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Nikki Yovino, who accepted a plea deal in Connecticut earlier this year, has been sentenced to a year in jail for making up rape allegations against two men. She had initially declined a deal, but changed her tune in June as her trial approached.
According to the New York Daily News, Yovino rolled her eyes while being sentenced to jail time.
"I went from being a college student to sitting at home being expelled with no way to clear my name," Malik St. Hilaire, one of her victims, said in a Bridgeport courtroom on Thursday as he stood near Yovino, according to The Hour. “I just hope she knows what she has done to me, my life will never be the same. I did nothing wrong, but everything has been altered because of this.”
Yovino was initially charged with a felony count of evidence tampering, and falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor, and faced up to five years in prison.
The charges have since been downgraded to two counts of second-degree falsely reporting an incident and one count of interfering with police, both misdemeanors, which she pleaded guilty to.
On Oct. 15, 2016, Bridgeport Police responded to St. Vincent's Medical Center, where Yovino, of South Setauket on Long Island, told police that she had been sexually assaulted by two men in a bathroom at a house party in Bridgeport.
She told police that one of her assailants was a fellow student and football player at SHU, while the other was a former SHU student. According to reports, all three involved in the incident have since dropped out of Sacred Heart, and one of the football players lost a scholarship.
During their investigation police said they discovered evidence that contradicted Yovino's statements. When Yovino was confronted with this information, police said she admitted to making up the accusations and said she had had consensual sex with both males.
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