Feasterville mom who faked abduction sentenced to minimum of 9 months in jail

Bonnie Sweeten stood before the judge and cried. Her hands trembled as she read a prepared statement. Her voice quavered as she apologized.

Sweeten, the Feasterville mother who faked her abduction and then fled to Disney World with her 9-year-old daughter, said sorry - sorry to her family for putting them through "hell"; sorry to her daughter for thrusting her into the national spotlight; sorry to African-Americans for "perpetuating an ugly myth and stereotype" when describing her supposed abductors as "black men."

"I have no one to blame but me," Sweeten, 38, said yesterday in pleading guilty to two misdemeanors - identity theft and false reports.

"I let my life slip out of control," she continued. "I can guarantee, your Honor, my life will never again get out of control."

Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey L. Finley noted Sweeten's tearful apology and said: "I'm not buying it."

"You are a calculating, manipulative, coldhearted woman," Finley said just before sentencing her to a minimum of nine months in jail.

Finley suggested that Sweeten's plea for forgiveness rang as phony as her panicked, breathless 9-1-1 call to police on May 26.

Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry played the 9-1-1 tape: Please, listen, my daughter and I are in the trunk of a black Cadillac. . . . Two black men, I'd say about six foot tall, one could be taller. One of them took my car. I definitely heard my car screech away after they threw us in here.

Henry also played a voice-mail message that Sweeten left for her husband, Richard L. "Larry" Sweeten, in which she sobbed hysterically, If I don't make it, tell the children I love them.

She then used the driver's license of a former co-worker to buy plane tickets from Philadelphia to Florida, where she and her daughter Julia Rakoczy visited the Magic Kingdom and Epcot and lounged by the hotel pool.

After a nationwide manhunt that involved more than a dozen law-enforcement agencies, FBI agents tracked her to Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. She had nearly $5,000 in cash and five credit cards in the name of her former employer, lawyer Debbie Carlitz, according to Henry.

Sweeten, a longtime paralegal, skipped town because she had stolen about $280,000 from her ex-husband's 92-year-old grandfather, and the family threatened to arrest her if she didn't repay the money. That money and other missing funds are at the center of a pending federal investigation involving Sweeten. Sweeten's attorney, Louis R. Busico, yesterday declined to say where the money went.

Finley, at times raising his voice, scolded Sweeten, saying he couldn't fathom how any caring, loving mother could use one daughter as a "pawn" and subject her two other children to the "horror" of believing their mother and sister had been kidnapped.

Finley told Sweeten that her "self-centered acts" not only hurt her family, but society as a whole because she preyed on people's prejudices.

"This is . . . a wound we work to heal - a racial divide that you picked at . . . and tore open," Finley said.

The charges that Sweeten faced typically result in probation, but lawmakers never "contemplated Bonnie Sweeten" when they set those sentencing guidelines, the judge fumed.

Finley sentenced Sweeten to a minimum of nine months - and a maximum of two years - in the Bucks County Correctional Facility in Doylestown.

Sweeten's father, William Siner, 66, seated in the front row, placed his head in his hands and began to sob. Anthony Rakoczy, the father of two of Sweeten's children, also attended the hearing in support of his ex-wife. Larry Sweeten, who was not there, filed for divorce last month.

Sheriff's officers led Sweeten away in handcuffs, and moments later, Siner burst through the courtroom doors and attacked two TV cameramen in the hallway. One fell to the ground; the other was hit in the head by his camera when Siner shoved him.

Officers grabbed Siner and removed him from the courthouse while a paramedic checked on the cameramen, who said they didn't know if they would press charges against Siner.