DENVER—Lance Hering, a 23-year-old Marine accused of faking his own disappearance to avoid returning to his unit, faces a charge of unauthorized absence that could land him at a military prison for up to a year, Camp Pendleton officials said Friday.
The charge comes two weeks after 23-year-old Lance Hering returned to the California camp in custody, following his Nov. 16 arrest at an airport in Port Angeles, Wash. At the time, Hering was with his father, Lloyd Hering, who was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting.
Washington authorities were acting on a tip from the Boulder County Sheriff’s office.
Hering was on leave from Camp Pendleton, Calif., when he disappeared in 2006. Hering’s friend Steve Powers told authorities Hering was hurt in a rock-climbing accident near Boulder and wandered away while Powers went looking for help. The massive five-day search that followed cost $33,000, as hundreds of volunteers in Eldorado Canyon State Park looked for Hering.
Powers later said the report was a hoax. He pleaded guilty to false reporting and was ordered to pay $33,000 in restitution.
The military’s decision Friday means Hering will avoid a harsher charge of desertion, punishable by up to three years of confinement and a dishonorable discharge. Maj. Kristen Lasica, a spokeswoman for Camp Pendleton, said to get a conviction on a desertion charge the military would have to prove a soldier had no intentions of ever returning.
Lasica said it’s common for the military to choose the lesser of charge of unauthorized absence. A conviction on that charge carries a sentence of up to a year in a military prison and a discharge for bad conduct. He would also be ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances for one year.
Hering is also wanted by the Boulder County Sheriff’s office on charges of false reporting and for allegedly violating his probation from a 2004 attempted burglary conviction.
Military Families Speak Out, an organization of military families against the Iraq war, has said Hering suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is “dealing with the consequences of choices he made in the grips of PTSD.”
Hering’s attorneys say he was about to surrender to the Marines shortly before his arrest.
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Information from: Daily Camera,
