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Kidnapping suspect Sharyn Hakken may take plea deal

 
Sharyn Hakken and her husband are accused of kidnapping their sons and fleeing to Cuba.
Sharyn Hakken and her husband are accused of kidnapping their sons and fleeing to Cuba.
Published Sept. 30, 2014

TAMPA — Sharyn Hakken's remarkable journey from college-educated engineer to misguided asylum seeker to accused kidnapper could end in a plea deal, her attorney said Thursday.

Hakken and her husband, Joshua, made headlines around the world last year when they fled from Madeira Beach to Cuba on a small sailboat with their two young sons and the family dog. Roughly 300 miles from home, they were caught by U.S. authorities outside Havana and brought back to Florida, where they were charged with kidnapping and other offenses. Their sons were returned to the custody of their grandparents in North Tampa.

Jailed without bond, the Hakkens have been waiting for more than a year for their case to go to trial. Now, with just over a week remaining before their trial is scheduled to begin, Sharyn Hakken's attorney, Bryant Camareno, said a deal is being negotiated that would require her to testify at her husband's trial in exchange for a lighter sentence.

"The only thing I can confirm is that we are aggressively negotiating, but no deals have been set yet," he said. A spokesman for the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office declined to comment, citing the agency's policy of not talking about plea deals before they are settled.

Along with the host of state charges she faces, Sharyn Hakken could also be confronted with federal charges, and there are charges pending in Louisiana related to a previous incident. Camareno said he is trying to work out a "global deal" that would appease all three agencies and save his client from years of legal entanglements.

At issue is not only how many years Sharyn Hakken will spend in prison, but also whether she will plead guilty to all or some of the charges. In addition to kidnapping, she has been charged with burglary with assault, child abuse, grand theft, child neglect, and interference with custody. The kidnapping charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The FBI has been involved in the Hakkens' saga from its beginning, aiding with the search and rescue effort to bring home the couple and their then 4-year-old and 2-year-old sons. Though federal charges were never filed, Camareno said the agency has been waiting to see how the case would unfold at the local level. If Sharyn Hakken received what FBI officials considered too light a sentence, they planned to step in, Camareno said.

"Their interest was that she was in custody for the longest time possible," he said.

He expects a decision on a plea deal to be made Tuesday at the couple's pre-trial hearing.

Joshua Hakken's attorney, Jorge Chalela, could not be reached for comment, but he has previously said that he will argue his client was insane when authorities say he took his children from their grandparents and absconded with them.

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Prosecutors have previously released evidence suggesting the escape to Cuba was part of his plan to protect his family from the U.S. government. He believed he was being persecuted because he had uncovered a secret government plot to poison Americans with chemicals dropped from airplanes.

Contact Anna M. Phillips at aphillips@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3354. Follow her @annamphillips.