A Princeton University student who claimed he was beaten by two men for his morally conservative views now admits that he fabricated the attack and his injuries were self-inflicted.
Francisco Nava, who was raised as a Catholic but converted to Mormonism, belonged to the Anscombe Society, a conservative student group that opposes same-sex marriage and campaigns against pre-marital sex.
Nava claimed he began receiving death threats via e-mail after he wrote a column in a student newspaper criticizing Princeton’s campaign to distribute free condoms on campus, the New York Sun reported.
Nava told police that on Friday, Dec. 14, he was attacked off campus by two men wearing black ski caps, who repeatedly hit his head against a brick wall. His jaw was severely swollen and his face covered with cuts and bruises.
After the attack, the Web site Firstthings.com disclosed that as a high school student, Nava had sent false e-mail death threats to himself and his roommate using an anti-homosexual slur.
When confronted by police about inconsistencies in his story, Nava admitted on Monday that he had sent the death threat e-mails to himself, as well as to other students and a prominent conservative professor, and inflicted the scratches and bruises on his face because of “underlying personal issues,” the New York Times reported.
Princeton spokeswoman Lauren Robinson Brown said disciplinary action — possibly as severe as expulsion — is pending. Nava could also face a criminal charge of filing a false police report.
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