—
It’s the perfect movie. A barely schooled, shoeless teenager dodges
police as he races across the country stealing cars and airplanes
before finally being caught in a high-speed boat chase.
The kid’s mom has already hired a well-known entertainment lawyer
who says he is being swamped by unsolicited offers. You can
almost hear the cash registers ringing.
Nineteen-year-old Colton Harris-Moore was arrested in the
Bahamas a week after he reportedly crash-landed there in a plane
stolen July 4 from an Indiana airport. The teenager made initial court
appearances in Florida last week before heading back to Seattle,
where he faces a federal charge in the crash-landing of a plane
stolen from Idaho last year.
The self-taught pilot is suspected in more than 70 crimes across
nine states since he walked away from a halfway house in April
2008, and he still has two years left on the sentence he walked away
from in 2008.
Some prosecutors have expressed interest in negotiating a “global”
plea deal to resolve all or most of the charges.
But here’s the thing. There is no way that the teenager or his mother
should cash that first check.
After all, if it turns out there’s a fortune to be made by having your kid
take off on a cross-country crime spree, what’s to stop the next
enterprising parent and child from trying to do the Barefoot Bandit
one better?
If they do nothing else, prosecutors must send a clear message that
while crime might well be a way to achieve fame, it is not the path to
fortune. And they should make sure that any profit to be made from
the bandit’s exploits goes to his victims, the people whose planes
and cars and boats he’s accused of stealing.
They could follow the example set by prosecutors in the case of
“American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, who pleaded guilty in 2002
to supplying support for the Taliban in exchange for a 20-year
sentence. As part of his plea, Lindh agreed that any profits from
publicity deals would be turned over to the U.S. government, and he
pledged not to communicate with relatives or associates to help
them profit from his story.
Similar language should be part of any plea bargains negotiated in
the case of the Barefoot Bandit.
