'Barefoot Bandit' Colton Harris-Moore Won't Cash In on Crime Spree
He is allowed to sell his story, but profits would go to paying off his victims.
June 18, 2011— -- "Barefoot Bandit" Colton Harris-Moore won't be profiting from his seemingly made-for-Hollywood crime spree, a two-year run of daring capers including stealing planes and boats.
Harris-Moore, the Washington teenager who repeatedly eluded police until he was finally run to ground in the Bahamas in July 2010, pleaded guilty Friday to seven felonies at a federal court in Seattle.
Harris-Moore, now 20, entered the federal courtroom looking calm, with a slightsmile on his face, ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle reported.
After answering a litany of questions from the judge, he said the word "guilty" seven times, admitting to stealing planes, cars, guns, a boat and more, from the San Juan Islands across the country and beyond to the Bahamas.
The deal worked out between federal prosecutors and Harris-Moore includes a recommendation that he spend five to six and a half years in prison.
He also agreed not to profit from his crimes. He is allowed to sell his story, but the deal would have to be negotiated by a third party and profits would have to go to paying off his victims, who collectively suffered an estimated $1.4 million in losses and damages.
"He has pled guilty to seven felony charges will spend a significant time in prison and will not make one dime from his crimes," U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkin told ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle.
"The plea agreement makes very clear that he will not profit directly or indirectly nor will he help anyone else to profit from these crimes," she said.
Harris-Moore's lawyer said despite all the attention the teenager got from his crime spree, he is happy to put it all behind him.
"Some people find this hard to believe he dislikes publicity intensely," Harris Moore lawyer John Henry Brown said.
In addition to the federal charges that were resolved with the plea deal, Harris Moore faces dozens of state charges that are expected to be filed by prosecutors in San Juan, Island, Skagit and Snohomish counties.
Harris-Moore grew up poor and was convicted of his first crime at age 12.
In the months before his arrest, he had apparently branched out from the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest, where he is listed as a suspect for crimes committed in South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois and Indiana.
Harris-Moore's two years on the run came to an end fitting for a Hollywood movie, when he was taken into custody in the Bahamas after a half-hour long boat chase that ended with police riddling his boat with bullets.
The arrest came less than a week after he allegedly crashed a small plane into the shallow waters of the Caribbean, hours after it had been stolen from an Indiana hangar.
The attorney who dealt with Harris-Moore after his arrest in the Bahamas last July said then that she joked with the then wily teen that he should apply for a job with the CIA and use his talents for good.
"He said, yeah, sure, he'd think about it in a few years," Monique Gomez said.
Despite the outlandish and brazen crimes he is suspected of orchestrating, Gomez said she found him to be sincere when Harris-Moore said he was ready to face U.S. authorities and wanted to change his life for the better.
"He's highly skilled, very intelligent," she said, "and I'm very confident that if he puts his mind to it he can do anything."