Pages

Sunday, July 11, 2010

CULTURE: Colton was shoeless (Not Shirtless) When Busted!

AP) – The teenage "Barefoot Bandit" who allegedly stole cars, boats, and airplanes to dodge US law enforcement was nabbed today as he tried to make a water escape, then brought handcuffed—and shoeless—to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, to face justice. Colton Harris-Moore was arrested before dawn in northern Eleuthera, abruptly ending his 2-year life on the lam, said a rep for the Royal Bahamas Police Force. A contingent of high-ranking officers traveled to the island and took the suspect to Nassau, where he faces possible extradition to the US.

True to his nickname, the 19-year-old suspect was barefoot as he stepped off the plane. He kept his head down and ignored questions shouted by reporters. Escorted by six police cars and SUVs, the teen had close-shorn hair and wore short camouflage cargo pants, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a bulletproof vest. Island police had been searching for the wily fugitive since he allegedly crash-landed a stolen plane a week ago on Great Abaco Island, where he was blamed for at least seven break-ins

As cops shot out the engine on his getaway boat and the noose tightened on his 2-year crime spree, Colton desperately chucked his laptop and iPhone into the water—and put a gun to his own head, reports the LA Times. "He was saying he was going to kill himself," says the manager of the resort where the Barefoot Bandit played his final game of cat-and-mouse. "But they talked him out of it, subdued him, and brought him back to our marina."

But the fact that Harris-Moore was packing heat, though he didn't use it, could make his case "much more complicated," the lawyer his mother has hired tells CBS. Should the Bahamas choose not to hit him with a weapons charge, "then his sentence structure would be very low, actually," says John Henry Browne. "But maybe everybody wants their pound of flesh." And Harris-Moore's notoriety isn't going to help him, Browne says: Normally, he'd be facing "three or four years" if prosecuted in federal court, but here he could be facing "between four and 12 years."

No comments:

Post a Comment