California prison psychologist's friend charged in alleged rape hoax

The woman accused of helping her friend fake a home-invasion robbery and a sexual assault has been arrested.

Nicole Snyder, 33, was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on Dec. 12 and released later that day on $5,000 bail. She was arraigned Monday on two counts of felony criminal conspiracy.

Snyder is accused of assisting Laurie Martinez, a supervising psychologist with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, stage a crime in Martinez's Norgard Court home in April so Martinez could persuade her husband to move to another neighborhood, authorities allege.

According to court documents, authorities say Snyder bought boxing gloves and then hit Martinez in the face, and helped Martinez hide some of her belongings in Snyder's home so it would appear as though Martinez had been robbed.

Martinez split her own lip, ripped open her shirt, scuffed her knuckles with sandpaper and then urinated on herself to make officers believe she had lost consciousness, according to allegations laid out in the court documents.

After Snyder left, Martinez called police, according to authorities.

Martinez was arrested earlier this month and released on $50,000 bail. Her attorney, Michelle Spaulding, told The Bee earlier this month that her client never claimed she was raped.

However, the district attorney's criminal complaint against her and a detective's request for an arrest warrant say she reported the crime as a robbery and sexual assault, submitted to an evidentiary sexual assault exam and "reasserted that she had been robbed and sexually assaulted" in a later interview with police.

Police investigated as such until a co-worker from CDCR came forward to say Martinez had talked about the scheme.

Martinez and Snyder later admitted to police their involvement, according to the court documents.

Earlier this month, a CDCR spokeswoman said Martinez was moved to department headquarters after the allegations came to light, and that she was no longer working with inmates. Last week, the California Board of Psychology announced they had suspended Martinez's license.

• Read more articles by Kim Minugh

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