A Pennsylvania woman fled the country and faked her own death in order to avoid charges of making a false accusation of sexual assault, even though women who are convicted of such charges rarely face any serious punishment.
Oksana Olkesandrivna Brown, 46, had been trailed by two Walmart loss prevention officers after she was suspected of shoplifting back in April 2018. Brown, who briefly served as a Baltimore City police officer between October 2010 and June 2011, was identified as the alleged shoplifter using security footage.
She would eventually claim that the state trooper who served her a warrant for the theft had sexually assaulted her. The police officer’s dash camera recorded the encounter and proved Brown lied, The Daily Voice reported.
Brown pleaded guilty to retail theft and was sentenced to two years of probation and 50 hours of community service. She was also banned from the Walmart store where she stole $30 worth of merchandise.
She was then charged with filing a false report of assault and “unsworn falsification to authorities,” the Voice reported.
Before she was convicted of the false reporting charge, Brown applied for a $500,000 life insurance policy. She made her husband the primary beneficiary and her adult son the successor beneficiary, with a total payout of up to $1.25 million in the event of her death. While filing the application, she falsely claimed she had never been charged with a crime or had any pending charges against her. She also falsely claimed she had never been “placed on supervised release/parole or probation.”
Ten months after filing the falsified insurance application, Brown traveled to Ukraine for what was supposed to be a month. Her husband reported her dead by poisoning on October 27, 2019, the Voice reported. Her death was reported in local outlets, noting she was allegedly buried in Ukraine. All charges against her were dropped due to her alleged death.
Brown’s husband filed a claim for her life insurance benefits but withdrew it when an insurance examiner discovered the charges against her. Three days after this, Brown’s attorney told the York County District Attorney that Brown was still alive. Brown then confirmed this by asking the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to reinstate her passport.
Brown was extradited back to Pennsylvania and now faces the original charges plus new charges of insurance fraud.
It is unclear why Brown went to such lengths to avoid the false accusation charge, given how rarely women are punished for such a crime. As The Daily Wire has previously reported, women usually get probation or community service – or no charges at all – when falsely accusing men of sexual assault. A Canadian woman received a conditional discharge and just 50 hours of community service after she repeatedly lied to police and falsely accused a man of sexual assault, a man whom she named to police. Even when women are jailed, it’s for much shorter sentences than what the falsely accused men faced had they been wrongfully convicted.