The family of Lance Hering, the Marine who spent more than two years on the lam, has paid more than $30,000 for a days-long search for him after a bogus report that he had been injured while rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon State Park.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle confirmed this morning that he met with Hering and his parents, Lloyd and Elynne, late Thursday to settle the bill.
The family paid the bill despite the fact that Hering’s court case over the false report of his disappearance is still pending.
“They were clear about the fact this was something they wanted to do, regardless of the outcome of the court case and that Lance was grateful to everybody who looked for him and sorry he put them through the trouble,” Pelle said. “I think it was important to them.”
This morning, Hering’s parents publicly thanked the many volunteers who helped look for him after he was reported missing.
Hering was home on leave after a combat tour in Iraq when he was reported missing on Aug. 29, 2006. His friend, Steve Powers, initially told authorities that the two of them were climbing in Eldorado Canyon when the Marine fell, suffering a head injury.
A little more than a week later, however, the story crumbled, and Boulder County sheriff’s investigators accused the two of staging Hering’s disappearance.
Both Hering and Powers were accused of filing a false report, an allegation with potentially lifelong implications for both men.
That’s because on Aug. 7, 2004, the two friends had climbed onto the top of a Boulder building as a prank, and in the process, they set off an alarm. Both young men were charged with burglary, a felony, and ultimately they reached an agreement that would have wiped their records clean if they had stayed out of trouble for two years.
They were a little more than a month from completing their probation in that case when they staged Hering’s disappearance.
If Hering is convicted of the false-reporting charge and his probation is formally revoked in the 2004 case, he will be left with a felony conviction on his record.
Powers pleaded guilty in January 2007 to false reporting and ended up with a felony burglary conviction.
Hering spent nearly 28 months in hiding, most of it in the Pacific Northwest, before he and his father were arrested in November in Port Angeles, Wash. They were preparing to fly to the East Coast to have Lance Hering evaluated by a psychiatrist, then to Texas to see an attorney and ultimately planned to return to Camp Pendleton to surrender to the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps discharged Hering in December after he pleaded guilty to an unauthorized absence. That move came after court testimony that Hering suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his combat tour in Iraq.
In the meantime, Boulder County authorities sought restitution for $33,057 in what Pelle described as “hard dollars” spent in the search — gasoline, food, helicopters, and overtime among them.
Powers had paid a total of $2,352 of the bill.
In the meeting with Pelle, Lance Hering wrote a personal check for $5,160.30, which amounted to the last of his money from his Marine Corps service. Lloyd Hering wrote a check for $25,544.70.
The payment came after an initial meeting earlier in the week to discuss the logistics of settling the bill.
“I made sure that they had talked to their attorney about this, and they had,” Pelle said.
Hering’s parents issued a statement this morning:
“In the fall of 2006, our son, Lance Hering, returned to Boulder after a difficult combat tour in Iraq. He soon disappeared. He was initially thought to be lost in Eldorado Canyon, and many wonderful people helped us search for him. When we discovered that he had left the state, we were overjoyed that he was alive yet afraid that we might never see him again. Lance was gone for over two years but is now, miraculously, part of our family and community again.
“The search was not in vain. By showing that Lance was NOT dead in the canyon, the searchers led us to the discovery that he was still alive. All of us are grateful for the efforts and support given by the Boulder Sheriff’s Department, the volunteers of Rocky Mountain Rescue, other teams from around the state who came to help, and the many citizen volunteers who spent days on our behalf. It was a remarkable outpouring of human kindness.
“There were substantial costs to Boulder County due to the search. It has always been important to us to repay Boulder County for those expenses. Those costs have now been paid. We remain very grateful to all those who participated in our efforts to find Lance. We are now blessed with the chance to rebuild our family and move forward together.”
