Timmothy Pitzen Hoax: A man accused of pretending to be a missing boy



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"My heart goes to Timothy Pitzen's family," said Benjamin C. Glassman, US attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, announcing the indictment of Mr. Rini, punishable by eight years from prison. "I can only imagine the kind of pain they went through and that episode caused them."

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Timmothy Pitzen, of Aurora, in Illinois, has been missing since May 11, 2011, at the age of 6 years old.CreditNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children, via EPA, via Shutterstock

A lawyer from Mr. Rini did not respond to telephone and electronic messages.

The bizarre events, which took place over two days under intense media attention, first suggested the possibility of a happy ending for Timmothy's extended family, who had been waiting for such a moment for years. But this quickly gave way to a new layer of misery, as the news of a hoax filtered through and the police and loved ones from Illinois, where Timmothy had been living, were sent again. "It was horrible," said Alana Anderson, Timmothy's grandmother.

Throughout Mr. Rini's story, some parts were weird.

On Wednesday, he appeared, restless and bruised, on a street in Newport, Kentucky, asking for the help of passersby and saying that he was Timmothy, the missing boy, and that he was there. He had escaped the kidnappers and was trying to return home. Authorities promptly drove him to an emergency room at a children's hospital in Cincinnati, according to court documents, but he refused to let the authorities fingerprint his fingerprints, raising early suspicion and complicating efforts to identify it quickly.

Mr. Rini's age might have seemed like a clue: he's 23, far from the 14-year-old Timmothy would have now. Mr. Rini's images suggest a person beyond adolescence, with a shadow at 5 o'clock.

"One can imagine that if you were a child kidnapped since 2011 and subject to who knows what – if these allegations are true – who knows what state this person would be in?" Said Glassman. "It is therefore within the purview of law enforcement to conduct the investigation, this one or another, in order to make sure that if that person turns out to be the victim, you give them the care they need. "

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