Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Kidnap victim wrote her own ransom note’
Chloe ‘faked crime for fame and cash’
THE man accused of abducting model Chloe Ayling yesterday claimed she helped to write her own ransom letter and promised to be his girlfriend.
Giving evidence at his trial in Milan, Lucasz Herba, 30, alleged the 20-year-old agreed to faking the kidnap for money and fame.
Asked by prosecutor Paolo Storari who abducted her, Herba replied: “It’s complicated. I planned it but it wasn’t like she said.”
The Polish national, who met Chloe on Facebook in 2015, claimed she was frustrated her modelling career had not taken off.
Speaking through a translator, he said she mentioned “a film where there was an organisation that kidnapped and sold women, and such an incident would be very useful so that people would know who she was”.
Chloe, of Coulsdon, South London, told police she was lured to a fake photoshoot in Milan in July before being drugged, bundled into a car, taken to a mountain village and held by a gang called Black Death for a £270,000 ransom.
Doubts were raised about her story after it emerged she shared a bed with her kidnapper and was on CCTV holding hands with him.
Herba said he booked the shoot but insisted she agreed to the plan on turning up and posed for snaps where she appeared drugged.
Asked if he remembered writing an email to Chloe’s agent, he replied: “I remember it well. I wrote it together with the girl.”
He claimed she “said we could divide the money and if it went well, we could start a relationship”.
Chloe’s lawyer said there was “absolutely no way” she helped to write the ransom note. The trial was adjourned until March.