Runaway mom goes back to Pa. to face charges

A woman accused in an abduction hoax that began near Philadelphia and ended at Walt Disney World began heading back to Pennsylvania in police custody on Friday.

A drained-looking Bonnie Sweeten, 38, appeared in an Orlando, Fla., courtroom for a brief hearing Friday morning before detectives from Bucks County, Pa., escorted her to the airport for the flight home.

She was expected to be arraigned on misdemeanor identity theft and false reporting charges late Friday. Local police are also investigating whether Sweeten stole money from a family member or others, but no related charges have been filed.

Sweeten phoned 911 on Tuesday from downtown Philadelphia and told dispatchers that she and her 9-year-old daughter had been carjacked and stuffed in the trunk of a Cadillac near their suburban home. The call touched off a frantic search that ended 30 hours later at a Disney World hotel.

Sweeten had withdrawn $12,000 from several bank accounts and flown to Florida with her daughter under the name of a former co-worker whose driver’s license she had taken in a ruse, authorities said. She paid cash for the one-way tickets and for a three-night hotel stay inside the park.

Some law enforcement officials privately questioned the ease with which she bought the airline tickets and flew under the friend’s name. A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman argued that Sweeten bore a “strong resemblance” to the other woman.

“The key point here is that every individual, regardless of what name they use, is being thoroughly screened at the checkpoint to make sure that they don’t have any guns and explosives,” said Ann Davis, a TSA spokeswoman in Boston.

Court records do not indicate that Sweeten has a lawyer.

Neither the county prosecutor nor county detectives handling the case returned phone messages Friday about the pending theft investigation, something authorities confirmed earlier in the week.

‘I just want the truth’

Sweeten’s husband said he is as mystified at her actions as anyone.

“I want to know more than anybody. There’s so many rumors. I just want the truth,” Larry Sweeten told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Friday from Philadelphia. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

His wife appeared to neighbors, colleagues and other school parents to be a woman smoothly juggling the responsibilities of work and family.

But she might have cracked this week when, police say, she drained several bank accounts, took a co-worker’s driver’s license, faked a 911 call about being stuffed in a car trunk, and boarded a flight with daughter Julia Rakoczy to Disney World. Police say she may also have embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a charity she worked for.

Neighbors have said that the couple have been having marital difficulties since the birth of a daughter eight months ago, but Larry Sweeten said there were no serious problems with the marriage.

“We argued like everybody else does — little spats. We both work a lot. I have a side business. I work seven days a week. She’s always running around. She’s a great mom, involved in baseball with her daughters, dance, takes her kids to the mall, anything they want to do,” he told Lauer.

Larry Sweeten runs a landscaping business. He told Lauer that his wife handled all the couple’s finances.

“She paid the mortgage. She paid the truck payments. Anything that we have she handled. If I made a purchase over a few hundred dollars, she just asked me to let her know in advance. Everything, I thought, was fine,” he said.

He said he has yet to check on his bank accounts to see if there is any money left after his wife reportedly withdrew as much as $12,000 before going to Orlando with her daughter.

TODAY Larry Sweeten said his wife, Bonnie, is a “great mom,” but neighbors say they have had marital difficulties.

“Today or this week, I’ll be looking into my bank accounts, trying to figure out if I have money. I’ll be starting over fresh. I don’t know about my mortgage. I might be behind in my mortgage. I have no idea what’s going on,” Sweeten said.

He told Lauer he has checked with his family about reports that his wife may have stolen money from them.

“My family’s not missing any money. I asked them, they said no,” he said.

Tearful reunion
Sweeten said he joined police, relatives and Bonnie’s ex-husband in searching for her after she called 911 to say she had been abducted.

Julia Rakoczy was reunited with her father at an Orlando police station on Thursday afternoon. A police spokesman says Rakoczy started crying when her father, Anthony Rakoczy, arrived.

“The daughter was very concerned for her mother,” said Jim Solomons, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. “To see any one of your parents arrested and taken to jail and then you’re put in protective custody ... that’s a terrible situation for anyone, much less a kid.”

Video   Mom, daughter are missing May 27: Police are searching for a missing mother and daughter. Natalie Morales talks to FBI agent J.J. Klaver and Anthony Rakoczy, the ex-husband and father. Today show

Sweeten worked for 15 years for Debbie Carlitz, a lawyer in suburban Philadelphia whose law license has been inactive or suspended in recent years, according to state documents. Sweeten is listed as a director at a foundation Carlitz runs, The Carlitz Foundation, which according to its Web site, raises money for autism research and for people in Burma.

The charity is not registered in Pennsylvania or listed in Guidestar, a national database of IRS-recognized charities.

Carlitz, reached by phone Thursday morning, said she was not sure whether any money was missing from her coffers.

“I can’t [tell you] right now,” she said. “I need to gather the information myself.”

The Bucks County Courier Times, citing police, said the alleged embezzlement may total several hundred thousand dollars. Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry did not return messages Thursday for comment.

Sweeten lived with her husband in a $425,000 house in a new development in bucolic Bucks County. She also has a 15-year-old daughter by Rakoczy, who lives nearby.

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