Documents at Auckland District Court show the 40-year-old was charged with escaping the custody of Corrections. A warrant for his arrest has been issued.
The maximum penalty for the offence is a jail term of five years.
"Having been convicted for an offence, namely murder, escaped from the lawful custody of Spring Hill Corrections facility in whose custody he was under the said conviction," the charge sheet stated.
The court confirmed Smith did not yet have assigned legal counsel on the matter.
"I had no help"
Fugitive Phillip John Smith has told a media organisation no one else helped him leave the country.
Radio New Zealand this morning said it had been in contact with the fugitive killer and child molester, who is thought to be in Brazil.
Smith emailed a statement to Radio NZ that said he decided to flee the country after his most recent Parole Board hearing in March when his prospect of parole was slim.
"In broad terms I left New Zealand to escape the vigilante justice system that operates there," he said.
He said he conducted a criminal background check of his legal name Phillip Traynor and realised there was no link to his criminal record.
He said that his only anxiety about leaving the country was that somebody that knew him might happen to see him at the airport.
He wouldn't confirm he was in Brazil, but said he chose his current location to ensure it would be difficult for New Zealand to extradite him.
"It is thus highly unlikely that I will be returned to New Zealand under the national law of my host country, and attempts to do so will involve lengthy legal process.
"It is not just a matter of finding me and then the New Zealand Police coming to pick me up," he said.
"The correct legal process must be followed."
He said he would be staying in his "host country" indefinitely, and would not be returning to New Zealand.
Smith said nobody else was involved in his plan to flee the country.
"I could never afford to involve anybody else in my plan for fear of the consequences for them, so I can honestly say that the only person in the world that knew I was leaving the country on 06 November was me."
He said that a comprehensive media statement, including an apology to his victims, would be released in due course.
Corrections Minister rejects fugitive 'vigilante justice claim'
Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga told Radio New Zealand said the name that criminals come to Corrections under was determined by the name police processed their conviction under.
He said he didn't accept Smith's comment to Radio NZ that he was escaping the "vigilante justice system".
"A lot of people may not like how the justice system operates, but it doesn't mean you break the law and abscond overseas."
Mr Lotu-Iiga said Corrections would be examining temporary releases and electronic monitoring.
"We've got to look hard at high-risk offenders, and determine some rules around that."He said that he still had confidence in the chief executive of Corrections.
"I've still got confidence that Corrections are doing a great job out there... there were 4700 temporary releases in the last financial year."
Escaped killer's stepdad: Come home
Basil Smith spoke on the phone to his stepson, paedophile and murderer Phillip John Smith, every Thursday or Sunday for a catch-up.
But this weekend, the police showed up on the doorstep of his Manawatu home.
"They thought he was here," Basil Smith told the Herald.
"But I said 'No, if he's anywhere, he'll be in Auckland'."
Basil Smith, who raised his stepson from the age of 3, said he had not heard from Smith - who fled on Thursday while on temporary release from Springhill Prison - since their last phone conversation two weeks ago.
"He's usually chirpy, but he seemed depressed that time, he wasn't his usual self but there were no warning signs, none at all."
Basil Smith said if his stepson contacted him and asked for help, he was not sure if he would oblige.
"I'd probably just want to try and tell him to just bloody well give himself up. I'd like to find out what the hell is going on," he said.
Smith, 40, is thought to be in Brazil and authorities are working with South American officials to find him and bring him home.
He was jailed for life in 1996 with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years for murder and child sex offence charges.
Basil Smith said he didn't know why his stepson would go to Brazil or who had helped him obtain a passport and $10,200 in cash - which he declared at Customs.
He did not know of any friends or relatives in the Auckland area that Smith could have asked to help.
But he knew of support people involved with his temporary releases - he had joined his stepson in Auckland on a recent release.
"The support person ... he seemed to get on with pretty well," Basil Smith said.
"He drove us all around Auckland, took us up the Sky Tower. We walked around, went shopping, had dinner, that sort of thing. We just chatted."
On his other releases Smith "just enjoyed himself".
"He went to see Billy T James' grave [at Taupiri] and was telling me all about that. He just did normal things, like shopping, walking around town and going for meals."
He said Smith was not a risk to the community.
"He's not dangerous, not at all. He's easy going and he'd do anything for you."
Basil Smith said his stepson's victims need not worry about him trying to find them - as he had done in the past.
"Since he has been inside he has pulled himself together. He does a lot of courses, he's very intelligent. Right through primary school he never put his brain in action, but since he's been inside he has."
Basil Smith appealed to his stepson to do the right thing.
"Just come home," he pleaded
A police officer who dealt with Smith when he lived in Carterton said he had always had ideas above his station.
"He was well known to police (before the murder). He had some pretty grandiose ideas," said the officer, who would not be named.
"He had big ideas about being a pretty good con artist."
Smith was not known to be violent back then.
"He wasn't dumb, he was very manipulative ... he was calculating."
Smith, who obtained a passport under his birth name Phillip John Traynor, yesterday contacted Auckland human rights lawyer Tony Ellis, who has been his lawyer since 2002.
Smith told him he would issue a press release giving his side of the story tomorrow.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush yesterday revealed that an international warrant for Smith's arrest, which would prevent him crossing borders, was issued only at lunchtime yesterday.
Police had to "go through a process", collate accurate information and put evidence before a judge, who then issued the warrant.
Brazilian police were assisting New Zealand authorities and a Washington-based police liaison officer was travelling to Brazil to liaise with local authorities.
He would not rule out the possibility Smith obtained more passports.
Ten senior police officers in Auckland were working on the case and nobody in New Zealand had been arrested yet, despite suspicion Smith had help in acquiring a passport and fleeing the country.
Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne said yesterday his department had used its powers under the Passport Act to recall Smith's passport and said his passport renewal form was filled out manually, meaning it is almost certain that an accomplice helped him with the application.
Mr Dunne defended his department, saying that because Smith applied for a passport in his birth name it did not throw up any red flags, but information-sharing between Internal Affairs and law enforcement would have to be reviewed.
The sister of Smith's murder victim said his plan to make a public statement stemmed from a desire to be famous and have his "day of glory".
"He always wanted to be famous. I guess he is right now," said Lynda, sister of the man Smith murdered in 1995.
