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A southern California woman experienced a case of mistaken identity while trying to board a flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Mexico last April.
Bethany K. Farber, 30, was detained and later arrested over a warrant issued out of Texas. Bethany Farber was wanted by authorities in the Lone Star State for property damage. Side-by-side photos of the two women show the wanted woman with much darker hair, and little resemblance to the blonde Bethany K. Farber.
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Farber, along with her legal team and family, held a news conference outside the Los Angeles Police Department Tuesday.
Farber said she tried time and time again to proclaim her innocence, by telling airport police there must be a terrible mistake. She asked officers to check her passport, she told FOX 11 Los Angeles. After being handcuffed at LAX, she was moved to a local police station before being booked into the Lynwood women’s jail.
A woman who made headlines in Los Angeles after she was wrongfully imprisoned opened up about her bizarre and traumatic experience being mixed up with a suspect. (KTTV)
Throughout the entire ordeal, she tied telling authorities they had the wrong woman. However, Farber still spent almost two weeks behind bars.
During that time, she said inmates tried to touch her and asked for “favors she couldn’t fulfill.”
“Her family hired attorneys in Texas and LA and finally were able to show through Farber’s cell phone GPS that Farber was in California on the day prosecutors alleged the crime took place in Texas,” FOX LA reports.
Farber was eventually released, but says she is scarred by the 13-day ordeal.
“It could happen to anyone,” Farber warned.
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“The fact no one checked her middle name, her birth date. No information representing her person … they didn’t even check basic information that Bethany was not the other Bethany Farber,” attorney Rodney Biggs said.
The lawsuit seeks $2.5 million for emotional distress, as well as for every day Farber was incarcerated. The City of Los Angeles, LAPD and LAX police are all listed as defendants. None would comment on pending litigation.
Source: www.foxnews.com