Prosecutors Reveal the Moment Runaway Wis. Dad Ryan Borgwardt Allegedly 'Knew That He Made a Mistake'

Ryan Borgwardt thought he had gotten away with faking his own death in August when he overturned his kayak and vanished, fleeing to Eastern Europe.

Authorities spent 54 days searching for the 45-year-old woodworker, while his wife and three teenaged children mourned his presumed death by drowning in a Wisconsin lake.

But then on Nov. 8, while Borgwardt was overseas in Eastern Europe, he received an email from Green Lake County Chief Deputy Vande Kolk that made “his heart hit the floor,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by PEOPLE.

“Borgwardt also stated he saw the picture of [the adult female that he went to meet] and knew that he made a mistake, the one mistake that he couldn’t make,” the complaint says.

Borgwardt flew back to the United States on Wednesday, Dec. 10, and turned himself in, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a press conference that day. The runaway dad was arrested and charged with obstructing an officer, a misdemeanor.

He appeared before a judge on Wednesday afternoon, saying he didn’t have enough money for an attorney and would seek to represent himself in court, WISN reports.

“I have $20 in my wallet in the other room,” Borgwardt said, per WISN.

The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, WLUK reports.. He was released from jail on a $500 signature bond on Wednesday afternoon.

An Elaborate Plan Gone Wrong

The criminal complaint reveals more details Borgwardt provided to prosecutors about his now-derailed plan to start a new life, allegedly with a woman he met online.

On the morning of Aug. 11, the day he vanished, he said he went to church with his family, like usual, it says.

He said he went to his woodworking shop to collect an electric bike he hid there to help him execute his dramatic plan.

He said he got to the lake at about 10 p.m. that night and left a life preserver with the kayak “to make it more believable,” according to the criminal complaint.

Borgwardt made his way out of the lake and was hip-deep in “muck,” and had to rinse off his clothes and shoes, he told detectives. He rode on the e-bike through the night to Detroit.

Borgwardt “remembered when it was around 5 a.m. because that’s usually when [his wife] would wake up,” the complaint states. “Ryan made comments that he was worried because now things were in motion and there was no going back.” 

When he got to the airport, he didn’t have his license, which he left in his tackle box, prompting “a lot of questions” from the Canadian Border Patrol, he told detectives. He didn’t have a working phone, either.

“He stated that his phone died sometime around Madison right after he sent a message to [the adult female he was going to meet with],” reads the complaint.

Finally allowed to cross the border into Canada, Borgwardt said he took a flight from Toronto to Paris, and then took another flight to an unspecified “country in Asia.”

When he landed, he sent an email to [an adult female] that he had arrived,” the complaint says. “He waited about an hour for her to come and pick him up. Once [the adult female] picked him up, they went to a hotel.”

He said he brought $5,500 in cash with him for the trip and had researched how to disappear online at length, per the complaint.

“Ryan stated, ‘everything hinged on me dying in the lake,’” the complaint says.

He said that he followed the story in the news and that when he clicked on a news story, he would use a VPN to make it look like he was in Russia or “somewhere else other than Georgia,” as he “knew that Georgia would have [to] extradite him.”

Borgwardt is scheduled to return to court on Jan. 13.