A woman who reported a sexual assault on the Delta College campus pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of filing a false report of a felony.

According to WNEM, Mary Zolkowski, 21, admitted in court that she lied when she claimed she was raped in the school’s parking lot in Bay City, Michigan, on February 22. That day, she told police that an attacker grabbed her from behind as she was entering her vehicle, and viciously “grabbed her face and throat and proceeded to rape her, without wearing a condom.”

MLive reports that Zolkowski didn’t name her purported attacker, except to describe him as a black man. She refused a physical examination, and claimed she dropped her classes due to stress from the assault—though investigators discovered she had done so prior to Feb. 22.

After authorities were unable to find any evidence of the alleged crime, Zolkowski admitted that her story was untrue. She then claimed to have been raped earlier the same day at the apartment of an acquaintance who she did not want to see prosecuted. The man in question admitted to having sex with the young woman that day, but claims it was consensual. He showed police text messages with Zolkowski in which she reportedly she told him she was raped at Walmart.

In court Tuesday, Zolkowski told Judge Joseph K. Sheeran of the Bay County Circuit Court, “I called Delta College and falsely reported the rape on their campus.”

“My mother made the initial call and I took the phone and continued to report.”

“I was assaulted previously, not at Delta’s campus,” Zolkowski added in the dramatic courtroom testimony. “And because I was ashamed of circumstances of that, when my mother called, I vented through Delta, which was very wrong of me. I should have been truthful from the very beginning, and I used Delta.”

Defense attorney James F. Piazza told the court his client is bipolar and suffers from PTSD. “She has been and will continue to be on psychotropic medication related to her illness,” he said.

Piazza also told the judge that Zolkowski is engaged and intends on resuming her courses.

The felony charge could see Zolkowski facing a $2,000 fine and four years imprisonment, but the judge has expressed he will instead give her probation.
Zolkowski is free on bond and scheduled to be sentenced May 7.

[Feature image: Mary Zolkowski/Instagram]