A Portland couple
arrested for a Valentine’s Day role-playing exercise that was mistaken for an actual abduction saw their disorderly conduct charges reduced to misdemeanor violations Wednesday.
Thirty-one-year-old Nikolas Alexander Harbar, and his girlfriend, Stephanie Morgan Pelzner, 26, plead guilty to misdemeanor violations, similar to a traffic ticket, in Multnomah County Court. They will be able to clear their records of the incident by each completing 16 hours of community service.
Their attorney, Adam Greenman, described the couple as “terribly embarrassed.”
“These are two young people who have never been in trouble in their lives, and they were doing something they thought was romantic, and maybe a bit silly,” Greenman told reporters outside the downtown Portland courtroom.
On Tuesday afternoon, a manager for New Seasons Market on North Interstate Avenue called 911 to report seeing a woman, bound and naked, in the back of a Subaru Legacy in the store’s parking lot.
“There was a man driving a blue Subaru. He had a woman in his back seat tied up, naked, duct tape on her mouth,” the manager said in the 911 call, obtained by KOIN Wednesday.
She reported approaching the car and asking the driver, later identified as Harbar, to roll down the window. “We’re just having some fun,” Harbar told her. The witness then asked the woman, later identified as Pelzner, if she should contact the police.
“She shook her head ‘no,’ but her mouth (
sic) duct taped, and her eyes were just kind of hazy, and (she) seemed out of it,” the manager told the dispatcher.
The manager provided the license plate of the car, which took officers to the owner’s address on the 4300 block of Northeast 11th Avenue. An officer eventually spotted the car nearby, with Pelzner inside, as well as a man matching the description of Harbar walking towards the residence.
Harbar told police he and his girlfriend were engaged in a role-playing exercise. His girlfriend confirmed to officers she was voluntarily tied up in the car.
Their next court date is scheduled for March 28.
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Kacey Montoya and Faris Tanyos contributed to this report.
