GREEN LAKE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning and left his wife and three children and was believed to have been in Eastern Europe willingly returned to the U.S. after roughly four months and is in custody, a sheriff said Wednesday.
Ryan Borgwardt, 45, appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing an officer.
Borgwardt “came back on his own” because of his family, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said.
“We can stand here feeling relieved,” Podoll told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday. Borgwardt landed Tuesday and was being held at the county jail, pending his afternoon court appearance.
Watch: Wisconsin kayaker who faked his death, fled the country has returned to US:
Last month, Podoll said Borgwardt began communicating with authorities on Nov. 11 after disappearing for three months but hadn’t committed to returning to Wisconsin. Podoll said police were "pulling at his heartstrings” to come home.
He suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance.
Borgwardt told authorities last month that he faked his death because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. He told them that in mid-August he traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He said he picked that lake because it’s the deepest in Wisconsin.
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 70 miles (110 kilometers) through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he said he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and got on a plane.
The sheriff said at the time, that investigators were working to verify Borgwardt’s description of what happened.
The sheriff’s office has said the search for Borgwardt’s body, which lasted more than a month, cost at least $35,000. The sheriff said that Borgwardt told authorities that he didn’t expect the search to last more than two weeks.
Borgwardt is scheduled to make a second court appearance on Jan. 13. The court set his signature bond at $500.
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