Woman Told Cops her Child was in Stolen Car — She Lied

Jeanette Holt, happy she got her stolen 1997 Monte Carlo back.

On today’s installment of  ”Good Idea? Bad Idea!” we present Chicago woman Jeanette Holt, 25, who called 911 from her child’s day care facility on February 6, 2013, to report that her car, a 1997 Monte Carlo, had been stolen while her son, 1, was in the car. Police treated the call as a possible child abduction and in no time got seven squad cars to search the area. They quickly found the car, but no child inside.

According to police Holt had left her car running outside the daycare — which is, incidentally, illegal on a public street in Illinois —when she dropped off her child, and someone drove off in the car. Holt then lied to police about the baby being in the car to make them go and get her car back while she waited. The child was safe and had actually been in daycare the whole time.

As smart as Holt may have thought her alleged move was, police do not take kindly to this sort of manipulation and they arrested her as soon as they figured out the ruse. She was arrested at the daycare and charged with one felony count of disorderly conduct.

Supt. Garry McCarthy explains police’s reasoning for her arrest, “we need to do that when people make false claims like that, because … it’s very serious, it endangers the public at large, and definitely our police officers who may be responding in a different fashion than just to take a report for a stolen vehicle.”

So, lying to police in an effort to get better service: Bad idea.

Slideshow: Bad Parenting