Report: McCain Volunteer Who Claimed "Carved B" Attack Confesses To Making Up Story

A Republican volunteer who claimed a black man carved a “B” into her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has confessed that she invented the story.

Pittsburgh police said that Ashley Todd, a white college student from Texas, is being charged with making a false report to police after she alleged that she was mutilated by a supporter of Barack Obama.

The 20-year-old initially told police that she was attacked on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh as she attempted to use a cash machine. She claimed that her assailant, a tall black male, grabbed her from behind, put a knife to her throat and forced her to hand over $60.

The canvasser told investigators that after the man noticed a John McCain sticker on her car, became angry and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground and telling her “you are going to be a Barack supporter,” police said.

She said he continued to punch and kick her while threatening “to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” police said. She claimed he then sat on her chest, pinned her hands down with his knees and scratched a letter “B” into her face using what she believed to be a knife.

The McCain campaign immediately denounced the attack as “sick and disgusting”, while Barack Obama was forced to issue a statement deploring such behaviour and demanding the assailant be swiftly brought to justice. Both Mr McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin telephoned Ms Todd expressing their concern.

However police cast doubt upon her claims after video surveillance failed to show her at the cash machine. She was asked to take a polygraph test. As her story unravelled, she was eventually forced to admit that she had invented the incident.

It is not clear how she got the mark on her face but a photograph that has surfaced on the internet shows the “B” to be backwards, suggesting she may have cut it herself using a mirror.