Friend of suspect in Charleston church shooting charged with lying to FBI

Joey Meek, a friend of the man accused of entering a famed African American church and shooting nine parishioners to death in Charleston, S.C., was formally charged on Friday with lying to federal authorities and hiding details of the deadly attack.

Meek pleaded not guilty to the charges during an appearance in federal court in Charleston. It was not known if Meek could post the $100,000 bond ordered by the judge.

According to the indictment unsealed on Friday, Meek, 21, was charged with misprision, or deliberately concealing information about a crime, and a second count of lying to FBI investigators. If convicted, Meek could receive up to three years in prison for the first charge and five years for the second.

On June 17, a white gunman joined a Bible study group meeting at the landmark Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and opened fire, killing nine including the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. Dylann Storm Roof, 21, faces nine state murder charges and 33 federal hate crime charges.

Police captured Roof in North Carolina the day after the attack and brought him back to South Carolina. He admitted the killings, police said. If convicted of the state charges, he could face the death penalty.

In the weeks before the attack, Roof spent time sleeping on the floor of a trailer in Lexington County where Meek lived. Meek’s two brothers, mother and a girlfriend also lived in the trailer.

After the shooting, Meek told reporters how Roof had drunkenly vowed one night “to do something crazy.”

Meek told journalists that Roof said he used birthday money from his parents to buy a .45-caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun. Meek told CNN and the Associated Press that he hid Roof’s gun that night but put it back the next day.

“I didn’t take him serious,” he told media outlets.

Meek said he had been friends with Roof in middle school. They’d lost contact several years ago but had recently resumed their friendship, Meek told journalists, adding that there were things about Roof’s recent behavior that scared him.

Roof said he wanted to have “a race war,” according to Meek, and once asked his friend to videotape him burning an American flag.

“I’m sorry this all happened to everybody,” Meek told CNN in June. “And it could have been prevented if people would have taken him serious. But Dylann wasn’t a serious person, and no one took him serious.”

Authorities notified Meek last month that he was under investigation. He was arrested on Thursday.

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