Acid Attack Hoaxer to Face Charges: Bethany Storro Accepted Donations After Faked Assault

Sept. 20, 2010 — -- Bethany Storro, the 28-year-old woman who falsely claimed she was maimed by a stranger who splashed acid in her face, will face charges of second-degree theft for accepting donations from three strangers who tried to help her.

Storro admitted to investigators in Vancouver, Washington, last week that she splashed the acid on herself.

Tony Golik, a deputy prosecutor, told ABC affiliate KATU there is now a warrant for Storro's arrest, though it will not be carried out immediately because she is still in a local hospital.

He said prosecutors will seek higher-than-usual penalties because, as one court document put it, "the defendant committed the offense against a victim who was acting as a Good Samaritan."

Golik said second-degree theft charges can bring two to five months in prison.

The "aggravating circumstances," however, allow a judge to sentence a person to up to five years for three counts.

Police, announcing their investigation was closed last Thursday, said they had spent hundreds of hours looking for a perpetrator. Storro had claimed she was attacked outside a coffee shop on Aug. 30.

"A woman approached her and said, 'Hey pretty girl,' and she turned around and she asked if she wanted something to drink, and my daughter said, 'No,'" Storro's mother, Nancy Neuwelt, told reporters at the time. She said the woman then threw a cup of liquid in Storro's face.

Storro gave interviews from the hospital, her face wrapped in gauze.

"It was like it almost didn't hurt right away because of the panic, you know, like, what just happened, and you're so focused on that, and then once I let it soak in I could start to feel it burning through my flesh," she said from her hospital bed. She said that by sheer luck, she had bought a pair of sunglasses just minutes before, which protected her eyes.

Attention grew. There were racial overtones; Storro claimed her attacker was an African-American woman.

Storro was invited to be a guest on Oprah Winfrey's show, but when news outlets began to report that suggestions that police suspected the attack was faked, the appearance was canceled.