Rachel Soderblom JACKSON, MI – The police came to his home at 3 a.m. They arrested him in front of his young son.
They told him the charge was first-degree criminal sexual conduct, an offense that could send him to prison for far longer than it would take his son to graduate from high school.
Decades could pass.
He opened his eyes wide. "What?" He recalls of his reaction.
It wasn't until later, after his arraignment, that he pieced it all together. A woman he said he had met for consensual sex at a motel in June was accusing him of rape, and he was powerless, jailed on one of society's most abhorred crimes.
If not for an attorney who listened, a detective who immediately checked his story and a prosecutor's office willing to dismiss his case, he believes he might still be there.
Rachel Erin Soderblom, 34, was charged last week with falsely reporting a felony, an offense punishable by a maximum prison sentence of four years. District Judge Michael Klaeren arraigned her Friday, Feb. 26. She spent less than a day in jail and was released on a a $2,500 personal recognizance bond.
By Saturday, she was at her house in Blackman Township. An effort to speak to her there was not successful.
The man police allege she wrongly accused is back home with his family. He has returned to work. He is refocused, changed.
"I'm trying to get over it," he said one night while sitting at a table with his wife, who is supportive despite the infidelities Soderblom's case revealed.
He is grateful to his lawyer, Susan Dehncke, and Blackman-Leoni Township public safety Detective Joseph Merritt, who quickly corroborated his side of the story. The same day as his January interview with Merritt, the charge was dismissed and his wife was giving him a ride home from the jail.
He knew Soderblom from a McDonald's restaurant, where she had worked as a manager. They agreed to meet. They had sex, he said.
"The only thing I was wrong for was cheating on my wife," said the man, who wanted to remain anonymous. He is worried about his reputation and his employment.
People hear a person is accused of rape and they tend to remember. There are stereotypes, a stigma. "People don't care to believe you," the man's wife said.
Allegedly because she is a lesbian and had not previously had sex with a man, Soderblom reported an unknown man attacked her from behind, according to police reports.
She said this happened before dawn June 20 while Soderblom, who works late nights for a cleaning service, was retrieving items from the back seat of her vehicle in the driveway of her home on Rosehill Road, just north of I-94. Her shorts were loose and he raped her, she told officers, and then he fled.
There was a short story on MLive. The man didn't see it or have any idea she contacted police. He and Soderblom didn't talk again.
Soderblom made the police report June 20. She went to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. DNA evidence was collected and sent to the Michigan State Police crime lab.
Subsequent analysis identified the man as the probable culprit. His information was in the Combined DNA Index System, which contains samples of people convicted of crimes, and the prosecutor's office charged him with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.
He was arrested Dec. 20. Given the name of his accuser, he denied knowing her. He told a reporter he did not recall the name. "It didn't click until I was in the cell." He spent about 16 days, including Christmas and the New Year's holiday, in the county jail.
"A day is too long for something you didn't do," said the man, who had previously been incarcerated for unpaid child support and lesser crimes. Never for an offense of this magnitude.
Dehncke was assigned to his case. She talked to him and took his information to Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Walker. The man had details that could exonerate him, and Walker informed Merritt. He interviewed the man, who said he and Soderblom had consensual sex June 19 at Americas Best Value Inn.
Merritt found proof of Soderblom renting a room June 19 and determined the vehicle associated with the room belonged to the man and his wife, according to the police report. Further, Merritt talked to an employee at McDonald's, where Soderblom had worked until July. The woman said she introduced Soderblom and the man last year and they were regularly talking.
She said Soderblom often told "wild, outlandish stories."
Merritt took the information he had gathered back to Soderblom. She at first maintained versions of her original claim. Instead of taking opportunities to tell the truth, "she continued to fabricate more and layers to the story," Merritt wrote.
Eventually, as she was repeatedly confronted with inconsistencies and refutable statements, she made admissions, the police report states. She conceded she knew the man. They had flirted, she said, and he contended he could "make her go straight," the report states, recapping the interview with Soderblom.
The reasons for her alleged lies were not clear. Then living with her partner and girlfriend, she told Merritt she "went to a point where she never has before," meaning sex with a man, Merritt wrote in his report. She said she generated the idea of a sexual assault because there had been a recent break-in in her neighborhood. She figured no one would question an attack and authorities would never make an arrest, the police report states.
The prosecutor's office "almost immediately" dismissed the case as soon as "further investigation uncovered more information," Chief Assistant Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said.
For this, the man is appreciative.
"There ain't no such thing as getting a story mixed up when you are telling the truth," he said.
He spoke to a reporter because he wanted to thank the authorities, especially the detective.
"I just want to let them know all police isn't bad," the man said. "Let them know what he done for me."
Dehncke said this is the way the system is supposed to work. "I was heartened to see the determination to get it right as opposed to simply winning the case," she said, and criticized Soderblom.
"The original allegations were every woman's worst nightmare..." she said.
Soderblom wasted officers' time. She used the valuable, taxed resources of the state crime lab, Dehncke said. Her alleged falsehoods set in motion a "very scary" process that could have placed an innocent man in prison.
"It casts doubt on true rape victims when this type of thing happens. It terrorizes an entire neighborhood."
The man seemed more relieved than angry.
"I'm not mad at her. I'm disappointed in myself," the man said.
"I am," his wife said.
It has been "tough," she said. "(Soderblom) needs to pay for what she did, for sure."
The woman wants justice. She wants a judge to know how Soderblom affected her family.
When the police came to their house, the woman worried someone was dead.
People, as they do, started talking. There were rumors. She was embarrassed to leave her home.
She knew her husband was not a rapist, but she was concerned. What else didn't she know?
While in jail, he too prepared for the worst; he knew authorities had seemingly irrefutable physical evidence against him.
His wife accepted his calls, racking up $250 in charges. She considered taking out a loan against her house to free him, but she wasn't pleased with his behavior. Forgiveness was a progressing effort.
"I think God gave him a little piece of karma," she said.
He spent Christmas without his family, slept on concrete.
"It was just a wild night, me being ignorant," the man said of the motel meeting.
He says he has learned his lesson, learned to "keep it at home."
"I am not planning on getting in more trouble."