NEWPORT, Ky. _ The 23-year-old Ohio man who authorities said claimed to be an Aurora, Ill., boy missing since 2011 has been charged with a federal crime, according to online records.
Brian Rini has been charged with making a false statement or representation to a department or agency of the United States, according to court documents filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
The crime is punishable by up to 8 years in prison, officials said at a news conference Friday morning in Cincinnati. He is being held without bond.
Rini was booked as an inmate in the Hamilton County Jail about 11 a.m. Thursday, records show.
Mary P. Braun, a detective with the Cincinnati Police Department and a Task Force Officer with the FBI, wrote in court documents that Rini claimed his name was Timmothy Pitzen, that he was abducted at six years old and "just wanted to go home."
The disappearance of Timmothy Pitzen is one of the most prominent missing-persons cases in the Chicago area in decades.
When Newport, Ky. police made contact with Rini on Wednesday, he complained of abdominal pain, court documents state. Because of the complaint, he was taken to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Emergency Room.
While in the hospital, he further claimed that he was Timmothy and said he escaped from a hotel room in which two men were holding him captive, court documents state.
"He explained that he had been sexually and physically abused for years while in captivity," documents said.
On both April 3 and 4, Rini refused to provide his fingerprints to investigators at the hospital. On April 3, he agreed to submit a swab that was sent to the Hamilton County coroner's office for DNA testing.
On Thursday, the sample was compared with Pitzen's parents and the results indicated Rini was not related. Instead, the sample matched Rini, a know felon.
Rini was released from an Ohio prison on March 7, 2019.
FBI Special Agent Jonathan Jones and Aurora Police Detective John Munn spoke with Rini. Rini continued to say his name was Timmothy Pitzen.
After confronting him about the DNA results, Rini then immediately said he was not Timmothy Pitzen and said he watched a story about Timmothy on ABC's "20/20."
"He stated that he wanted to get away from his own family," Braun wrote in an affidavit.
Further FBI investigation showed that Rini had portrayed himself as a juvenile sex trafficking victim on two prior occasions. In those instances, he was also identified as Rini after he was fingerprinted.
In a statement, FBI Cincinnati officials said, "False reports like this can be painful to the families of missing children and also divert law enforcement resources in order to investigate these untruthful claims. Law enforcement takes dishonest reports very seriously, and we caution that people making false claims can and will face criminal penalties."
