From
http://backporch.fanhouse.com/2010/10/21/espns-elizabeth-moreau-pranked-throws-toilet-seat-through-hote/ - is PrankNET doing their famous hotel room pranks again?
ESPNU reporter Elizabeth Moreau seems nice enough. A pleasant smile, a sunny disposition and probably good at her job. But early Thursday morning, in her Gainesville, Fla. hotel room, she was the victim of a prank call.
Moreau was told by an unknown male caller that "the hotel was on fire," and that she needed to "lay towels down at the bottom of her front door to prevent smoke from entering her room." The caller then directed Moreau to use the toilet lid cover to break the hotel room window.
More details via the Gainesville Police Department report:
"She then went to the window and used it to break out the window," the assisting officer reported. "The window was broken and the toilet lid broke upon falling to the ground outside. ... It is unknown who was responsible for today's hoax, which cops have classified a 'suspicious incident.'"
Moreau, 27, is in Gainesville to cover the women's volleyball match between the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee.
As for potential motives, The Smoking Gun points out that, "The ruse is a classic tactic employed by individuals affiliated with Pranknet, the online group of hooligans exposed last year by TSG. Pranknet members frequently called hotels and asked for random room numbers. When a guest picked up -- usually in the early morning hours -- they would try to convince them that the hotel was on fire or had suffered a dangerous rupture in a gas line. The goal was to have the panicked guest break windows or trigger the sprinkler system. And sometimes both."
After Moreau broke her room window with the toilet lid cover, the male caller then told her "that's what she gets for being a bad ex-wife." The assisting officer spoke with the front desk and was told that, because the hotel does not have caller ID, there was no way to trace the call. Moreau, who was moved to a different room, told police that she had been the victim of stalking in the past, but the offender was currently in prison.
