A 23-year-old man who claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen, a child missing from Illinois since 2011, has been booked in an area jail, according to online records.
>>PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Person who claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen is actually 23-year-old recently released from prison
Brian Rini, of Medina, is listed as an inmate in the Hamilton County Jail, records show.
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The charges Rini will face remain unknown.
Rini was found in Newport, Kentucky on Wednesday and said he was Pitzen, who was reported missing from Aurora, Ill., in 2011. The claim sparked intense national interest in the missing boy’s case.
On Thursday, a DNA test proved Rini’s claim was false, according to officials.
According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Rini was released March 7 from the Belmont Correctional Institution after serving a term of a little more than 13 months on charges of burglary and vandalism.
Rini was spotted Wednesday near West Eighth and Columbia streets in Newport.
“He walked up to my car and he went, ‘Can you help me?’” a 911 caller told dispatchers, according to WCPO-TV. “‘I just want to get home. Please help me.’ I asked him what’s going on, and he tells me he’s been kidnapped and he’s been traded through all these people and he just wanted to go home.”
When police arrived, the man said he was Timmothy Pitzen and he was 14, the same boy who vanished in 2011 from Aurora, Ill., after his mother died by suicide.
He told police he had escaped on foot from a pair of men who held him against his will for nearly eight years, most recently inside a Red Roof Inn, though he didn’t remember the motel’s location, WCPO reported.
After he escaped, he ran, crossing a bridge until he reached Newport, he told police.
We’ll continue to update this story with the latest as it becomes available.
Staff writer Rick McCrabb contributed to this story.
