A Colorado Parks and Wildlife ranger who claimed to be attacked in a state park, launching a widespread manhunt for the person accused, was sentenced to three years of supervised probation after pleading guilty in court in Golden on Monday.
Jefferson County District Court Judge Diego Hunt also ordered Callum Heskett, 26, to pay at least $16,500 in restitution for falsely reporting the stabbing that prompted several agencies to deploy resources, including Jefferson County’s SWAT and drone teams and Colorado State Patrol aviation teams, to look for the attacker in August, according to a news release from the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
The exact amount he must pay in restitution will be finalized within the next three weeks to account for costs incurred by all agencies, the office said.
Authorities say Heskett, who was a seasonal ranger at Staunton State Park, radioed for help Aug. 19, saying he had been attacked and stabbed. He said the assailant ran away and gave a detailed description of the suspect.
As Heskett was en route to the hospital, teams searched for his alleged attacker for hours. Several schools were placed on lockdown and the county’s emergency dispatch center issued an alert to 8,600 people in the area, warning them of potential danger.
Two people were detained and interviewed before investigators determined they weren’t involved, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
But then inconsistencies in Heskett’s statements started to emerge, the sheriff’s office said. “Conflicting and questionable evidence” had investigators starting to doubt the validity of Heskett’s allegations.
He continued to make false statements before investigators determined that Heskett had stabbed himself in the abdomen, authorities said.
In court Monday, Heskett pleaded guilty to attempt to influence a public servant, a felony, and false reporting of an emergency, a misdemeanor, court records show. His POST certification will be revoked and he will be barred from serving as a law enforcement officer in Colorado.
His defense attorneys told the judge that “a law enforcement career was not a good choice for him” and that he “could not handle a lot of the stressors associated” with the job, according to the district attorney’s office. They said Heskett had no desire to return to law enforcement and that he was “very regretful.”
If Heskett completes three years of probation and complies with all of the court-mandated conditions, the guilty plea will be withdrawn and the felony conviction will be erased from his record. The conviction for false reporting of an emergency will permanently remain on his record.
If he violates the terms of the deferred judgment, the court can enter the conviction and he could face between two and six years in prison.
In exchange for the plea, five additional counts initially filed against Heskett were dismissed.