A mother in South Jersey who made national headlines more than a decade ago for faking her own kidnapping is now facing fraud charges once again. NBC10’s Deanna Durante has the details.
A former Bucks County woman who made national headlines more than a decade ago by falsely claiming she had been kidnapped when she had actually gone to Walt Disney World is facing new charges in an alleged attempt to steal from an employer.
Federal authorities have charged 51-year-old Bonnie Sweeten, of Delanco, New Jersey, with two counts of wire fraud, alleging that she forged checks and made fraudulent purchases with a company credit card.
U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said Monday that the former Feasterville resident was hired in 2017 as a bookkeeper for an unnamed Doylestown excavation firm headed by someone who had known her for many years and wanted to give her a second chance.
Prosecutors allege that she used her position and access to issue dozens of company checks to herself, steal checks mailed to the firm and fraudulently endorse them over to herself, and make tens of thousands of dollars of personal purchases on the company credit card.
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Those with knowledge of the new case told NBC10 the thefts began almost right away. The victims only found out when unpaid bills crept up and they found a credit card they didn't know existed.
“Bonnie Sweeten’s alleged actions are the epitome of biting the hand that feeds you,” said Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “Defrauding one’s employer is both a bad career move and a federal crime, for which violators must be held accountable.”
While the crimes were discovered several years ago, those with knowledge of the case said the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the investigation. Sweeten's new charges became public on Monday.
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A message was left Tuesday for a federal public defender listed as representing her.
Authorities said in 2009 that Sweeten, who is white, called 911 claiming she and her 9-year-old daughter had been carjacked by two Black men and stuffed into the trunk of another vehicle. Authorities said she was actually on her way to the airport to fly to Florida using a co-worker's identification card and feared arrest in a fraud case. She and the child were found unharmed the next day at Disney World. She served nearly a year in state prison in the hoax.
“I wanted something so bad that I would do whatever I had to do to get it,” Sweeten told a judge in 2012 before she was sentenced to more than eight years for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from an employer and others. Her voice cracked during an apology for a $280,000 theft from an elderly relative that she called “cruel and sick.”
