‘Barefoot Bandit’ Pleads Guilty In Court

Colton Harris- Moore committed his first crime at the age of 12, and that would just be the beginning for the 20 year old nicknamed the 'Barefoot bandit'.

In 2007, the boy was sentenced to three years in a juvenile lockup after pleading guilty to three burglary counts in Island County. But he fled the minimum-security facility in April 2008 and was soon back to his old tricks, breaking into unoccupied vacation homes, stealing food and sometimes staying there.

As  investigators repeatedly failed to catch him, his antics escalated: He began stealing planes from small, rural airports and crash-landing them — at least five in all.

Harris-Moore's daring run from the law earned him international notoriety, not to mention a movie deal to help repay his victims, after he flew a stolen plane from Indiana to the Bahamas in July 2010, crash-landed it near a mangrove swamp and was arrested by Bahamian authorities in a hail of bullets.

But today, wearing an orange jump suit and handcuffs, the 20 year old plead guilty to a total of 16 counts ranging from identity theft to residential burglary. Later, the sentencing would continue with him pleading guilty to another 17 counts in yet another county. His defense team tried to argue that growing up with an alcoholic mother may have led to his behavior. They are asking the 9 and a half year sentence be reduced to 6.  And while a movie deal may be in the works, the psychiatrist who evaluated Harris-Moore says there is nothing glamorous about this story.

What was characterized by the media as the swashbuckling adventures of a rakish teenager were in fact the actions of a depressed, possibly suicidal young man with waxing and waning post-traumatic stress disorder (following his first plane crash in November 2008)," wrote Dr. Richard S. Adler, a psychiatrist who evaluated him for the defense lawyers.