By Kelsey Givens

A new charge is being alleged against a former Nye County Sheriff’s deputy who absconded from probation and lied to police and family last week claiming he had been abducted.

Varian Nephi King, 34, who was arrested Tuesday, will see a second charge of open and gross lewdness added to his previous charge of filing a false police report.

According to a declaration of arrest in the case, King’s wife and mother came into the Nye County Sheriff’s Office on May 31 to report him missing after he failed to return home the night before.

As they were filling out the necessary forms, King was brought in by several members of the Salvation Army, naked and claiming to not remember anything from the night before.

King reportedly told police he didn’t remember anything between the time he left a local gas station Wednesday night, until sometime later when he allegedly found himself naked and chained to a tree somewhere to the east of where he was found.

According to the report, the suspect didn’t appear to have suffered any trauma or serious injury, other than exposure and sunburn, consistent with what he had reported.

Deputies had King taken to Desert View hospital to be checked out anyway, just in case, and staff there were able to confirm his symptoms stemmed only from the exposure to the elements and the sunburn, neither of which would reportedly explain the sudden amnesia.

As the case was further investigated based on what King had told officers, his truck was found parked on the side of the road approximately six miles from where he was found.

There was allegedly a handwritten message on the side of the door stating King would be found chained to a tree; the keys were left in the ignition.

The vehicle was still in working order and undamaged and King’s belongings, including his wallet, cell phone and clothes were all found inside.

Investigators also noted that there were no signs of any struggle, fight, abduction or any other suspicious activity by anyone other than King in the area.

King allegedly continued to claim he had no recollection of what happened or how he had ended up naked and chained to a tree.

As authorities looked closer at the chain, specifically the loop in the chain from which King said he had freed himself, they noticed it was a relatively small loop.

A detective then allegedly asked King to place his hand back through the loop he claimed he had freed himself from, but he couldn’t as the loop was too small for his hand to fit through.

It was also noted that there were no marks on his hands, which would have corroborated his claim if it had been true.

Despite these findings, King allegedly continued to stick by his story of being abducted.

On Tuesday, King, who is on parole and registered as a Tier I sex offender, was interviewed by his parole officer, at which time he allegedly admitted to making the whole story up.

It was noted in the report that the area where he was found is populated by numerous homeless individuals as well as several businesses.

King was placed under arrest and taken into custody at the Nye County Detention Center.

The former deputy was sent to prison in 2002 after a jury found him guilt of sexually assaulting his then 16-year-old babysitter.

He had resigned from the sheriff’s office the year before after there was an internal investigation done on King, not relating to the rape case for which he was sent to prison. King was being held without bail as of Thursday afternoon.