Santa Ana man who made up venomous snake story could be arrested and cited, police say
The man who put a Santa Ana neighborhood on edge by reporting the sighting of a venomous viper earlier in the week, then recanting the story, saying he made it all up, could be arrested and issued a citation, police said.
On Monday, reptile experts and police responded to a backyard in the 1400 block of Cypress Avenue after resident Joel Ciprian alerted his neighbors of a Gaboon viper and showed them a photo he allegedly took of the snake. He also sent that photo to the Santa Ana Police Department, which led to a community alert of the sighting.
Residents and officers describe three days of unnecessary fear in the community and the deployment of police resources in and around Cypress Avenue as the hoaxer stood by his story.
Days after first reporting it, Ciprian admitted to police that he made up the story and that the photo of the snake was AI-generated. "Now that is a crime," Officer Natalie Garcia said, noting that he admitted to falsifying a report.
"We were able to write a report describing that he has now said that 'I made this up' and essentially apologizing for what he did," Garcia said.
"And so we submit this to the district attorney's office and we're hoping that we can press charges against him."
A neighbor thinks that a citation is appropriate.
"He's a young man, he made a mistake … I think maybe something, at least a citation, will at least make him aware of the crime that he committed … But we don't want him to suffer too much for something that is a dumb mistake that hopefully he'll learn his lesson from."
The DA's office hasn't received the crime report yet. A misdemeanor conviction could get Ciprian a year in jail.
There is no known motive for this crime. As for the snake photo, police say they ran it through AI detection programs and got conflicting answers, but needed to respond to the neighborhood just in case.
