US judge cites danger to children in detaining suburban Philly hoax mom for $700k fraud trial

US judge detains Pa. hoax mom for fraud trial

PHILADELPHIA — Family members who stood by suburban mom Bonnie Sweeten at her sentencing last year for calling in a hoax carjacking are now lined up to testify against her at a $700,000 fraud trial, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Sweeten, 39, of Feasterville, has spent nearly a year in a county jail for summoning the FBI to investigate a multistate kidnapping when she instead fled the tightening noose of a criminal investigation for a last-ditch trip to Disney World with her 9-year-old daughter.

Now the federal fraud probe is complete, and the stakes have gotten higher for the paralegal and mother of three. If convicted of swindling her boss, law firm clients and an elderly relative, she faces nine years or more in federal prison.

And that’s what worries U.S. Magistrate Linda K. Caracappa. At a detention hearing Thursday, she wrestled with ways that Sweeten might be released to await trial. But in the end, she denied bail, saying the potential danger Sweeten posed to her daughters worried her more than the flight risk.

“Desperate and creative things follow Ms. Sweeten when she’s faced with desperate situations, and that’s what she faces now,” Caracappa said.

Prosecution witnesses now include both of Sweeten’s ex-husbands, her parents, a former mother-in-law and her former employer and co-workers, according to court filings.

Her first husband, Anthony Rakoczy, had long stood by her, attending her sentencing last year in the false 911 case even though his 9-year-old daughter had been dragged into the bizarre hoax, only to see her mother arrested at their Disney World hotel. Before that, his grandfather was allegedly taken for $280,000.

Sweeten’s parents had also attended the August sentencing, which left her father so distraught he swung at two TV cameramen afterward and was charged with assault. He is now on probation.

Public defender James McHugh asked that Sweeten be allowed out on bail so she can see her three daughters, especially the 22-month-old she has not held in nearly a year. The father of that child, landscaper Larry Sweeten, has filed for divorce.

“There’s no family here today. None. They’ve all been duped by her,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise Wolf, who called the former school volunteer a “con artist” and “pariah.”

According to government memos, Sweeten has graduated from a 1998 shoplifting charge to a 2005 prescription drug forgery case to the sensational May 2009 abduction hoax, which drew national attention.

“My life imploded,” Sweeten explained at her sentencing, noting stresses from her marriage and infertility treatments. The couple were also trying to keep up with a $400,000 mortgage.

Caracappa, in denying bail Thursday, noted Sweeten’s willingness to involve her daughters in her schemes. She had a month added to her stay at the Bucks County jail because she had used her teen daughter as a conduit to make conference calls with a male inmate, despite rules against such conversations.

McHugh argued unsuccessfully that Sweeten received counseling for anxiety and depression in jail, and has lined up a job.

Sweeten’s trial is set for mid-August but is likely to be continued.