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Bonnie Sweeten gets jail time for kidnapping hoax
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AP Photo, The Intelligencer, Rich Kennedy
Bonnie Sweeten's trip to Disney World had a high price --- 9 to 24 months in prison.
That was the sentence that Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley gave Sweeten yesterday for the kidnapping hoax that she had perpetrated last May.
Sweeten had called 911, saying that she and her daughter had been kidnapped by two black men and stuffed in a car trunk. A massive police dragnet ensued along with a regional Amber Alert. Sweeten's kidnapping claim proved to be a hoax, as she and her daughter, Julia were later found at a high-end resort in Disney World, where Sweeten was arrested.
Sweeten subsequently pled guilty to misdemeanor crimes of false reports to authorities, which carries a maximum jail term of two years and identity theft which carries a maximum jail term of up to five years.
In sentencing Sweeten to 9 to 24 months, followed by 4 years probation and 50 hours of community service, Judge Finley departed from the state sentencing guidelines that called for probation only since she had no prior record. Judge Finley believed the harsher sentence was called for since Sweeten's deception created widespread fear, taxed law enforcement authorities, humiliated her own family and stirred racial tensions.
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