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Lawyer: Pa. abduction hoax mom free on bail
[June 01, 2009] PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Pennsylvania woman accused in an abduction hoax that ended in Florida and involved her 9-year-old daughter is staying with relatives following her release from a county prison, her lawyer said.
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Bonnie Sweeten, 38, must be supervised when she visits her children as a condition of her bail, attorney Louis R. Busico said in Sunday's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Bucks County Courier Times. She has two other daughters, ages 15 years and 8 months. Sweeten was released from the Bucks County Correctional Facility in suburban Philadelphia on Saturday after posting $100,000 in cash, or 10 percent of her $1 million bail. Sweeten will stay with "distant relatives" outside the county, and she also will start receiving mental-health treatment next week, Busico said. She was returned to Pennsylvania from Florida on Friday and has been charged with identity theft and false reporting. A court hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Busico said. Authorities say Sweeten phoned 911 on Tuesday from downtown Philadelphia and told dispatchers that she and her daughter had been carjacked and stuffed in the trunk of a Cadillac near their suburban home, prompting a frantic search that ended 30 hours later at a Walt Disney World hotel. Local police also are investigating whether Sweeten stole money from a family member or others, but no related charges have been filed. Her daughter, Julia Rakoczy, was reunited with her father, Anthony Rakoczy, in Florida on Thursday. |
