Woman arrested and charged after calling 911 nearly 400 times over bogus emergencies

A woman is facing jail time after making hundreds of bogus 911 calls to emergency services.

Kesha Kennedy pleaded guilty to felony disrupting public services, felony making false alarms, and 25 counts of misdemeanor misuse of 911 systems last week and is now awaiting sentencing.

Kennedy, 34, is said to have called 911 almost 400 times over a four-year period where she complained of ill health each time.

Kesha Kennedy has pleaded guilty to the charges. (Muskingum County Prosecutor's Office)

The South Zanesville Fire Department (SZFD) are the ones to have responded to the calls, putting a strain on local services.

With this in mind, SZFD responders were unable to attend to other people genuinely in need. In one circumstance a person who called 911 after having difficulty breathing later died as SZFD was attending to yet another of Kennedy's hoax calls.

Apparently the 34-year-old called 911 several times a week - sometimes even several times a day.

Her antics are said to have spanned across four different Ohio counties over the years in question.

Upon her umpteen visits to the hospital, Kennedy was consistently given a clean bill of health, but this didn't stop her calling emergencies services again at a later date.

Kennedy made numerous bogus 911 calls claiming to be unwell. (Getty Stock)

It's said that for each hospital trip Kennedy was taken by ambulance, which was funded by taxpayers through Medicaid.

Prior to her guilty plea, Kennedy was evaluated by a forensic psychologist.

Muskingum County Assistant Prosecutor John Litle, who handled the case, told the court that Kennedy demonstrated 'a factitious disorder' and was therefore a 'liar'.

Newark Police Department reportedly warned Kennedy on several occasions that the bogus 911 calls would end up getting her arrested. It wasn't until an incident in August 2023 that saw her taken into custody, however.

Law enforcement officers responded to a report of a behavioral emergency at Licking Memorial Hospital involving Kennedy at the time and when police arrived Kennedy all of a sudden claimed that she couldn't stand or walk.

After being helped to a bench, the woman then pretended to be unconscious and when the Miranda Rights were given to her, she claimed that she didn't understand them because she was disabled.

However a hospital went on to confirm that Kennedy was not disabled and did not need medical treatment or transfer to another medical facility.

The South Zanesville Fire Department responded to many of Kennedy's calls. (South Zanesville Fire Department/Facebook)

Litle has since called for better tracking of nuisance non-emergency calls in a bid to prevent abuses of the system like those committed by Kennedy.

“Obviously some type of check or balance needs to exist, so that this type of abuse is more quickly reported by EMS to law enforcement because 350 pointless ambulance runs is absolutely ridiculous,” Litle said.

“I was absolutely shocked when this case was brought to my attention by South Zanesville Police Chief Mark Ross. We reached out to the Sheriff’s Office for an investigation and Detective Richard Perry was able to quickly lock down a case and get this abuse stopped.”

Kennedy will be sentenced at a later date.

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