Woman claiming to be daughter arrested

Staff report

youngstown

A woman claiming to be her own daughter was arrested on charges of obstructing justice and identity theft Tuesday evening.

Police said the woman, LeEra Hays, 38, was involved in an incident Monday, and she told police she was her daughter and showed a tattoo of the daughter’s name to prove it. They were skeptical but let her go at the time because she had done nothing wrong, reports state.

Tuesday that officer was working a detail downtown when a woman approached him and said that the woman he had been talking to Monday had given him a wrong name and she was really her mother. The woman said mother and daughter tattooed each others’ names on their chests.

A short while later, the officer spotted Hays at Hillman and St. Louis avenues, and she admitted passing herself off as her daughter, though she did say if she was ever in trouble for something serious, she would give police her real name. Police ran a check on Hays using her real name and found out she had a warrant for failure to appear from municipal court.

A report said Hays has a second daughter who has warrants and that investigators should check to make sure the warrants are for Hays instead. Hays was taken to the Mahoning County jail.