This is quite bizarre. A former congressional staffer for Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, has been charged for allegedly staging her own assault. Prosecutors have claimed former congressional staffer Natalie Greene paid someone $500 to cut her dozens of times. CNN provided more details on the bizarre crime: A former congressional staffer has been charged for allegedly staging her own violent assault, for which she paid someone $500 to slice dozens of cuts into her body, according to prosecutors. Natalie Greene, who once worked for GOP Rep. Jeff Van Drew, according to his office, is now facing charges of conspiracy and making false statements to law enforcement. The Justice Department alleges that on the night of July 23, Greene’s co-conspirator — a woman who was not named in the criminal complaint — called 911 to report that she and Greene were attacked by three men in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. The co-conspirator claimed that the attackers referred to Greene by name and knew that she worked in Van Drew’s office. The Justice Department does not mention Van Drew by name in the complaint, calling him “Federal Official 1,” but the congressman’s office told CNN that Greene was once employed in his office. CNN has reached out to Greene’s attorney for comment. When law enforcement officers responded to the scene along a trail in a nature preserve, they found Greene “in a wooded area,” crying and screaming with her hands and feet bound with zip ties, and dozens of cuts on her body, including her face and chest, according to court documents. Two messages were written in black marker on her body: “TRUMP WHORE” on her stomach and Van Drew “IS RACIST” on her back. Investigators said in the complaint that Greene claimed the men who allegedly attacked her said they had a gun and “threatened to shoot her.” She told authorities she was held down while the men cut her and wrote on her body. The Justice Department said the investigation revealed that Greene had paid “a body modification/scarification artist” to make the cuts to her body before the staged attack. VAN DREW STAFFER FAKED ATTACK, PAID $500 TO CARVE ‘TRUMP WHORE’ ON HERSELF Federal prosecutors charged 26-year-old Natalie Greene with staging an elaborate hoax where she claimed three men assaulted her for working for Rep. Jeff Van Drew. The Rutgers law student actually… pic.twitter.com/pWc3zgcYuX — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 20, 2025 A watershed moment in MAGA’s ascendancy within the prestige economy: We are now producing hate crime hoaxers. Boy howdy, when white people fake crimes, they put the work in. This bitch hired a Hollywood scarification SFX artist for lifelike scars! https://t.co/MOp1xUxpsD — MILO (@Nero) November 20, 2025 The New Jersey Globe had these details to add to the story: Natalie Greene, a Rutgers law student, allegedly concocted the hoax in July, with an accomplice making a late-night 911 call to report that she had been ambushed by three men on a nature trail in Egg Harbor Township. Police officers found Greene bound with black zip ties, her shirt pulled over her head, and the political slurs scrawled across her torso. She told police that her supposed attackers had a gun and threatened to shoot her, and struck her in the head. Prosecutors say nearly every detail was fabricated. Greene allegedly drove to Pennsylvania and paid a body-modification artist $500 to carve the wounds on her face, neck, and upper body, using a pattern she had provided in advance. Investigators later found matching zip ties in her Maserati SUV. Cellphone records showed that two days before the purported attack, her co-conspirator searched online for “zip ties near me,” a discovery authorities cited as further proof that the incident was staged. She said one or more of her attackers had held her down, cutting her and writing on her body. Several days later, after receiving medical treatment for her wounds, Greene was again asked to describe her alleged attack to law enforcement officers, including an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Interviews of Greene and the co-conspirator did not match. Investigators used cell tower locations to obtain video footage and evidence that she went to a Dollar Store in Ventnor to purchase zip ties. Greene appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Pascal earlier today and was charged with one count of conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement, according to Acting U.S. Attorney and Special Attorney Alina Habba. She was released on a $200,000 unsecured bond. The complaint did not identify the federal official, but the New Jersey Globe has confirmed that it was Van Drew. The co-conspirator has not been identified. She began working part-time for Van Drew in 2022 and later served as his constituent advocate. She started law school last fall.