Ocean City woman claims masked gunmen targeted her because of position
CAMDEN — An Ocean City woman, former aide to U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, was charged with conspiring and falsely reporting to law enforcement that she had been violently assaulted due to her employment with a federal official, acting U.S. Attorney and Special Attorney Alina Habba announced.
Natalie Greene, 26, was charged with one count of conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement. The hoax included having herself cut numerous times with a scalpel by a body modification artist in Pennsylvania days before the alleged attack.
On Nov. 19, Greene made her initial appearance in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Pascal. Greene was released on a $200,000 unsecured bond and additional conditions.
According to statements made in court and documents filed in the case:
Late at night on July 23, 2025, Greene’s co-conspirator called 911 and reported that she and Greene had been attacked by three men when they were out walking on a trail at a nature preserve in Egg Harbor Township.
According to the co-conspirator, during the attack, the men had called Greene by name and had specifically referenced her employment as an aide for a federal official, identified in media reports as Van Drew, R-District 2.
When law enforcement officers located Greene, she was lying in a wooded area just off the trail with her hands and feet bound together with black zip ties. Greene’s shirt was pulled over her head and was also tied with a black zip tie. Greene had numerous lacerations on her face, neck, upper chest and shoulder. The words “Trump whore” were written on her stomach and the words “Van Drew is racist” were written on her back. Greene was crying and yelling that one of her alleged attackers had a gun.
Greene told police officers that one or more of the men who allegedly attacked her said he had a gun and threatened to shoot her. Greene also said that one or more of the attackers had held her down and restrained her movement, cutting her and writing on her body.
A couple days later, after receiving medical treatment for her lacerations, Greene again described her alleged attack to law enforcement officers, including an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The investigation revealed that Greene had not, in fact, been attacked by three men at gunpoint. Instead, Greene had paid a body modification/scarification artist to deliberately cut the lacerations with a scalpel, based on a pattern that she had provided beforehand.
The federal complaint contains photographs that show the writing and the extensive lacerations to Greene’s body, including on her face, neck, back and shoulder.
Law enforcement officers recovered black zip ties in Greene’s car, a Maserati, on the night of the alleged attack, similar to the zip ties that had been used to bind Greene’s arms and feet.
According to a 9-1-1 call, Greene’s co-conspirator said the attackers were focused on Greene and had held her down as well, but that she was able to get away to make the call. When Egg Harbor Township police got to the scene, the co-conspirator led them to where she claimed she last saw Greene, who was found lying on the ground with her feet and hands bound together and her shirt pulled up over her head. Greene was crying loudly and yelling “he has a gun; he has a gun.”
In the complaint, when the co-conspirator was interviewed the night of the incident, the co-conspirator repeatedly asked why police needed the keys and whether they planned to search the Maserati, Greene’s car.
The investigation revealed that, two days prior to the alleged attack, the cellphone of Greene’s co-conspirator had been used to search “zip ties near me.”
The day after the incident, EHT detectives, with help from the FBI, got cell phone data from Greene’s phone, they discovered it was in the area of Pennsylvania at the studio of a scarification artist.
In an interview conducted with the artist by detectives and FBI agents, the studio provided a copy of a consent form from Greene and a copy of her driver’s license. The artist was paid $500 in cash and shared Instagram messages with Greene showing the patterns of scarification she wanted.
The artist provided photographs of Greene he took after the scarification was done that matched the “wounds” investigators found on her.
The complaint detailed an interview with Greene in which she attributed the assault to postcards she received at her job with writing similar to what was written on her.
“There’s so many. I mean. Yeah, racist um. Windmills belong on your grave,” she told investigators. “Like stupid, I mean like there, they have a bunch of of little things on there that they’ll write on there. We have them all, you can look at all of them. … We keep all of our hate mail. We recently got like, a letter with powder in it and stuff. A couple of the politicians got like.”
“Yeah, very recent,” she continued when asked when the letters were received. “Like maybe a week ago. And are to the point where our chief of staff was like you guys need to be using gloves to open the mail.”
The count of conspiracy has a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The count of false statements also has a maximum of five years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
A statement from Van Drew’s congressional office to the New Jersey Globe said they were “deeply saddened by today’s news.”
“While Natalie is no longer associated with the congressman’s government office, our thoughts and prayers are with her and hope she’s getting the care she needs,” the Van Drew office told the Globe.
Greene is represented by defense counsel Louis M. Barbone of Jacobs & Barbone.
– Sentinel staff reports
