POLK COUNTY - An Auburndale police officer was charged Friday with making a false report, Polk County sheriff’s spokesman Scott Wilder said.

Last month, Jerad Wayne Moxley, 24, reported fighting off an attacker armed with a knife in Auburndale.

But an extensive manhunt and the investigation never turned up evidence of the alleged attacker, Wilder said.

Moxley told detectives that at 11:55 p.m. on Feb. 23 he approached a white male walking on Adams View Lane and asked for identification.

He said the man stabbed him in the upper torso with a pocket knife but that the blade did not penetrate his bullet-proof vest. He claimed to have fallen and hit his head in the struggle and to have fired his gun four times at the man.

Wilder said Moxley was treated that night at Winter Haven Hospital for a head injury and did have a cut on his uniform shirt.

But on Friday, Moxley told investigators that he he poked his own vest, fired his gun and hit his head on purpose.

When detectives asked him to explain, he reportedly said: “My intentions were good, but it was just a stupid thing.”

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