Police in north-central Iowa say an alert they issued last month was based on a false report.

The Worth County Sheriff’s Department issued a public warning after a woman reported being assaulted on September 28. She claimed a man burned and tried to rape her after she stopped to help him with a broken down car.

Now, the sheriff’s office says 36-year-old Ty O’Hara Wooten of Clear Lake recanted the story the following day in an interview with an Iowa DCI agent. Wooten is charged with making a false report, a serious misdemeanor, punishable by up to two years in prison.

(By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)