Attack report a lie, cops say




Bolio

Emily Bolio of Newbury Park allegedly made up a story about her ex-boyfriend trying to kill her. Police say the false report led to an unnecessary (and costly) manhunt and to the innocent man spending a week in jail on an attempted murder charge. Courtesy of TOPD

In August, authorities in Reno, Nev., arrested a man on an attempted murder warrant out of Thousand Oaks after his ex-girlfriend told TOPD that he tried to kill her by putting a bag over her head and wrapping an electrical cord around her neck.

The Aug. 13 report prompted an overnight manhunt in Newbury Park involving scores of officers, K-9s and a sheriff’s department helicopter.

Now police say the woman made it all up.

Emily Bolio, 23, of Newbury Park was arrested Sept. 10 on suspicion of stalking, perjury and reporting false emergencies in connection to the incident.

The target of her report—Jose Serna Ramos—was released from custody after spending a week in a Reno jail cell for a crime police now say didn’t occur.

“This is a special kind of evil,” Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow said of Bolio. “You’ve got somebody who is deliberately trying to ruin someone’s life. You’re talking attempted murder, so this guy could have been in jail for a long, long time.”

The saga began Aug. 12 when a resident contacted the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and reported that Bolio was the victim of domestic violence.

According to police, Bolio told patrol deputies who came to her home on Newbury Road that her ex-boyfriend had hit her and threatened her with a knife. The next day, police said, she called detectives who followed up on the case “screaming” to say that he had returned and was trying to strangle her with a plastic bag.

She also told them he was a parolee with a gun who had threatened to use it on her before.

“Bolio claimed her ex-boyfriend had fled the location when he was interrupted by a family member inside the residence,” TOPD said in a statement. “Numerous patrol units, detectives, K-9 units, members of the West County gang unit and a helicopter responded to the location to search for the suspect.”

“It tied up a lot of resources,” Buschow told the Acorn. “We had a helicopter out there, patrol units, a whole investigation all for—I don’t know what the motive was. And it’s extremely frustrating also because it creates a level of skepticism when other people come forward to report similar crimes, but this was completely false. The guy wasn’t even in the state.”

The arrest warrant was vacated and Serna Ramos was released from custody after video surveillance footage, cellular phone data and other evidence showed that Ramos was not in California at the time and did not commit any crimes against Bolio in August, as she had claimed, police said.