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A Wisconsin husband and father of three who faked his own death and left America to meet a European woman that he met online will now have to serve time in prison. 89 days to be exact, the same number of days he had led authorities and his family to believe that he was dead.
Ryan Borgwardt, 45, pleaded no contest on Tuesday to a misdemeanor count of obstructing an officer. He was given that particular charge because, as Green Lake County Circuit Court Judge Mark Slate said during sentencing, Wisconsin has no specific crime on the books for faking a person’s death.
Borgwardt staged his death while kayaking last August. WISN News reports that investigators said he overturned his kayak, discarded his phone and identification, and paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He then rode an electric bike approximately 70 miles through the night, took a bus from to Madison to Detroit, then traveled on another bus to Toronto, then boarded a plane to Paris and then to Asia, finally ending up in the country of Georgia.
Sky News reports that after an 58-day search failed to turn up his body, authorities discovered that he had acquired a new passport, bought a $375,000 life insurance policy, and reversed a vasectomy. In December, they tracked him down in Georgia and convinced him to return to the United States where he was charged.
Plea deal rejected
He had been facing up to nine months in jail, but reached a plea deal with prosecutors to serve just 45 days. The judge disagreed with the deal and made his sentence 89 days. Borgwardt was also forced to pay $30,000 in restitution to cover the cost of the search for his body which included the use of numerous boats, underwater drones, sonar, divers and three canine cadaver teams.
Green Lake County District Attorney Gerise LaSpisa told the court that Borgwardt’s “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.”
Before being sentenced, Ryan Borgwardt told the court, “I deeply regret the actions that I did that night and all the pain that I caused my family and friends.”
Others who have faked their own death, and gotten caught
In January of 2025, an Indiana man faked his own death in order to get out of paying child support. He was captured after it was discovered he was living at his girlfriend’s house.
Another man from Kentucky tried a similar scam in 2024 when he too attempted to avoid having to pay child support by faking his own death. He used an elaborate scheme to avoid paying over $116,000 in child support before finally being caught.