By David K. Li
The New York Post
NEW YORK — It’s a barometer of her deceit.
Ex-TV weather gal Heidi Jones will serve 350 hours of community service after pleading guilty yesterday to fabricating a tale of attempted rape in Central Park — one for every hour of NYPD manpower she wasted.
Jones, 38, who before her career plummeted forecast weather for WABC/Channel 7 and filled in on “Good Morning America,” copped to two misdemeanors of giving false reports to police in a deal with Manhattan prosecutors that also calls for her to serve three years of probation. She’ll be sentenced on Oct. 26.
Outside Manhattan Supreme Court, Jones’ lawyer, Paul Callan, said his client is barely “scraping by,” having lost her sunny gig at Channel 7, much of her savings and the keys to her posh Battery Park City apartment.
“She’s enormously relieved [the case is almost over]. Essentially this incident has utterly and completely destructed her life,” Callan said.
Jones’ blizzard of lies centered on a fictional Sept. 24, 2010, attack in Central Park in which a man grabbed her, covered her mouth and dragged her into the bushes, she told police. Two passers-by scared off the imaginary attacker before he could rape her, she told cops.
Cops pored over surveillance video from Central Park and around Jones’ building, where she said the same attacker — a 40-something Hispanic man, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10 — stalked her last Nov. 21.
Officers even stopped a man fitting her phony profile outside her pad, took his photo and put him in a picture lineup for Jones.
By Dec. 13, cops realized Jones was all bluster and she admitted making up the wild tale because of workplace stress.
“She’s expressed personal responsibility for this unfortunate incident,” Callan said.
“She wants me to express, on her behalf, her deepest regrets and apologies for any inconvenience that was caused.”
Had she been convicted at trial, Jones could have gotten up to two years behind bars.
Jones showed up to court with her mother. She whispered “guilty” twice and nodded “yes” several times when Justice Richard Carruthers asked a series of questions to make sure Jones understood the charges.
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