MADISON: The spouse of a Wisconsin kayaker who faked his personal drowning so he may depart her and their youngsters and meet a lady in Japanese Europe filed court docket paperwork on Thursday (Dec 12) searching for to finish their marriage.
On-line court docket data point out Emily Borgwardt filed a petition in Dodge County Circuit Courtroom searching for a authorized separation from Ryan Borgwardt. In keeping with the petition, the wedding is “irretrievably damaged”. The doc doesn’t elaborate.
A girl who answered the cellphone on the workplace of Emily Borgwardt’s legal professional, Andrew Griggs, on Thursday mentioned he would don’t have any remark. On-line court docket data don’t record an legal professional for Ryan Borgwardt.
The separation petition states that the couple has been married for 22 years and Emily Borgwardt desires sole custody of their three teenage youngsters. The doc provides that Emily works at a non-public college in Watertown. Ryan is listed as self-employed and at present residing at an “unknown tackle”.
A listening to within the case has been set for April.
Ryan Borgwardt, 45, was reported lacking on Aug 12 after telling his spouse the night time earlier than that he was kayaking on Inexperienced Lake, about 100km northwest of Milwaukee.
His disappearance was first investigated as a doable drowning. However subsequent clues, together with that he obtained a brand new passport three months earlier than he disappeared, led investigators to invest that he faked his loss of life to fulfill up with a lady he had been speaking with in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
Investigators made contact with Borgwardt in November and satisfied him to return to the US He turned himself in on the Inexperienced Lake County sheriff’s workplace on Tuesday and was charged Wednesday with obstructing the seek for his physique.
In keeping with the prison criticism, he travelled 80km from his household’s dwelling in Watertown to Inexperienced Lake on Aug 11. Through the night time, he overturned his kayak on the lake, paddled again to shore in an inflatable raft that he introduced with him – dumping his identification within the lake alongside the best way – and rode an electrical bicycle 112km to Madison, the place he caught a bus to Toronto, flew to Paris after which to an unspecified nation in Japanese Europe.
He instructed investigators {that a} girl picked him up and so they spent a number of days in a resort earlier than he took up residency within the nation of Georgia, in response to the criticism.
Borgwardt was launched from jail Wednesday in Inexperienced Lake County on a signature bond. He instructed a decide on Wednesday that he would symbolize himself as a result of he had solely US$20 in his pockets. The decide instructed him the court docket may appoint an legal professional for him, however on-line court docket data didn’t record one as of Thursday.
