NEWTON ? A practical joke that backfired a faked arrest by a Harvey County Sheriff’s deputy led to the deputy’s resignation.

Matt Stineman resigned Monday, saying he regretted embarrassing the department.

“I learn from my mistakes,” he said. “I sure didn’t mean for it to go this far. It’s a practical joke gone bad.”

Stineman was not charged in the incident, and the Sheriff’s Department said it had no plans to seek the revocation of his law enforcement certification.

“He was allowed to resign,” Detective Steve Bayless said.

Stineman, who had worked for the Sheriff’s Department since January 1999 and was a road patrol deputy since June 2000, said he had been playing a joke on a civilian passenger in his patrol vehicle.

The joke involved making a bogus arrest of a woman Stineman has known for several years. But it led to a search for a man purportedly impersonating an officer after a relative of the woman reported the incident to a sheriff’s employee.

About 2 a.m. May 23, the department said, Stineman who was on patrol at the time stopped an 18-year-old Newton woman’s vehicle.

“I have known that person for years,” Stineman said.

After a few minutes of conversation in which Stineman never requested a driver’s license or gave the woman a reason for the traffic stop Stineman asked the woman to help him play a joke on a passenger in the patrol vehicle by pretending to be arrested.

The passenger was a friend of Stineman’s who was on a ride-along.

The woman agreed to be part of the practical joke. She got out of her car and was handcuffed. After a few minutes of small talk, the woman was released unharmed.

“There were no threats, no inappropriate talk or touching,” Bayless said.