Brian Rini, 23, was charged on April 5 after falsely claiming he was a boy who vanished in Ohio in 2011.
DNA testing confirmed that Rini was not Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared at age 6.
Rini was found trying to steal a car in Newport, Kentucky, on April 3 and claimed he had just escaped from two men who held him captive for seven years.
Timmothy vanished after his mother removed him from kindergarten and took him on a weekend trip to Chicago and the Wisconsin Dells. She later took her own life in a hotel room in Illinois, leaving behind a note saying the boy was being cared for and would never be found.
Rini was being held in jail after being taken into custody late Thursday.
He was charged by the FBI with making false statements to a federal agent.
“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,” Herb Stapleton, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati office, said in a statement.
“Law enforcement takes dishonest reports very seriously and we caution that people making false claims can and will face criminal penalties.”
The charge came after Rini’s brother said that Brian Rini had mental problems and a former federal prosecutor said that he could face any number of criminal charges.
“Lying to the authorities, lying to the FBI, committing obstruction of justice is a crime,” Francey Hakes, who was also the first national coordinator for the Department of Justice’s Strategy on Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, told Fox News:
“There may be other state and local crimes he’s committed using police resources under false pretenses,” she added.
“He’s nothing short of a conman, and I feel terrible for what he’s put this family through.”
Newport Police Chief Tom Collins told the Cincinnati Enquirer. that he doesn’t know why Rini, who has a string of convictions dating back to 2013, pretended to be the missing boy.
Collins said that his department and the FBI are looking at pursuing charges against the man.
One of Rini’s convictions was for throwing a massive party in a model house in Brunswick Hills, Ohio, after he convinced a realtor that he had $800,000 in his bank account to buy the $400,000 home.
The party caused thousands of dollars in damages and led to Rini spending 18 months in jail. He was released on March 7.
“He’s a mastermind,” Tim Sopkovich, the chief of police at Brunswick Hills Police Department, told Fox 8. “I don’t know if he has multiple personalities or what, but he had our realtor convinced he was buying the house, he had neighbors convinced he was living there.”
Sopkovich said that he’s not surprised Rini lied to law enforcement in Kentucky.
“How sad and pathetic that he’s making up this story just to get fame for himself. My heart goes out to the families,” the police chief added.
Records show Rini made a false police report, telling officers that he was being threatened by his mother’s boyfriend, who told Rini that his trust fund would be taken away. Officers found that Rini’s mother didn’t have a boyfriend at the time and that there was no trust fund.
He was convicted of passing bad checks in 2015 and had several other convictions since 2013.
“Brain Rini is the type of dirtbag who is going to go out and do whatever he feels and will do whatever he can get away [with],” Sopkovich said. “We caught him in my town and prosecuted him and from there I don’t understand why he’s doing what he’s doing, it just doesn’t make sense.”
