CINCINNATI (AP) — An Ohio man who authorities say helped his brother flee the country instead of reporting to prison for a federal hate crime conviction faces his own criminal charges.
Thirty-year-old Baris Koch, of Dayton, pleaded not guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to misprision of a felony and false statements.
Prosecutors say Koch gave 34-year-old Izmir Koch his passport and a duplicate Ohio driver’s license to help Izmir Koch flee to Russia instead of reporting to prison in mid-August.
Izmir Koch was sentenced in July to 30 months in prison for attacking a man who’d identified himself as Jewish outside a Cincinnati restaurant. Koch was accused of shouting that he wanted to kill “all of the Jews” during the 2017 attack.
Baris Koch’s attorneys say their client wasn’t involved in his brother’s failure to report to prison and didn’t “conceal any crime from law enforcement.”