Chapman robbery takes bizarre twist
Police in Pittsburgh questioned a woman for several hours about a robbery in a hotel room where Cincinnati Reds pitcher Aroldis Chapman was staying because her story changed, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Friday.
Claudia Manrique, 26, said she was tied up by a stranger in the hotel room and stole valuables belonging to Chapman.
Later in the questioning, however, she told police she actually encountered the attacker earlier at a CVS pharmacy, where he stole her wallet and threatened to hurt her friend if she did not tell him where Chapman was staying, according to police reports.
Police did not file charges stemming from Thursday night's case, though reports indicate they are skeptical of Manrique's story.
Chapman told police he began dating Manrique in April, and she would meet him in other cities where the Reds were playing.
He was at PNC Park in Cincinnati when the robbery occurred. Chapman told police that Manrique had been receiving unwanted phone calls during her stay in Pittsburgh. He believed they were from a man in Maryland to whom she owed several thousand dollars that allowed her to gain entry into the country, police reports say. Manrique is a native of Columbia.
A Louis Vuitton bag containing more than $200,000 worth of Chapman's jewelry was not taken. Manrique said the robber held her at gunpoint and demanded the bag of jewelry and ransacked the room. The police report read that she could not explain how the robber knew the bag of jewelry was in the room in the first place.
When police asked her about discrepancies in her story, she cried. A polygraph test showed she was not being truthful about the robbery, according to the report.
Manrique, a Silver Spring, Md., resident, was charged in March for stealing $1,000 to $10,000 from a male acquaintance.
