Cops came to arrest her thieving boyfriend but one text she 'sent' landed her in jail instead. Her lawyer immediately knew something was off
Melissa Sims was wrongfully arrested, twice. 'It made no sense,' she said, completely in disbelief
Police officers are supposed to know who the bad guy is. Back on November 23, 2024, Melissa Sims, a registered nurse, called the Collier County Sheriff's Office to report her boyfriend for stealing from her Naples residence. When they got to her house, instead of taking him to jail, she was the one who ended up in handcuffs, Gulf Coast News revealed. Two months after her arrest, she was taken to jail again. This time, her attorney smelled something fishy, and apparently he was right. The video was shared on September 1, 2026, and has since garnered over 13,000 views, 199 likes, and 78 comments.
Text message 'evidence'
The first time Sims called the police to her house, her ex-boyfriend had scratch marks on him and pinned it on her. The officers arrested her for battery, even though she told them the scratches were self-inflicted. When she was released from jail, she was given a 'no-contact' order. Two months later, she was arrested again, but for violating the terms of her release. Sims was surprised because she did no such thing. Apparently, the piece of evidence against her was a text message. Her ex-boyfriend claimed she sent it to him. It reads, "Haha you a------! The [redacted] won't arrest a woman on Xmas, but nice try, you piece of s---!" However, Sims told the news outlet, "Why the h--- would I risk everything? My life, my liberty, and have to await trial to go back in jail, just to send him a text message? It made no sense."
No messages on both phones
After her second arrest, she was released on bond. But Donald Day, her attorney, was already trying to get to the bottom of it. He said, "We knew that my client hadn't made the text. We knew the text was false." He got Sims' phone records and subpoenaed her ex's, and found that there was no such text sent from her phone. He never received the text either. "We were able to show the providers that none of this happened." In September 2025, the state attorney's office dropped the violation charge. Sims was later found not guilty in the original battery case in December. Now, Sims is trying to introduce a new state law to prevent whatever happened to her from happening to someone else.
Non-existent crimes
There are several stories of people being wrongly convicted and arrested across the world. A study by Charles E. Loeffler, Jordan Hyatt, and Greg Ridgeway estimated that wrongful convictions accounted for about 6% of criminal convictions leading to imprisonment in a sample of state prisoners. The National Registry of Exonerations also found that 72% of the female exonerees were convicted of crimes they never committed. This was double the rate of male exonerees (38%). Thankfully for Sims' attorney, he managed to confirm that the text message 'evidence' is actually a false text, and helped establish that the alleged text had never been sent.
Sue him for fake evidence
Netizens were pushing Sims to sue her ex for making a false report against her in the comment section. @frankdiaz6955 wrote, "Ex needs to be charged with making a false report, and she needs to sue him for fraud and attorney fees. Donald Day is an amazing attorney, but he isn't cheap. She must have spent thousands of dollars in legal fees so she needs to go after him." @trevormcmanis added, "If the boyfriend is not charged and jailed, that would be the real injustice. Fabricating evidence is a federal crime, filing a false report is also a crime."
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