The trial will begin Wednesday for a longtime West Penn Township police officer charged with making up a report about being assaulted and thrown down a steep embankment by a Hispanic man in September 2015 faces trial in Schuylkill County court.

Melissa M. Ruch, 42, of New Ringgold, is represented by Frederick J. Fanelli; Schuylkill County First Assistant District Attorney John T. Fegley is prosecuting the case.Ruch remains free on $2,500 unsecured bail. She is charged with misdemeanor counts of filing a false report to law enforcement officials, creating a false alarm for agencies of public safety, falsely incriminating another, and making false reports.She reported the assault in the midst of a series of high-profile attacks on police across the nation.The report triggered a search aided by state police helicopters that lasted throughout the night and much of the next day. Frightened residents of the rural township, some armed, kept vigilant.No suspect was ever found, and subsequent police interviews with Ruch turned up inconsistencies. Her Taser was found to have been fired not at a person, but at a hard object, according to Frackville state trooper Edward J. Lizewski.Lizewski reported that Ruch was found at the bottom of a steep embankment off Route 309 on Blue Mountain at about 5 p.m. Sept. 2, 2015, after her “officer down” alarm sounded.About 15 minutes before the alarm sounded, she had called Schuylkill County dispatchers for a records check on a disabled Nissan Maxima. But dispatchers told her they couldn’t find a record for the car’s owner, Jose Cruz Mendez, 33.Emergency crews hauled Ruch up the embankment in a Stokes basket, and she was flown to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. She told police she had no memory of how she got to the bottom of the embankment.At the hospital, Ruch told Lizewski the suspect, a Hispanic man who was about 6 feet 2 inches to 6 feet 4 inches tall, weighed 240-260 pounds and had a tattoo under one of his eyes, got out of the passenger side of the Nissan and jumped over a guide rail.She told police she used her Taser on the man before he attacked, a detail she repeated 10-12 times.According to the affidavit, the man got up off the ground and came at her “with something silver in his hand.”Lizewski wrote that 17 witnesses all told police they saw only Ruch and her vehicle at the scene.Data from Ruch’s Taser was recovered at the scene and 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.The cruiser Ruch was driving that day had a camera, but township police Chief Brian Johnson told supervisors they were outdated and had to be turned on manually to function.Lizewski filed the charges about four months later.Ruch, a former Coaldale and Mahanoy Township police chief, had worked for West Penn as a police officer for about 10 years.Township supervisors suspended her without pay after the charges were filed.