WYOMING, Mich. — Nikole Pipoly, the woman whose false claims led to Godfrey-Lee Public Schools to be shut down for a day, will not spend any time in jail.
According to our investigation, what led up to the closure started a few weeks before the May 13 incident.
Pipoly met Nicholas Surman on a dating app a couple of weeks prior, eventually agreeing to a low-pressure hang-out at her home with her friends on May 10.
At some point in the evening, Pipoly took the hat Surman was wearing and refused to give it back.
In what he admits was a regrettable case of turnabout-being-fair-play, Surman took a patio chair as collateral.
That's when it turned even more bizarre.
Claims Pipoly (then contracted as a social worker at the school) made to a coworker on May 12 triggered a shutdown of the district for the next day.
“She said that I apparently called her and that I said that I was going to apparently rape her and shoot her over a hat, which just seemed absolutely bizarre and asinine,” Surman told FOX 17 back in June of 2024.
After turning himself in to investigators, Surman surrendered his phone records, showing them Pipoly's claims didn't add up.
Originally, Pipoly alleged Surman called her the day after the hang-out, making threats about coming to the school — a call that was not on Surman's phone records.
In fact, Surman didn't even know she worked for the school. Texts show he intended to meet her at Pine Rest (where he told FOX 17 and investigators he thought she worked) to exchange the items, despite Pipoly's claim he was going to go to the school to shoot the place up over a hat.
In subsequent interviews, Pipoly appears to backtrack. Reports show she tells one officer a threat was made, then tells another there was no threat at all.
This was all back in June.
Pipoly waas arrested and the case went through Wyoming's 62A District Court.
But jury selection was pushed back several times until January 15 of this year — the final pre-trial hearing before the expected trial date of February 24— when court records show Pipoly intended to take a plea deal.
On Tuesday morning, Pipoly pleaded nolo contendere — often referred to as no contest— to 1 charge of making a false threat.
Judge Steven Timmerman sentenced Pipoly to 12 months of probation including 5 days of Community Service.
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