Worker avoids jail for college lockdown scare

A camp worker whose false claims put the Antioch College and Glen Helen Nature Preserve on lockdown this summer will avoid jail time.

Cody Buffenbarger, 22, will spend 30 days on house arrest, according to the sentence handed down Wednesday by Xenia Municipal Judge Michael Murry.

Buffenbarger was sentenced to 180 days, with 150 of them suspended. He will be allowed to spend the remaining 30 days on house arrest. Murry also ordered the Wright State University student to get a mental health evaluation, complete 100 hours community service and pay $350 in court costs.

Buffenbarger pleaded guilty in October to a charge of falsification stemming from the June incident at an eco camp at Glen Helen, a 1,000-acre nature preserve in Yellow Springs.

Authorities were called to Glen Helen, part of the Antioch campus, on the report of a gunman wearing camouflage. That prompted an hours-long lockdown. Buffenbarger told officials at the time that he saw a gunman wearing camouflage.

Law enforcement officers from several area agencies and a K-9 unit searched the park, the Glen Helen Education Center on Ohio 343 and neighboring areas, according to the Greene County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office had "a lotta lost man hours that day because a guy did this," said Sheriff Gene Fischer.

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