BOSTON (AP) Prosecutors portray a friend of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect as a liar who misled terrorism investigators, but his lawyers said after his indictment Thursday it'll be clear in time that authorities shouldn't have charged him.
Authorities said Robel Phillipos faces up to 16 years in prison in connection with two federal counts of lying to authorities investigating the deadly April attack. Defense lawyers Derege Demissie and Susan Church said the 19-year-old will continue to fight the allegations against him after efforts to get authorities to dismiss the charges failed.
"In time, it will be clear that this prosecution should not have been brought in the first place," they said in an emailed statement.
Following Phillipos' May arrest on one count of lying to authorities, a judge ordered him released on $100,000 bond, putting him on home confinement and electronic monitoring.
Phillipos and 20-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were members of the 2011 graduating class at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School before becoming students at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.