A man who faked his own death so he could be with a woman he met online has been jailed for 89 days.
Ryan Borgwardt, 45, from the US state of Wisconsin, was reported missing last August, after telling his wife he was going kayaking on Green Lake, about 100 miles (160km) northwest of Milwaukee.
He was presumed to have drowned, but, after failing to find his body, investigators discovered he had acquired a new passport, bought life insurance and reversed a vasectomy, and wondered if he had faked his death to meet up with an Uzbekistani woman he had been communicating with.
They tracked him down and persuaded him to return to the US in December, where, after turning himself in, he was charged with obstructing the search for his body.
Prosecutors said he went to the lake, around 50 miles (80km) from his family’s home in Watertown, on 11 August.
During the night, he overturned his kayak and paddled back to shore in an inflatable raft that he brought with him.
Leaving his ID in the water, he used an electric bicycle to get to the state capital, Madison, 70 miles (112km) away.
From there, he caught a bus to Toronto, flew to Paris and then to Asia, before moving onto the country of Georgia.
He was picked up by a woman and they spent several days in a hotel before he took up residency in Georgia.
Ahead of his sentencing, Green Lake County District Attorney Gerise LaSpisa said his “entire plan to fake his death to devastate his family in order to serve his own selfish desires hinged on him dying in the lake and selling his death to the world”.
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Borgwardt’s wife of 22 years divorced him four months after he returned.
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He initially denied the charge but accepted a plea deal and agreed to pay $30,000 (£22,000) to law enforcement to cover the cost of finding him.
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“I deeply regret the actions I did that night and all the pain I caused my family, friends,” Borgwardt said in court before being sentenced.
Prosecutors asked Green Lake County Circuit Judge Mark Slate to jail Borgwardt for 45 days, but the judge handed down 89 days – the length of time between being declared missing and being contacted by the sheriff’s department in November.
The case echoes that of John Darwin, who faked his own death while canoeing in the North Sea in 2002 in order to avoid bankruptcy.
