a false rape allegation:

The Sheriff's department has staff who are specially tasked with determining whether or not an alleged victim is credible. A woman in the department sat down with the girl and carefully listened to her story to evaluate its veracity. That officer came away convinced. So did the department's sketch artist. For the next week, police issued press releases describing the incident and the truck. Using the girl's description, the department distributed an image of a man with wide-set, droopy eyes and long stringy hair. News outlets, including this one, posted it to their Web sites.

Likewise, Bekele's accuser also underwent a joint interview with prosecutors and investigators, and also came off as credible, according to Ian Goodhew, deputy chief of staff in the King County Prosecutor's office. That's why prosecutors decided to file charges in the case.

Susan Shapiro Barash, a gender-studies instructor at Marymount Manhattan College whose book, Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie, was published last year, says women who choose to lie do so in part because they're good at it. "We're raised to tell little white lies," Barash says. "Part of the reason women can lie about something big is because they've been taught to lie about small things."

The accuser got busted when someone noticed that she had forged some emails. No motive for her false accusation was discovered. She agreed to get counseling.