“She doesn’t have a headstone yet, so I just made this planter box to put on her grave,” Hagans told The Washington Post. He had been placing flowers on her grave for a year, he said.

But when police approached Hagans last month with an arrest warrant on a charge of criminal littering, the 31-year-old was confused. Since certain burial plots in the state are owned and controlled by the family of the deceased and considered private property, Hagans said city officials had reassured him that he could put the planter at Ford’s gravesite unless there was a complaint.

As he was being arrested, Hagans found out who had signed the warrant: the Rev. Tom Ford, his fiancee’s father.