Federal Judiciary

Barefoot Bandit headed to Miami

His real name is Colton Harris-Moore and he was caught in the Bahamas. The kis was born in 1991.  From his Wiki page:

Harris-Moore became known as the "Barefoot Bandit" or as the "Barefoot Burglar", by reportedly committing his crimes while barefoot.[3] In Fall 2009, police found footprints at an airport hangar in Bonners Ferry, Idaho; a Cessna 182 stolen from there crash-landed approximately 260 miles (418 kilometers) to the west near Granite Falls, Washington after a few unsuccessful attempts to land at the small airport there. Police in the San Juan Islands also found cartoonish, chalk-outlines of feet all over the floor of a grocery store that was broken into in February 2010.[11] In Fall 2009, a Facebook fan page was set up, drawing thousands of entries,[10] and one local Seattle man started selling T-shirts bearing his picture with the words, "Momma Tried".[9] Local people from Camano Island have also attempted to vent their frustrations through a song,[19] as well as a blog which includes the sale of merchandise and accepts donations to purchase the services of a bounty hunter.[20] In April 2010, 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights to the book Taking Flight: The Hunt for a Young Outlaw, based on a proposal by Bob Friel.[21] Harris-Moore's mother has retained celebrity lawyer O. Yale Lewis to seek control of entertainment interests related to her son. She has also hired John Henry Browne to handle her son's criminal defense.

From ABC on his arrest:

The "Barefoot Bandit" faces deportation to the United States, where a slew of federal officials wait to begin the complicated process of sorting out a lenthy list of crimes that span half the country.


Monique Gomez, Harris-Moore's attorney, told ABC News that he might leave the Bahamas as early as tonight.

Colton Harris-Moore pleaded guilty today in a Bahamian court to a relatively minor charge of illegal entry into the country, The Associated Press reported.


Instead of the extradition process many expected, he'll simply be deported though the U.S. Attorney's Office. Western District of Washington spokeswoman Emily Langlie told ABC News that authorities had not received confirmation of exactly what will happen.


Once on U.S. soil, Langlie said, Harris-Moore would appear in federal court in Miami, the closest district to where he was apprehended, on a single count of interstate transportation of stolen goods. The charge was filed in December 2009, stemming from an incident in which a plane was stolen from Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, and crashed in Granite Falls.

The judge will decide bond for Harris-Moore, basing it according to his flight risk and danger to the community.


"I think the expectation in any detention hearing is the government will argue that Colton Harris-Moore is a flight risk," Langlie said. "I think he's proven that."


Harris-Moore's highly publicized exploits came to an end Sunday when he was taken into custody by Bahamian police after a high-speed boat chase off Harbor Island. The arrest capped off more than two years on the run in which he achieved a folk hero-type following from tens of thousands of Internet fans, even as he left a growing trail of increasingly brazen crimes in his wake.

Get ready for some fun in Magistrate Court this week.  He'll have to wear the prison flip flops to Court...

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on July 13, 2010 (boomark / email).