Charleston church suspect’s friend charged with lying to Federal Bureau of Investigation

Roof is accused of shooting nine people to death and wounding several others during a bible study class on June 17 at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in downtown Charleston.

Federal officers arrested the roommate of suspected Charleston, S.C., shooter Dylann Roof on Thursday and unsealed charges against him on Friday.

Authorities notified Meek last month they had begun investigating him for lying to investigators and failing to report a crime.

“I didn’t take him serious”, Meek said.

Meek was quiet in the courtroom during the arraignment and neither his family nor his attorney spoke after the hearing.

On August . 6, Meek received a letter that he was the target of an investigation. “He wanted to do something big, like the Trayvon Martin case”, he told the New York Daily News, referring to the unarmed black teen who was shot by George Zimmerman in 2012.

Fry, 19, said she and one of Meek’s brothers testified before a grand jury, answering questions about what Meek did after finding out about the shootings and about Roof’s activities.

On previous charges, Butcher said, Meek had “always shown up for court”.

Addressing Meek, the judge obliquely referred to his prominence in the press, saying that if he divulged conversations between himself and his attorney, they would no longer be privileged and could be used against him.

Meek Jr., 21, stood before a federal magistrate in Columbia, S.C., and answered “yes” when asked whether he understood the charges against him and the possible sentences.

Meek also said he knew Roof had a.45-caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun that he took from Roof on the night of his drunken rant.

Meek, who after the events gave media interviews in which he said he did not know what his friend was planning, appeared in court Friday to enter his plea, one day after being arrested in Red Bank, South Carolina.

Roof’s attorney said on Thursday that his client is ready to plead guilty only if he is spared the death penalty.

Hodges left open the possibility that Meek eventually could be represented by a court-appointed federal public defender at taxpayer expense.

Roof remains in jail facing federal hate crime charges and nine counts of murder. CBS adds that Meek is accused of lying to law enforcement.

But Meek didn’t believe it was serious, he told CNN in an earlier story.