Around the holiday season it’s pretty common to tell your boss you are sick on New Year’s Eve so you can have a four day-weekend instead of a three-day weekend. Telling a white lie to squeeze an extra day with family isn’t the end of the world or your career.

But skipping out on two weeks of military training so you can live it up in Hawaii can actually earn you a criminal record.

Police officer and Army reservist Donald Chen was arrested in Connecticut last week for larceny after he took two weeks off from work to attend a mandatory military training session. Instead of going to the training, Chen flew to Hawaii to enjoy two weeks of tropical paradise.

He was gone for only a week before the Army contacted his employer for help finding the wayward reservist. At first the police department believed Chen to be missing or in danger, but a tipoff led them to believe he was actually vacationing. When they finally tracked him down, Chen denied that he was on vacation and claimed to be in Taiwan on a family emergency. He later admitted that he was in sunny Hawaii and returned home.

Chen has been suspended from both the police and the Army for abusing military leave policy. He will go to court to face his charge of first-degree larceny on Jan. 11.