COUPEVILLE, Wash (Reuters) ? A Washington state man dubbed the "Barefoot Bandit," who staged a sensational two-year, multi-state crime spree, pleaded guilty on Friday and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
Colton Harris-Moore, who earned his nickname by carrying out a string of thefts and burglaries sometimes in bare feet, was sentenced to 87 months.
During a daylong hearing the 20-year-old self-taught airplane pilot pleaded guilty to 32 charges, including residential burglary and attempting to elude police.
To an additional charge of gun theft, Harris-Moore entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant asserts innocence of a crime but the court treats it as a guilty plea. Judge Vickie Churchill said that, with his plea, he was considered guilty on all the charges.
"This case is a tragedy but it's also a triumph in the human spirit," Churchill said, referring to his difficult childhood that she said was "little better than a dog's."
Harris-Moore still awaits sentencing in U.S. District Court in Seattle after pleading guilty in June to seven federal charges that carry a maximum 78-month term.
'AN EXTRAORDINARY YOUNG MAN'
His attorney, John Henry Browne, said the state and federal sentences would run concurrently, meaning that with credit for good behavior he could be released by his 26th birthday.
"He's an extraordinary young man; it's amazing he survived. He's painfully shy," Browne said.
"My childhood was one that I would not wish on my darkest enemies," Harris-Moore said in a letter to the court. "I wish not to point fingers or enumerate through the gamut of issues, however, my thirst for knowledge cries for help, and coming of age was met with inept parents suffering from drugs and alcohol."
Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks said he was aware of Harris-Moore's difficult childhood but said he displayed a "brazen disrespect for the law" and deserved time behind bars.
The hearing caps months of negotiations between prosecutors and attorneys for the high school dropout, who stayed one step ahead of the law as he broke into homes and stole cars, boats and planes across nine states and British Columbia.
He was captured in the Bahamas in July 2010 after crash-landing a stolen aircraft he had flown from Indiana.
As part of his plea agreement, Harris-Moore forfeited profits from the rights to his life story. He has signed a movie deal with 20th Century Fox earmarking $1.3 million in proceeds as restitution to his victims.
(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Greg McCune and Bill Trott)
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