pocketrocket
12-23-2006, 09:49 AM
Dec 21, 9:28 PM EST
Man wears 'liar' sign for false report
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) -- As he marched up and down a busy road wearing a placard proclaiming "I AM A LIAR," Craig Breuwet endured a painfully public punishment for lying to police. "I've learned my lesson," said Breuwet, who added that he had never been more embarrassed or humiliated.
The 33-year-old Warner Robins man submitted to the court-sanctioned penalty on Wednesday in lieu of facing trial for filing a false police report.
Breuwet told police last August that he had been kidnapped by two men in a Warner Robins parking lot, driven to nearby Macon and beaten up. Two days after the incident, Breuwet admitted that he had fabricated the abduction part of his story, police said.
Authorities said they don't know what really happened, and Breuwet wouldn't discuss it with a news reporter.
Breuwet was required to publicly display the "I AM A LIAR" sign for 10 hours under a pretrial diversion arrangement that allows dismissal of charges of making a false report of a crime and making false statements to police, Houston County District Attorney Kelly Burke said. Burke added that he may also expunge any record of those charges.
Burke said reporting a bogus abduction to police is a serious crime - too serious for a slap on the wrist in court where the public might never have known the initial report was false.
Breuwet's punishment was similar to a sentence meted out to a south Georgia woman earlier this month.
In Albany, Ga., Breanna Klewitz, 23, marched up and down the sidewalk in front of the Dougherty County Courthouse, wearing signs that read, "I AM A THIEF" and "I STOLE WHAT YOU WORKED FOR," as a condition of her probation for burglary.