“Runaway Bride” Jennifer Wilbanks is the inspiration behind a New Mexico police-recruitment ad.
The photo, featuring a cop grabbing the veil of a woman dressed in a wedding gown and running sneakers, stars Trish Hoffman, the Albuquerque police officer who gained national attention two years ago after she led Wilbanks, wearing a blanket on her head, through the Albuquerque airport.
“Running away from your current job? Call APD recruiting,” the ad reads.
The wide-eyed Wilbanks – who does not appear in the ad – had claimed she had been abducted and sexually assaulted right before she was set to marry fiancé John Mason in a lavish ceremony in 2005.
She later recanted and pleaded no contest to telling police a phony story. She was sentenced to two years’ probation and performed community service.
Hoffman, a 12-year veteran cop, says the department isn’t making fun of Wilbanks, just hoping to “get some publicity out of it.”
“We’re hoping to get 1,100 officers, and this is a unique way to recruit,” Hoffman said. She added, “I’m sure I’m going to get some harassment.”
A distraught Wilbanks failed to see the humor.
“Oh, I haven’t seen it. I really didn’t know anything about it until now,” she said.
The bug-eyed bride ended up getting jilted herself by Mason last May.
The duo had an ugly breakup, and Wilbanks moved out of the Atlanta-area home they’d purchased together.
She filed suit against him in September, seeking $250,000, half the proceeds from the sale of their story, which the suit claimed Mason used to buy the house in his name only.
“I asked him many times before the lawsuit for the things,” she said last year.
Mason countersued for emotional distress.
Wilbanks, a former marathon runner, is now answering phones at an Atlanta pediatric clinic.
Former friends say she has no contact with anyone from her past, except for her family.
The ad, costing the department $16,000, is playing on 10 digital billboards for eight seconds out of every minute, and will run for a month.