Bucks County, PA – Surveillance pictures at Philadelphia international airport show bonnie Sweeten and her 9-year-old daughter, Julia Rakoczy, going through security, alone.
This as authorities issued an amber alert for the missing girl whose mother had claimed they’d been abducted.
Wednesday night, the FBI arrested Sweeten at the grand Floridian hotel in Disney World.
Michelle Henry/Bucks County District Attorney:
“Bonnie Sweeten has been charged with false reports and identity theft. She will be extradited back to Bucks County to face prosecution for these charges.”
Sweeten’s daughter Julia was with her — unharmed — and taken into protective custody. Authorities say she’ll will be picked up by her biological father, Tony Rakoczy, who talked about his missing daughter in an emotional interview Wednesday on “Today.”
Tony Rakoczy/Julia Rakoczy’s Father:
“She loves the Phillies. She plays softball. She’s always dancing around the house.”
This bizarre story began Tuesday afternoon… when police say Sweeten called 9-1-1 shortly before 2 PM saying she had been rear-ended… and claiming that two black men had hit her and her daughter, stuffing them into the trunk of a Cadillac – driving away with her SUV as well.
Tony Rakoczy:
“There’s no reason to keep them. I don’t understand why they’d want to keep them. Just let them go.”
Investigators say Sweeten — the mother of three girls — made a second urgent call, leaving a message on her husband’s cell phone.
Michelle Henry/Bucks County District Attorney:
“She said that she was scared and that if she never saw her children to tell them that she loved them.”
But, police say cracks in Sweeten’s story quickly started to appear.
Her SUV was found overnight in downtown Philadelphia with no damage.
What’s more, an officer had issued a parking ticket for the SUV that afternoon… Less than an hour after Sweeten had called 9-1-1.
Police say there never was any accident… And as authorities searched for her, they say she got on the flight to Florida, under an assumed name, using stolen ID.
Michelle Henry:
“She told her co-worker and said she needed her driver’s license because she had to do something with the license for her pension plan. The co-worker believing her story gave Bonnie Sweeten her driver’s license expecting her to return with it a short time later.”
Investigators also discovered that Sweeten had withdrawn nearly $12,000 from various bank accounts over the last week, paying for the Disney world hotel room with cash.
When word first broke that the abduction was a hoax, Larry Sweeten – Bonnie’s current husband and the father of her 8-month-old daughter — begged for his wife to come home.
Larry Sweeten/Bonnie Sweeten’s Husband:
“We’ll work through this problem together as a family.”
Investigators are still trying to understand what led Sweeten to take Julia and disappear.
Michelle Henry:
“There were some domestic problems with her husband and some financial concerns as well, but that’s still being investigated.”