A Wisconsin man who faked drowning and left his wife and three children to go to Eastern Europe is in police custody, online records show.
Ryan Borgwardt, 45, was booked into the Green Lake County Jail Tuesday afternoon, according to the Victim Information and Notification Everyday system, a service that provides crime victims with information such as a person's arrest status. No fees were listed.
The Green Lake County Sheriff's Office said in a social media post Tuesday that a news conference would be held Wednesday morning to provide an update on the Borgwardt case. The post stated that no further information would be released until then.
A person who answered the phone at the sheriff's office Tuesday night declined to confirm whether Borgwardt was in custody. County jail officials did not immediately respond to a phone message Tuesday evening.
Last month, Sheriff Mark Podoll said Borgwardt began communicating with authorities on Nov. 11 after being missing for three months, but he has not committed to returning to Wisconsin. Podoll said police “broke his heart” to come home. He suggested Borgwardt be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance.
Borgwardt told authorities last month that he faked his death for “personal reasons,” the sheriff said. He told them that in mid-August he traveled about 50 miles from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, discarded his phone and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He said he chose this lake because it was the deepest in Wisconsin.
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bicycle about 70 miles through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he said he took a bus to Detroit, then got on 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 the incident.
The sheriff's office said the more than month-long search for Borgwardt's body cost at least $35,000. The sheriff said Borgwardt told authorities he didn't expect the search to last longer than two weeks.
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