A Boulder Marine arrested two years after he faked his disappearance to avoid returning to Iraq told an investigator he had called an attorney and was planning to surrender when he was captured.
Lance Hering posted $5,000 bail on Thursday, but he remains in a Washington state jail on a hold by the U.S. Marines, according to Sgt. Darrell Bryant of the Callam County Jail in Port Angeles.
“The Marines have not come to pick him up yet,” Bryant said.
The military-desertion charge is a felony.
Hering and a high school friend staged the Marine’s disappearance in 2006, when the lance corporal was home in Boulder on leave after serving seven months in Iraq.
He was arrested, along with his father, Lloyd Hering, on Nov. 16 at an airfield in Port Angeles.
In an interview the same day with Cpl. Barbara McFall of the Callam County Sheriff’s Office, Lance Hering said he had called Texas attorney James Culp to advise him about turning himself in to authorities, according to documents provided by the Sheriff’s Office.
“You know, I asked him what he thought I should do, as far as taking a step towards, uh, turning myself in and taking care of everything,” he said.
His attorney recommended that before he turn himself in at Camp Pendleton, he should get a psychiatric evaluation in Virginia from a forensic psychologist. That psychologist should search for signs of post traumatic stress disorder, Culp said, according to Lance Hering.
After two years on the run, in which he never contacted family, he told McFall that he e-mailed his father, at the attorney’s suggestion, about two weeks ago, in part because he didn’t have money to pay the psychologist or the attorney.
His father told him he loved him and would support him in whatever way he could, but he urged him to turn himself in. He also offered to help him get the mental evaluation, the document says.
“We were going to go to Camp Pendleton, together with the statement from the psychologist, where I could turn myself in,” he said.
But when his father met him at the airport, “the police car rolled up, and we both thought ‘Ohhh.’ It was all happenin’ quicker than expected,” he said chuckling.
He told the officer he was glad that he didn’t run. He said he was glad he was finally answering his charges.
“I want to take care of this. I wanna I want to see my family again,” he said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
