Former West Penn Township police officer Melissa M. Ruch, accused of fabricating an attack on her in September 2015, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making false reports incriminating another person shortly before her trial was to begin Wednesday.

“Why are you pleading guilty?” Schuylkill County Judge Jacqueline L. Russell asked Ruch.“Because I am,” Ruch replied.It was unclear exactly what she meant.Russell sentenced Ruch, 42, of New Ringgold, to 12 months on probation, to pay court costs and fees, pay $5,683 restitution to the state police crime laboratory in Harrisburg and $76,074 restitution to the township’s workers’ compensation carrier, Amerihealth Casualty, for medical bills she incurred as a result of the incident.However, that bill may be submitted to her own insurer, said her attorney, Frederick J. Fanelli.Had a jury found her guilty, Ruch could have faced two years in prison and a $5,000 fine, Russell said.Three additional charges, another count of false reports, false alarm and furnishing authorities with false information, were dropped in the plea negotiation.Outside the courtroom, Fanelli told reporters his client has a post-amnesia condition, which means she can’t remember.“She was totally incapable of remembering any of these events, and couldn’t assist in her defense,” Fanelli said.He said Ruch can now “put this behind her and get on with her life.”Ruch stood at his side, surrounded by her family. She did not speak.Ruch lost her job as a police officer, and works as an emergency medical technician. Her plea may affect that job, Fanelli said.Schuylkill County First Assistant District Attorney John T. Fegley, also speaking outside the courtroom, said, “This case was never really about the sentence she was looking at, “ he said. “It was about getting the guilty verdict, be it through a plea or a trial. I feel we achieved that in this case.”“It was a low-graded misdemeanor, she has no prior record, she probably wasn’t going to go to jail,” he said.“Ultimately, looking back, it’s a message that goes out to the public. It’s a disappointing message, but a promising message at the same time,” Fegley said.“It’s disappointing that one of our local officers was capable of this and did this. But it’s also promising to know that our local officers in this county, particularly the Pennsylvania State Police, are available and willing to police their own when the evidence shows that it is necessary, as it was in this case,” he said.The state police did a large-scale investigation into the allegations she made, which resulted in “overwhelming evidence that the story she made was not accurate,” Fegley said.“When they found that information, they took appropriate action to police their own,” Fegley said.The last-minute plea, which Russell questioned, was explained by Fanelli to have happened because the workers’ compensation restitution talks hadn’t been resolved until shortly before the trial.Russell said jurors had been selected and were waiting to take their seats in case the plea didn’t happen.Following a four-month investigation, Frackville state trooper Edward J. Lizewski charged Ruch.Ruch had worked for the township for about 10 years.According to court documents, she reported at about 5 p.m. Sept. 2, 2015, that she had been attacked and thrown down a steep embankment along Route 309 on Blue Mountain in West Penn Township by a 260-pound, 6-foot-2-inch tall Hispanic man with a tattoo under one of his eyes.The license number she gave dispatchers came back to a Jose Cruz Mendez.She said he was aggressive with her, and she used her Taser on him after she saw a silver object in his hand.The altercation happened when she stopped to check a disabled vehicle.Emergency crews hauled her up the embankment in a Stokes basket, and she was flown to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.Her report triggered a search aided by state police helicopters that lasted throughout the night and much of the next day.No suspect was ever found, and subsequent police interviews with Ruch turned up inconsistencies, according to the documents.Lizewski wrote that 17 witnesses all told police they saw only Ruch and her vehicle at the scene.Data from Ruch’s Taser, which was recovered at the scene, revealed she had activated it at 4:31 p.m., 33 minutes before she claimed to have been assaulted.Police could not find the “blast door” covers from the Taser cartridge or the paper aphids, which are always deposited when a cartridge is deployed.The fired Taser cartridge and wires were sent to an independent forensic examiner who confirmed it was never fired into a human.Instead, it had been fired into a hard object that did not conduct electricity.