[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 81 (Friday, June 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H4708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RUNAWAY BRIDE STANDS TO REAP BONANZA

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in outrage over a reported deal to pay 
the runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, half a million dollars.
  Jennifer Wilbanks, purported to have been kidnapped, blamed 
Hispanics, worried her parents, cost untold hundreds of thousands of 
dollars and the compassion of millions of Americans concerned for her 
well-being, all in a stunt, a stunt that is now going to earn her one-
half million dollars. This is insane. It is outrageous.
  Police officers, firefighters, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts combing the 
country for this girl that we assumed was taken from her family and her 
fiance shows up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then apologizes in a 
tearful manner that she misled people. And now we are going to pay her 
half a million dollars.
  This merely increases the likelihood that misguided and deranged 
young people will do stupid things in order to profit, and we fall prey 
to their pranks. I urge any media source thinking of paying her to 
reject the negotiations and treat her like the criminal she is.

                          ____________________