Turkish kid in Boston to tour prep school now faces trip back to Istanbul to face charges he plowed the family Porsche into five people on the side of the road, killing one

A 16-year-old from Turkey and his mother, a prominent Turkish author, are behind bars awaiting a hearing Tuesday on whether they can be released on bail while awaiting extradition back to Istanbul, where the teen faces charges in a vehicular homicide in which he allegedly killed one person and injured several others while doing more than 100 m.p.h. on a road with a speed limit under 20.

Federal prosecutors yesterday asked that the teen, identified only as T.C. because of his age, be held without bail while a magistrate judge in US District Court in Boston considers whether to sign an extradition request from federal prosecutors on behalf of their Turkish counterparts.

He is currently being held in a juvenile lockup in Connecticut; his mother, author Eylem Tok, who also faces extradition, is also being detained.

The two were arrested yesterday "as they were about to tour a private school in Boston that charges more than $46,000 in annual tuition," according to a filing by the US Attorney's office here.

Boston Police report the teen and his mother were arrested around 9:30 a.m. at the British International School of Boston, 416 Pond St. in Jamaica Plain, where high-school students are promised "an exciting future, driven by our passions and interests."

According to the filing, Turkish prosecutors charge that on the night of March 1, the kid set off with three friends in his family's Porsche as other friends followed in another car. They got on a road with a speed limit of 30 km - about 18 m.p.h.- when the teen allegedly decided to have some fun and sped up past 100 m.p.h., despite protests from his friends that he should slow down, tore into a curve, at the end of which was a group of five ATVers standing by the side of the road because one of their own vehicles had just broken down:

In response, T.C. suddenly turned the steering wheel in apparent effort to avoid hitting the group, but the sudden turn caused the car to skid and crash into them. T.C.'s car ended up on the opposite side of the road, and the air bags deployed.

D.O.O. [the driver of the other car] lost sight of T.C.'s vehicle for several seconds as it went around the bend. When D.O.O. reached the bend, he saw T.C.'s vehicle lose control and crash into a water channel. D.O.O. immediately stopped his vehicle and noticed two men lying on the side of the road. At the time of the crash, five individuals had been stopped on the side of the road because one of their ATVs had broken down. One of the individuals died from the impact with T.C.'s car; all of the others were injured.

The filing adds T.C. never told police who arrived on the scene he was the driver - and was eventually driven from the scene by the family chauffeur. In addition to facing the Turkish equivalent of vehicular manslaughter charges, the teen also broke Turkish driving laws, which prohibit licenses to anyone under 16, the filing states. His mother faces charges for helping a criminal suspect escape justice.

Prosecutors say the magistrate judge has limited possible reasons to not send the teen back to Turkey and that because extradition hearings are not criminal proceedings, he will not require the same high level of proof - or a reason to let the teen's lawyers cross-examine the authors of any of the documents provided to prosecutors here.

And they detail several reasons why the teen should be locked up until he can be put on a plane back to Turkey, including the way he and his mother wound up in Boston: Just three hours after the crash, at 2:30 a.m., they showed up at the Istanbul airport, where mom bought two one-way Egyptair tickets to Cairo on a 3:50 a.m. flight. In Cairo, they bought tickets to New York.

Once in the Big Apple - and then, possibly, in Miami - they "may have attempted to secure fraudulent passports to facilitate further travel to Cuba," prosecutors say, but something happened, so instead they decided to check out school possibilities in Boston.

T.C.'s past behavior shows that he is likely to flee if he were released on bond. Within mere hours after he killed someone with his car, he and his mother were on a flight out of Türkiye. The fact that he immediately evaded Turkish authorities and the prospect of prosecution is highly indicative of his risk of flight were he to be released on bond here. ... Second, T.C. has the means to flee. Despite being a minor, he had access to a Porsche (the vehicle he was allegedly driving at the time of the crash), was driven from the scene of the crash by his family's driver, and was provided plane tickets to flee Türkiye within hours. At the time of arrest, T.C.'s mother was carrying approximately $5,000 in cash, a designer handbag, and wearing a Rolex. They were arrested as they were about to tour a private school in Boston that charges more than $46,000 in annual tuition. T.C.'s family enabled him flee once already, and undoubtedly would do so again.

Also, the fact he's facing a potentially lengthy sentence in a Turkish prison gives him yet another potential reason to try to flee, prosecutors add.

Innocent, etc.