Lying in court costs Harper month in jail

A local woman will likely remember where she?s been in the future as her selective memory will cost her a month in jail.

The defendant, Amanda Harper, 25, entered a guilty plea before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley to the charge of aggravated perjury and was ordered to serve 30 days behind bars. She will then spend three years on probation when she is released. Her sentence will be served consecutively, or in addition to, any other jail time she is facing on her violation of probation charge.

It was her probation violation charge which investigators say prompted her to lie about her whereabouts while she was on trial, earlier this year, for violation of probation. She had been on probation for her part in an illegal check scheme in 2000 where a local bank was defrauded out of $29,000.

During the probation hearing, which could have brought her additional jail time, Harper reportedly testified, under oath, she had never left Tennessee.

However, prosecutors pointed to a paper trail which contradicted her claim, the first of which is a birth certificate to show she gave birth to a child in Florida while she was on probation. In addition to the birth of her child there, investigators say she even went to the length of applying for benefits for the child in the Sunshine State, leaving an even bigger paper trail.

The motivation for the lie under oath, prosecutors say, was the fact she had not sought, or received, permission to leave the state at any point. Probationers are required to get special permission any time they leave the jurisdiction where they are on probation or parole. Part of her new probation once she gets out of jail will be to get permission from her probation officer before leaving the county.