'Kidnap' mom out on bail, in seclusion

Bucks County hoax mom, Bonnie Sweeten, is free and living somewhere with "distant" relatives after her release on bail from Bucks County Prison Saturday.

On Saturday, she put up $100,000 in cash, 10 percent of the $1 million bail set the day before by Bucks County Judge William Benz at a preliminary hearing in Richboro on the grounds that she is a flight risk.

Her lawyer, Louis R. Busico, said that the 38-year-old Feasterville mother of three - who made national headlines last week by staging an elaborate kidnapping hoax and flying to Orlando, Fla., with her 9-year-old daughter - will start receiving mental-health treatment soon.

Sweeten, whose countenance changed from the happily smiling blonde-haired suburban mom in earlier photos to a mask of bitter anguish at her preliminary arraignment, pleaded not guilty to charges of identity theft and making false statements.

It wasn't clear where the $100,000 that got her out from behind bars came from.

Last Tuesday, Sweeten made a desperate-sounding phone call to 9-1-1 claiming that she and her daughter had been abducted by two men and stuffed into the trunk of their car.

The hoax unraveled when police found her undamaged SUV, and surveillance video at Philadelphia International Airport showed her and her daughter boarding the flight to Florida.

Her daughter, Julia Rakoczy, was reunited with her biological father, Anthony Rakoczy, in Florida Thursday.

Authorities say that an investigation is underway into accusations that Sweeten stole money from a former New Hope law firm that employed her as a paralegal. *