A Wisconsin kayaker who, according to prosecutors, faked his own death to abandon his family and meet a woman he encountered online was sentenced to as many days as there were in the police search for him. 

Ryan Borgwardt received an 89-day sentence this week after the August 2024 incident where he orchestrated his own drowning, leaving his wife and three children to meet a woman in the Eastern European nation of Georgia. 

“His entire plan to fake his death and devastate his family, in order to serve his own selfish desires, hinged on him supposedly dying in the lake and selling his death to the world,” stated Green Lake County District Attorney Gerise LaSpisa prior to the sentencing. 

Investigators reached out to Borgwardt in November, persuading him to return to the U.S. in December. He surrendered and faced charges for obstructing the search for his supposed body. Four months later, his wife of 22 years divorced him, as reported by the Associated Press. 

A booking photo of Ryan Borgwardt (Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

After attending church with his family on August 11, 2024, Borgwardt allegedly confessed to investigators that he drove to Green Lake, about 50 miles from his residence and located 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, selected because it’s the deepest lake in Wisconsin. He went to the center of the lake in his kayak and overturned it, authorities stated. 

Borgwardt then paddled back to the shore in an inflatable raft he had brought and submerged his cellphone and ID in the lake. After attempting to erase his muddy footprints, Borgwardt reportedly rode away on a bicycle he had hidden nearby. 

After riding for 70 miles, he said, he caught a bus from Madison, Wisconsin, to Toronto, Canada. From there, he caught a flight to Paris and then an unnamed Asian country before he traveled to Georgia. 

Borgwardt told investigators that a woman picked him up, and they spent several days in a hotel before he took up residency in Georgia, according to a criminal complaint. 

LaSpisa said Borgwardt took out a life insurance policy, applied for a replacement passport and reversed his vasectomy before faking his death to meet a woman he met online just months earlier. 

A view of Green Lake in Wisconsin, where prosecutors said the fake drowning happened. (Google Maps)

“The defendant did not count on the determination and dedication of our law enforcement,” LaSpisa added.