NEWARK, Ohio (WCMH) — The suspect in a Thursday Amber Alert in Ohio is facing a charge over the incident, but already had existing criminal cases active against him.

On Friday, prosecutors indicted Sewak Tiwari, 19, on a felony charge of kidnapping in Licking County Common Pleas Court. The single charge filed on Friday stems from police accusing Tiwari of abducting an infant in Newark.

In a 1 p.m. hearing, a judge set Tiwari’s bond at $750,000. They also scheduled him for a preliminary hearing at 3 p.m.

“During this incident he’s alleged to have made threats including quote ‘Before they find us we will be dead’ and made threats of having the victim and the victim’s mother choose drama over the victim’s life,” a Licking County prosecutor said in the hearing. “The evidence is strong against the defendant. He made multiple incriminating admissions regarding his flee from police and hiding the child.”

Tiwari became the subject of the Amber Alert just days after getting out of jail over an active case in Licking County Municipal Court. There, he faces a charge of domestic violence by threats. A judge ordered him to have “no violent contact” with a woman who does not have the same last name. The docket record also showed the same day as the Amber Alert went out, a motion to dismiss was filed.

In Franklin County Common Pleas Court, Tiwari faces two separate cases: one with a felony theft charge dated to July 2023, and another from June 2024 for a felony swatting charge. He pleaded not guilty to both. Tiwari originally had a simultaneous trial for both the theft and swatting cases scheduled for Wednesday, but his attorney convinced the judge presiding over it to reschedule to Oct. 16.

During the search for Tiwari under an Amber Alert, a COTA bus operator noticed the suspect’s car while on his break and ultimately called police to the area. The state canceled its Amber Alert shortly after 7 p.m., when officers found the suspect and the infant safe at a hotel near Easton Town Center after Tiwari contacted 911.