Marine's Disappearance Staged

DENVER - Authorities who spent five days searching for a Marine after a friend reported him lost in a hiking accident have arrested the friend and said Thursday they believe the disappearance was staged, so the serviceman could avoid returning to duty.

Steve Powers, 20, of Boulder, was arrested late Wednesday for investigation of a misdemeanor charge of false reporting, Sheriff's Cmdr. Phil West said. In a statement, he added that the Marine, Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, could face the same charge, and that the sheriff's department planned to seek restitution for the thousands of dollars spent on the search.

Authorities are still trying to find Hering, 21, who returned from Iraq in July and was due back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., this month.

Powers had reported that Hering fell Aug. 29 while the two were hiking and injured his head, losing consciousness in the rugged Eldorado Canyon State Park west of Boulder. Powers said he went for help the next morning, but when he returned, Hering had vanished.

The sheriff's department and search and rescue teams called off their search after five days, saying they were confident Hering had left the area.

"Essentially (Powers) was trying to keep (Hering) from having to return to service as a Marine," West said. "That's Powers' version. Powers has lied to us repeatedly, so we take what he says with a grain of salt."

West said state authorities were comparing DNA from human blood found at the scene where Hering was reported to have fallen while rock climbing to samples from Hering and Powers. Investigators have some leads into Hering's whereabouts but West declined to elaborate.

A call to Hering's parents in Boulder and messages left with officials at the Pentagon and Camp Pendleton were not immediately returned. There was no telephone listing for Powers, who was released shortly after his arrest.

Nobody answered a knock on the front door of the Hering home, in a quiet south Boulder neighborhood, where two electric candles were burning in the windows.

Hering's brother, Air Force Lt. Brendan Hering, was on leave in Colorado from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., said a man who answered a call at Brendan Hering's unit.

Hering's family has said they do not believe he is trying to avoid returning to the Marines.

"He doesn't run from his problems," Brendan Hering told the Daily Camera in Boulder for a story Wednesday. "He doesn't have any problems with the military."

Brendan Hering said that about 10 years ago, Lance Hering hit his head and temporarily lost his vision and speech. A few days later, he suffered some short-term memory loss. He said his brother could be suffering a similar injury.

Marine officials have told sheriff's officials that Hering was classified as unauthorized absent because he left before official approval of his request for leave, West said.

The Pentagon has said simple desertion has been decreasing in the military in recent years - about 2,500 troops last year didn't show up for work, down from almost 5,000 in 2001.

But groups that run the GI Rights Hotline, which helps service members interested in getting out of their required service, have reported receiving more than 36,000 calls in 2005 and about 19,000 in the first six months of this year, up from fewer than 1,000 in 2001.