Man Admits To Making Up Attack Story, No Charges To Be Filed
Posted
Aaron Organ-aorgan@timesuniononline.com
An October incident involving the Winona Lake Police Department that had the town's residents unnerved and upset was essentially much ado about nothing, and officially cleared up during Tuesday night's town council meeting. Near the end of the lengthy meeting, Town Marshal Paul Schmitt read a brief letter to the council written by Casey May, the man who the Times-Union reported alleged he had been hit by a truck and assaulted by its occupants including being stabbed and robbed Oct. 4, then subsequently “treated unethically” by investigating officers with the Winona Lake Police Department. May showed up at the Oct. 12 town council meeting in an arm cast and voiced displeasure with the police department's handling of the case. In the letter read by Schmitt Tuesday night, though, May admitted that report was fabricated, and the incident never occurred. “I apologize for filing a false report,” May wrote. “My statements were untrue and uncalled for.” May was not in attendance at the meeting. He could not be reached for comment. Schmitt told the council that he and May had a discussion and learned that May had a “lot of things going on in his life, and he is trying to get his act back together.” Schmitt would not speculate why he filed the report, however. Schmitt said charges were pending against May for the filing of the false report, but those have since been dropped in exchange for May authoring the letter read to council. “I went to the prosecutor and I said, 'I just want to clean my case up. I don't care if we do anything on it,’” Schmitt said. Schmitt said the police department had enough evidence to prove the case, but his lone concern was showing the residents of Winona Lake all was well all along. “My point in all this was to set the citizens minds at ease. We don’t have that kind of crime taking place in Winona Lake,” he said.
