Hurley said he then told the Ritz-Carlton spokesperson he was representing the Maples party and was outraged his client had been misrepresented. The hotel spokesperson offered him free use of a press conference room in retribution, he said.

Next, Hurley called Joseph P. Kahn of the Boston Globe and Norma Nathan of the Boston Herald to inform that he, attorney Tim Johnson, was planning a press conference today at the Ritz to address the misrepresentation of Maples. Hurley added that Maples' "new boyfriend"--one Jeffrey P. Hurley--would also be present to discuss a "personal matter."

"They bought the whole thing," said Hurley.

"We were duped," Kahn acknowledged yesterday.

Hurley's prank met with approval yesterday from one of the nation's most notorious professional pranksters. Alan Abel, who earlier this year tricked the New York media into believing that a "perfect woman"--beautiful, single and generous--had won $30 million in the New York lottery, said such deceptions serve a valuable role in American society.

"I don't think anyone should have to apologize for making pranks--the public is entitled to them," said Alan Abel, the professional prankster who thought up the fake New York Lottery winner prank in February.

Abel, who has pulled off many pranks on a national and international scale, including a UFO sighting in Russia, is considered an expert in the field.

"I'm all in favor of anybody stopping the presses with a prank because the news corps has an insatiable appetite for calamities and disasters and the public needs a few giggles every now and then," said Abel, who devises his schemes in an old train caboose in his Westport, Conn. backyard. "Pranks are a lot of fun and the public loves them, so I see nothing wrong with them."