ESPN Reporter Gets Pranked, Wrecks Hotel Room

This one doesn't strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer. Sure, this is kind of mean, but I can't help but chuckle.

Police say ESPN reporter Elizabeth Moreau wrecked her Florida hotel room - smashing the window with a toilet lid cover - after being told over the phone that the hotel was on fire, according to reports.

According to the police report obtained by website The Smoking Gun, the 27-year-old ESPNU correspondent, staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Gainesville, was directed by an anonymous male caller from her hotel room phone to shove towels under her front door and use the porcelain toilet lid to break the room's window.

According to the report by the Gainesville Police Department, "She then went to the window and used it to break out the window. The window was broken and the toilet lid broke upon falling to the ground outside."

Moreau told police she started becoming suspicious when the caller made rude comments to her and then told her, "That's what she gets for being a bad ex-wife."

The Smoking Gun reports that the prank could possibly be the work of Pranknet, an internet prank calling virtual community known for similar stunts.

TSG has some more details.

Moreau, in Gainesville to cover a women’s volleyball match between the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee, told cops that the caller then advised “that’s what she gets for being a bad ex-wife and further explained she was bad at ‘sucking dick.’” At this point, Moreau, pictured at right, realized she had been pranked.

A front desk clerk told police that “he received the call from a male subject who asked to be transferred to his wife in room 208,” where Moreau happened to be staying.

The ruse is a classic tactic employed by individuals affiliated with Pranknet, the online group of hooligans exposed last year by TSG. Pranknet members frequently called hotels and asked for random room numbers. When a guest picked up--usually in the early morning hours--they would try to convince them that the hotel was on fire or had suffered a dangerous rupture in a gas line. The goal was to have the panicked guest break windows or trigger the sprinkler system. And sometimes both.