The Ohio man who claimed to be a long-missing child last year, sparking nationwide attention and raising false hopes for the family, was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday after admitting the story was a hoax.
Brian Rini, 24, was wandering around a Kentucky neighborhood on April 3 when he approached a woman and told her he had just escaped his captors. The convicted felon then falsely identified himself as Timmothy Pitzen, an Illinois child who went missing at age 6 nearly a decade ago and whose story had just been featured in an episode of ABC's "20/20" news show.
Following a frantic, multistate police investigation, authorities learned the incredible tale was a lie and charged Rini with identity theft and making false statements to a federal agent. He agreed to plead guilty to identity theft this week, and prosecutors dropped the other charge.
Rini, who's been in custody since April, was given credit for time served, but he was also sentenced to one year of probation following the end of his prison stay.
His short-lived lie was devastating to Timmothy's family, who has been searching for the boy for almost nine years. The child's father, James Pitzen, told NBC News that it was like "ripping off a scab" when he learned Rini was not his son.
"It's just painful," he said. "Now you've gotta wait for the scab to heal."
Timmothy was last seen with his mother in Wisconsin on May 13, 2011, a day before the woman was found dead an Illinois motel room. A suicide note was found in her room claiming the boy was safe but would never be found.
Rini, who had falsely claimed to be a child sex-trafficking victim in at least two separate incidents, told police he learned about Timmothy in a rerun of a "20/20" episode about the case.
After Rini told police he had escaped from captivity, he complained about abdominal pain and was taken to a children's hospital in Cincinnati _ just across the Ohio River from the Kentucky neighborhood where he was found.
But as the boy's family anxiously awaited confirmation Timmothy had finally been found, a DNA test brought the crushing news that Rini was not related to them.
Police then confronted the impersonator and he admitted to making it all up, saying he wanted to get away from his family.
Rini's criminal record includes convictions for vandalism and burglary as well as a 2015 arrest on charges of making false alarms involving a law enforcement agency. He had been released from prison just weeks before impersonating the missing boy.
