Woman in kidnap hoax hit with divorce news

Bonnie Sweeten's husband wants out.

The Bucks County mother whose bizarre, racially tinged abduction hoax became national tabloid fodder, is headed for divorce court.

Sweeten, 38, had no clue it was coming, her lawyer said yesterday; she found out only when a reporter called.

Her second husband, Richard L. "Larry" Sweeten, calling their marriage "irretrievably broken," filed for divorce late Wednesday afternoon in Bucks County Court.

He also seeks custody of the couple's 11-month-old daughter. Because of pending criminal charges that make her a flight risk, Bonnie Sweeten should not be left alone with the baby, the divorce petition contends.

News of the filing ambushed Sweeten, said her defense attorney, Louis Busico. She was in a meeting with Busico at his office when an Inquirer reporter called the lawyer for comment, he said.

Alarmed, Sweeten interrupted the meeting and called her husband at home. He confirmed his plans, Busico said.

Larry Sweeten's divorce lawyer, Jeffrey J. Baxter of Doylestown, did not return calls seeking comment.

"They are still living in the same marital home, and evidently he was doing this without advising her," Busico said. "It was pure coincidence that she was in my office when The Inquirer called. . . . He told her over the telephone at exactly 4:58 that he had filed for divorce."

Bonnie Sweeten, he said, "is completely distraught and devastated. She had no clue. They were living together as husband and wife."

Sweeten, of Feasterville, awaits trial on charges of identity theft and false reports stemming from the abduction hoax in late May.

A formal arraignment on the charges had been scheduled for today in Doylestown, but Busico on Monday waived her appearance and entered a not-guilty plea. She is tentatively scheduled for trial late next month.

Sweeten gained national notoriety May 26, when she placed a frantic-sounding 911 call. She claimed that she and Julia Rakoczy, her 9-year-old daughter from her first marriage, had been carjacked and abducted on a busy thoroughfare in Lower Bucks County shortly before 2 p.m.

Sweeten told a Philadelphia police dispatcher that two black men had rammed the rear of her vehicle and forced her and Julia into their Cadillac, saying she was calling from the trunk of the car.

Instead, police say, Sweeten had used a former coworker's driver's license to purchase airline tickets and had flown that afternoon to Walt Disney World. She was apprehended at a luxury hotel there the next day, but not before authorities, fearing for the child's safety, had issued an Amber Alert that made it a national story.

Sweeten remains under federal and state scrutiny for possible theft charges. Police have said she is suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from relatives and from clients of the law firm where she worked as a paralegal.

The Inquirer reported last month that state and federal authorities had also been asked to investigate whether Sweeten forged documents to obtain a $100,000 mortgage loan in the name of her former boss, lawyer Debbie Carlitz. The lawyer, whose Pennsylvania license is suspended, maintains that she knew nothing about the loan, which is now in foreclosure.

The Sweetens married in June 2005. Larry Sweeten, a heavy-equipment operator for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, runs a lawn maintenance service on the side.

At the time of the fake abduction, Larry Sweeten told reporters that he had no idea why his wife would flee. He added that she handled all of the family's finances, which include a mortgage of more than $400,000 on their spacious, two-year-old home.

"Whatever it was, we'll work through it," he told 6ABC while she was missing.

The next morning, on NBC's Today show, he said: "If she was stealing money, as they are saying, I have no idea where it was going." He denied any serious marital problems in the interview.

Apart from the custody bid, Larry Sweeten's divorce complaint makes no mention of the criminal case. It says the charges make her a risk to flee, and asks that her contact with their baby be limited to supervised visits.

Busico has said Sweeten has undergone mental-health counseling. She remains free on 10 percent of $1 million bail. A condition of that bail is that she have no unsupervised contact with any of her three daughters from her two marriages.

As recently as June 22, when Bonnie Sweeten waived her preliminary hearing in Richboro, her husband was at her side, accompanying her to and from court.

After the proceeding, Busico said Bonnie Sweeten was settling back into being a mother to her children, and focusing on getting her family back to normal.

"Everybody's getting along. There is no discord in that family," Busico told reporters at the time.

Yesterday, Busico said his client had no plans to move out, whether or not her husband stays put.

Her only employment since her arrest, he said, has been mowing grass for her husband's lawn service.

"She has to live there as a condition of her bail, and it is her house," Busico said. "She is under no obligation to leave her home."