Runaway bride facing charges
Lawrenceville, Ga. The bride-to-be who skipped town just days before her lavish wedding was indicted Wednesday on charges she told police a phony story about being kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was charged with making a false statement and making a false police report. She could get up to six years behind bars and $11,000 in fines if convicted.
She could also be ordered to reimburse authorities for the more than $50,000 cost of the search set off by her disappearance.
A warrant will be issued for Wilbanks’ arrest within the next few days, and arrangements will probably be made for her to turn herself in, the district attorney said.
Wilbanks’ family has said she checked into a medical facility after her return for treatment of “physical and mental issues.” They have not said where.
Her attorney, Lydia Sartain, had no immediate comment, but said before the charges were announced: “The citizens of the county will be ill-served by an attempted prosecution.”
Wilbanks, a nurse, disappeared from her Duluth home on April 26, four days before her 600-guest wedding. She took a bus to Las Vegas and then Albuquerque, N.M., where she called authorities with a story about having been abducted.
But under questioning, she recanted. She has since said she fled Georgia because of unspecified personal issues.
Carrie Underwood new American Idol
Hollywood Carrie Underwood, a 21-year-old country singer from Checotah, Okla., became the fourth American Idol on Wednesday, besting long-haired Southern rocker Bo Bice, 29, of Helena, Ala.
“It hasn’t registered yet,” Underwood said immediately after the show as she rushed to do live interviews with Fox affiliate stations. “I feel like there’s a show next Tuesday.”
At the season finale — broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars — the five seconds of news stretched to fill a two-hour “Idol” extravaganza. There were hometown crowd reactions, backstage chatter with the judges and off-key outtakes from last year’s nationwide auditions.
An “all-star medley” paired several finalists with guest performers including George Benson, Kenny G, Rascal Flatts, Billy Preston and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
An extended scripted bit centering on judge Simon Cowell satirized the ABC “Primetime Live” “Fallen Idol” expose that aired former finalist Corey Clark’s allegations of favoritism and an affair with Paula Abdul.
Both Bice and Underwood, who were considered close competitors, ended as winners: Each is virtually assured a contract, and each received the keys to a red Mustang.
Defense rests in Jackson case
Santa Maria, Calif. The defense rested Wednesday in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial without putting the pop star on the stand, wrapping up after a three-week effort to portray the accuser and his mother as shakedown artists.
Prosecutors immediately began their rebuttal. The jury could get the case as early as the middle of next week and begin deciding whether Jackson molested a 13-year-old cancer patient at his Neverland ranch in 2003.
Defense lawyers portrayed Jackson as the victim of trumped-up charges brought by the boy’s mother when she realized that the family’s days of living lavishly at Jackson’s expense were about to end.
A series of witnesses described the mother as a grifter and a welfare cheat who made a career out of hitting up celebrities for money.
The defense took only three weeks to attack a case prosecutors spent nearly 10 weeks laying out.