Former state trooper Thomas J. Mascia, 27, has been charged with a felony and two misdemeanors, including tampering with physical evidence.

A former New York state trooper has been arrested and charged after prosecutors say he shot himself in the leg and then falsely claimed he was wounded by an unknown gunman on a Long Island highway last October.

Nassau County district attorney Anne T. Donnelly alleges the 27-year-old shot himself "for sympathy, attention, to ease a wounded ego."

A former New York state trooper who claimed he had been shot on a Long Island highway by an unknown gunman, setting off a multistate manhunt, actually shot himself and stashed the gun at his home, a prosecutor said Monday.

New York State Police Trooper Thomas Mascia, who claimed he was shot on Long Island, is now facing charges in the case.