When a Newberry man called 911 and said he was threatened by a man with a gun, a deputy responded and spent time listening to a story that he said he determined was a lie. The deputy also determined the man lied in order to get law enforcement to respond faster.

Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy Davis Aerne was the deputy who responded to the 911 call placed by John O’Harah.    

John Aaron O’Harah, 27, Newberry, was arrested by Deputy Michael Coy of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department early Thursday, July 22, on a warrant that was issued for his arrest. O’Harah was booked into the Greene County Jail at 1:50 a.m.

Back on September 2, 2020, O’Harah was convicted in Greene Superior Court of neglect of a dependent – dependent placed in a situation that endangered the dependent’s life, a Level 6 felony, as a result of an incident that occurred in September of 2019.

For more information on the case, find previous story posted on GreeneStreets by clicking the Tag “John O’Harah” below this story.

O’Harah was sentenced to one year in the county jail with 345 days suspended.

In mid-July, a new criminal case was filed against O’Harah following an investigation by GCSD Deputy Davis Aerne into the incident that occurred in June. As a result, O’Harah was facing a new charge of false informing, a Class B misdemeanor. Since it’s a misdemeanor, a summons was issued ordering O’Harah to be in court for an initial hearing on August 26.

But O’Harah was still on probation on the neglect conviction and after the false informing case was filed, the Greene County Probation Department filed a petition to revoke O’Harah’s suspended sentence and O’Harah was picked up on the warrant.

GCSD Deputy Aerne had responded in June after O’Harah called 911 and said he was getting some of his items from a location on Mulberry Street in Newberry when he was threatened by a man with a gun. He said the man was driving a blue Chevy pickup truck and had a woman with him. He said the guy had randomly showed up with a gun and the woman was threatening and the man was holding a chainsaw and everything. He said the man with the gun and the woman were at the post office and he said they (O’Harah and his girlfriend) do not want to die.

They were not at the post office so Deputy Aerne drove on to the Mulberry Street location where he talked to O’Harah who alleged he had been at the post office with his girlfriend and when they left, the man in the blue pickup was following and circling them.

The story told is difficult to follow…. O’Harah said he went to the Mulberry Street property to get his stuff out of a shed where he used to live. While there, the other man showed up and the woman was rolling up her sleeves like she wanted to fight his girlfriend and that the man had asked him for help finding a chainsaw and after they found it and went back to the road, O’Harah grabbed a hammer because he was scared because the man was standing there with a chainsaw. He also said the man was intimidating and has threatened to shoot him with a gun in the past and the man carries the gun everywhere he goes. After this, O’Harah said he and his girlfriend left and went to the post office but the man in the blue pickup followed them.

Deputy Aerne, after wading through this story and talking to the man and the woman in the blue truck as well as O’Harah and his girlfriend, said he found O’Harah’s story was not factual.

Specifically, Deputy Aerne said he determined that O’Harah lied about a firearm being involved so law enforcement would respond faster. O’Harah was informed not to report a false story to get officers to respond quicker.

On July 27, since O’Harah was already in custody, the initial hearing in the false informing case was conducted early.

In the case involving a petition to revoke his sentence for neglect of a dependent, a hearing was conducted on July 27 and his bond was set at $10,000 surety with ten percent cash allowed. He has since posted $1,000 and been released from custody with more court dates coming up in late August.