Runaway mom goes back to Pa. to face charges

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According to the police complaint, after Sweeten withdrew thousands of dollars from several bank accounts, she then went to the home of former co-worker Jillian Jenkinson Tuesday afternoon and said she needed to make a copy of her driver’s license to roll over her 401(k) retirement account, the papers said. Sweeten then took her friend’s license to the airport, where she paid cash to book a flight in Jenkinson’s name.

She also booked the motel room under that name and paid for it through Friday, the FBI said.

Police staked out the Disney complex after learning of the alleged identity switch and confirming through airport security video that mother and daughter had actually boarded the Orlando flight. Concerned about the girl’s safety, they waited at the hotel for them to return Wednesday night.

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“We didn’t know this woman’s state of mind,” said agent J.J. Klaver, the FBI spokesman in Philadelphia.

Sweeten was arrested at about 8:40 p.m.

Henry said that police had questions about the abduction story almost from the beginning. Those questions deepened early Wednesday when Sweeten’s SUV was found undamaged on a Philadelphia street. It had been ticketed for parking illegally shortly after Sweeten made her phone call.

“You have to treat all of these calls seriously, but almost right from the beginning, there seemed to be issues with the report,” Henry said. “The good thing is we were able to resolve it very, very quickly. No one had been questioned, no one had been arrested based on her false report.”

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May 28: The Pennsylvania mother who claimed she and her daughter were abducted is behind bars after she and her daughter were found at Disney World. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports and Michelle Henry, district attorney of Bucks County, Pa., discusses the case.
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Henry’s office and local police cooperated with FBI special agents from Philadelphia in investigating the bizarre case, which began Tuesday afternoon when Sweeten made a 911 call from Philadelphia. She claimed her GMC Denali SUV had been rear-ended by two black men in a Cadillac who then locked her and Julia in the trunk of their car.

In the frantic call, Sweeten said two men had bumped her 2005 GMC Denali, carjacked her and stuffed her in the trunk of a dark Cadillac. She implied that her daughter was with her in the trunk, according to Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore, who listened to tapes of the calls.

Sweeten, who is white, described her assailants as black but otherwise gave few details about their appearance, Vanore said.

“It was pretty generic,” he said.

Julia Rakoczy attended elementary school in Bensalem until she was withdrawn from classes May 1, said Susan Harder, an administrative assistant with the Bensalem Township School District.

Neighbors on Sweeten’s cul-de-sac describe her as someone who always remembered other children’s birthdays and hosted neighborhood parties. They saw the family playing outside over the Memorial Day weekend while Sweeten’s husband worked on a yard project.

“They’re still looking into the motive behind this. We believe it may have to do with some domestic problems she may have been having with her husband,” district attorney Henry told TODAY’s Natalie Morales Thursday. Henry said the couple may also have been facing financial problems.

‘Great mother’
Anthony Rakoczy thinks his ex-wife got in over her head and “lost it a little bit.”

Image: Anthony Rakoczy
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Anthony Rakoczy, ex-husband of Bonnie Sweeten, said she was “a great mother.”

“I’ve known this woman for a long time,” he said Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “She’s always been very together, tons of friends. Everybody loves her.”

When police called to tell Rakoczy that his daughter and ex-wife had reported that they were kidnapped and being held in the trunk of the car, he said his initial reaction was: “That this was not real. That this is stuff you see on TV, and stuff that doesn’t happen to me. I was in shock.”

Speaking from Philadelphia with TODAY’s Natalie Morales Wednesday morning, the husband and father’s voice broke with emotion as he added, “[I’m] still in shock.”

Although Sweeten and Rakoczy have been divorced for at least seven years, they continue to live near each other and remain on good terms. Rakoczy sees his daughters frequently, and had spent time with Julia the day before the alleged abduction.

He described Sweeten as “a great mother, and she’s very organized — always on top of all this stuff the girls have going on; their dancing and their softball and doctor’s appointments, all that stuff.”

— Mike Celizic, with additional reporting by The Associated Press.