Sweeten gets jail for kidnap hoax

The judge heard Bonnie Sweeten's words of contrition. He watched her tears flow.

But when she finished, Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley had news for the suburban mother of three whose faked kidnapping had drawn national coverage in May.

"I'm not buying it," he said.

Calling Sweeten "a calculating, manipulative, cold-blooded woman," Finley yesterday sentenced her to nine to 24 months in the Bucks County prison, followed by 50 hours of community service and four years of probation.

Sweeten, 38, of Feasterville, had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of false reports and identity theft in the May 26 abduction hoax. Normally, state sentencing guidelines calling for probation would be followed.

But Sweeten's deception deserved harsher penalties, Finley said, because it had created widespread fear, stirred racial tensions, taxed law enforcement resources, and inflicted severe humiliation on her own loved ones, especially her three children.

"I can tell you that the legislature never contemplated Bonnie Sweeten" when it passed Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines, the judge told her.

The sentencing ended with Sweeten being led away in handcuffs through a side exit.

Her gray-haired father, William Siner, then cried out and attacked three TV cameramen waiting outside the courtroom, knocking one to the ground and slightly injuring two of them. It was unclear whether Siner, 66, of Milton, Del., would be charged.

On May 26, Sweeten called 911, claiming to have been carjacked along with her 9-year-old daughter. She said in the call that two black men had rear-ended her SUV along busy Street Road in Lower Bucks County and abducted the girl and her in a black Cadillac.

"My daughter and I are in the trunk of a black car," she is heard telling the dispatcher on the 911 tape, which was played in court.

The kidnapping, which set off a massive police dragnet and a regional Amber Alert, turned out to be a hoax. Sweeten and daughter Julia Rakoczy turned up the next day at a luxury resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

When the FBI arrested Sweeten on May 27, the longtime paralegal was in "an intoxicated state," District Attorney Michelle Henry said. In her possession were four driver's licenses, bank forms, photocopied prescription slips, and five credit cards issued in the name of her former employer, lawyer Debbie Carlitz.

She had used the driver's license of a former coworker to purchase one-way plane tickets from Philadelphia the day she fled. She had also emptied the former coworker's $4,000 retirement fund, Henry said, and had told her daughter to use a false name if questioned.

The episode enraged many who labeled Sweeten racist for trying to legitimize her hoax by blaming black men. Indeed, Henry said, Sweeten's false reports led police to stop at least three vehicles occupied by black men during the initial manhunt.

"This is a wound we want to heal, the racial divide," Finley told Sweeten. "You picked at it that day and reopened it."

Sweeten's plea does not end her legal problems. She remains under a federal theft and forgery investigation involving false documents and hundreds of thousands of missing dollars.

For the first time, Henry said publicly that the motivation for Sweeten's hoax was to avoid arrest for massive theft.

In December, Sweeten stole $280,000 from the retirement account of Victor Biondino, a 92-year-old Feasterville man who has dementia, Henry said in court. Biondino is the grandfather of Sweeten's ex-husband, Anthony Rakoczy, and the great-grandfather of two of Sweeten's daughters.

When her former in-laws discovered the theft in January, Henry said, they threatened to have Sweeten arrested unless she repaid the money.

Unable to do so, Sweeten put them off with excuses for several months, Henry said. Finally, she wrote a restitution check that bounced the day she took off for Florida.

In recent weeks, Sweeten's second husband has filed for divorce, their house has been put on the market, and she has come under scrutiny for additional financial irregularities at the law firm where she worked. Law enforcement officials have declined to comment on the extent of that investigation.

In court, Sweeten apologized to her family "for the hell I've put them through since May 26," attributing the hoax to her "desire to flee reality."

Sweeten apologized to her former in-laws, to police, and "to the African American community for perpetuating an ugly myth and stereotype."

Sweeten said she had lost her reputation, her career, and her husband. "I have no one to blame but me," she added. "I let my life slip out of control."

Saying that it is "very easy to kick someone when they are down," her attorney, Louis Busico, appealed to Finley for leniency. For "99 percent" of her life, Busico said, Sweeten had been a caring and compassionate person and a devoted mother.

"She put herself in a horrible financial position, driven either by greed or stupidity, or whatever," Busico said, and in fleeing "created a make-believe world for herself for 48 hours."

By the time of her arrest, Sweeten and her daughter had visited the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, and the pool of their luxury hotel. Sweeten had told police that at the end of her stay at Disney, she intended to stay behind in her hotel room and kill herself, Busico said.

"She's never hurt anybody in her life, except for herself," Busico told the judge.

Finley pointedly disagreed, as did Henry, who argued successfully for jail time. Among other things, the district attorney cited the racial aspect of the case and the fact that Sweeten dragged her daughter into her crimes.

"This is the kind of case where the actual charges don't accurately reflect the seriousness of the case," Henry said afterward. "I think the judge recognized that and sent her to jail."

Ultimately, Henry said, Sweeten's crime was selfish, one that inflicted lasting harm on her daughter.

"Most of us who are lucky enough to go to Disney World have memories of the Cinderella parade and 'It's a Small World,' " Henry said. "This child will remember her mother getting arrested by the FBI."