A West Penn Township police officer has been charged with lying about being attacked while on duty in September.

Sgt. Melissa Ruch, 41, of New Ringgold, faces four misdemeanor charges including filing a false report to law enforcement officers and making false alarms to agencies of public safety, according to a criminal complaint.Trooper Edward J. Lizewski, of the state police at Frackville, filed the charges Wednesday at Magisterial District Judge James Ferrier’s court in Orwigsburg.In a four-page affidavit of probable cause detailing the nearly four-month investigation, Lizewski described inconsistencies in Ruch’s story including her use of a Taser on the suspect. 

HistoryRuch contacted Schuylkill County dispatchers at 4:53 p.m. on Sept. 2 to request a records check on a disabled Nissan Maxima along Route 309, south of Dove Lane, in West Penn Township.At 5:04 p.m., dispatchers told her they couldn’t find a record for the individual, Jose Cruz Mendez, 33.Four minutes later, Ruch’s officer-down alert alarm was triggered and officers began responding to the scene.Officers found Ruch at the bottom of a steep embankment off the east side of Route 309 at 5:09 p.m.First responders secured Ruch using a Stokes basket before carrying her up to the roadway.She was flown via helicopter to Lehigh Valley Hospital and treated for what were described as nonlife threatening injuries.During an interview with Lizewski at the hospital, Ruch said the suspect got out of the passenger side of the Nissan and jumped over a guardrail.She described Mendez as a Hispanic male, 6 feet 2 inches to 6 feet 4 inches tall, 240-260 pounds with a tattoo beneath one of his eyes."(Ruch) said the male approached her and told her he wasn’t going back to prison," Lizewski wrote in the affidavit.Ruch told police she used her Taser on the assailant before he attacked, a detail she repeated to police 10-12 times.According to her story, the male got up off the ground and came at her "with something silver in his hand."Ruch could not recall how she got to the bottom of the embankment.While at the hospital, Lizewski showed Ruch a picture of a Jose Luiz Mendez he received from the Schuylkill County Communications Center, but she said the man in the photograph was not the alleged assailant. Route 309 was closed for around seven hours while police launched a ground and aerial search for the suspect.No individual matching the description from Ruch was ever located. 

Inconsistencies Lizewski said 17 witnesses all told police they only observed Ruch and her vehicle at the scene."Several witnesses said they saw Ruch on the side of the road and she appeared to be talking on her cellphone or radio," he wrote in an affidavit of probable cause.The investigation also revealed that Ruch used her Taser 33 minutes before she claimed to have been assaulted.At the scene, officers could not find the "Blast Door" covers from the Taser cartridge or the paper aphids which are always deposited when a cartridge is deployed.A forensic examination confirmed the Taser was never fired into a human."The upper portion of the probe had been physically pulled apart from the lower portion indicated by the damage to the lower portion," Lizewski added. 

Rewarded for heroismRuch, then Melissa Johnson, was previously the acting police chief in Coaldale Borough in 2004. Before that, she was employed by Coaldale as their warrants officer. She has been employed by West Penn for around 10 years.Nine days after the reported attack, Ruch was honored for her heroism in a ceremony attended by several state lawmakers."We’re thrilled she’s in one piece," said state Sen. David Argall, who organized the event.Ruch’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 19 at 1:30 in front of Ferrier.

Kathy Kunkel contributed to this report.