Kidnap hoax mom sentenced to nine months

Bonnie Sweeten, the Bucks County mother of three whose faked kidnapping in May drew national coverage, was sentenced this afternoon to serve at least nine months in county prison.

Sweeten, 38, of Feasterville, was labeled "a calculating, manipulative, cold-blooded woman" by Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley after she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of identity theft and false reports. Finley sentenced her to serve nine to 24 months, followed by four years of probation.

State sentencing guidelines normally call for probation for both charges, Finley told Sweeten, "but I can tell you that the Legislature never contemplated Bonnie Sweeten" when it drew up those guidelines.

After Sweeten was led out of a side entrance in handcuffs, her father, William Siner, attacked three cameramen waiting outside the courtroom, slightly injuring two. It was unclear whether Siner, of Milton, Del., would be charged.

On May 26, Sweeten called 911 and claimed 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. Sweeten told the dispatcher that she was calling from the trunk of the kidnappers' Cadillac.

After setting off a massive police dragnet, the kidnapping turned out to be a hoax. Sweeten and 9-year-old Julia Rakoczy turned up the next day at a luxury resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. She had used the driver's license of a former coworker to purchase plane tickets from Philadelphia the day she fled.

The episode enraged many African-Americans, who said that Sweeten displayed racism by blaming black men as a means of legitimizing her hoax. Others, including some investigators, said that innocent black men could have been unfairly questioned or detained by police during the emotionally charged manhunt.

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

District Attorney Michelle Henry said in court that Sweeten fled because she was unable to repay $280,000 stolen in December from a 92-year-old man who is the grandfather of her ex-husband. She said Sweeten forged a check from the money-market retirement account of Victor Biondino, who suffers from dementia, and was threatened with arrest by Biondino's family unless she paid it back.

Sweeten fled for Florida the day that a $285,000 restitution check she wrote to the elderly man's family had bounced. The man's relatives had been trying to recover the money since discovering the theft in January.

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.