Tampa Criminal Lawyer Blog
A Louisiana man and woman recently stripped of their parental rights are thought to have kidnapped their own children from the children’s maternal Grandmother early Wednesday. Joshua Michael Hakken and his wife, Sharyn Patricia Hakken are alleged to have broken into the Tampa residence of Patricia Hauser, tied her up, and kidnapped their biological children. Within the past few months the children were sent to live with Hauser after the Hakkens lost their parental rights over the children. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s investigators say Joshua Michael Hakken entered Hauser’s home at 6:30AM Wednesday, proceeded to tie up the children’s’ Grandmother and then fled in Grandma’s 2009 Toyota Camry.
The Tampa criminal attorney that gets this case might as well open up the criminal statute book and proceed to dump it out on his desk. There really doesn’t seem to be much Pops hasn’t done wrong in his kid caper. Burglary? Check. Kidnapping? Check. Grand Theft? Yes sir, we have that too! False Imprisonment shouldn’t be left out and really neither should battery. Again, lets dump this statute book out right here on the desk of Hakken’s selected Tampa criminal lawyer. So how does it all work and fit together? Grab a seat, this may take a while.
Lets go in order as how it would logically play out if we were kidnappers. Under Florida Statute 810.02, Hakken will be charged for burglary for entering the home of Granny with the intent to commit a crime, in this case a kidnapping. This particular burglary could be charged as a first degree felony because while he was inside doing his mischievous deeds, he elected to tie Grams to a chair. This is good enough for a battery under Florida Statute 784.03 as Hakken intentionally touched Grandma when tying her up and no doubt she wasn’t overly inviting of those actions. The battery and burglary are tied together (what a horrible damn pun) in that the battery accelerates the burglary to the very serious first degree felony. What about falsely imprisoning Grams? They could elect to charge that in lieu of the lesser included battery offense. Under Florida Statute 787.02 if the State can show that Hakken forcibly restrained Grandma against her will without lawful authority, they could prove false imprisonment. Tampa criminal lawyers throughout the Bay area uniformly just beat their head against their desk due to the myriad of awesomeness bestowed upon our great area by Mr. Hakken…
As for the kids he commandeered, that bright idea will earn him another first degree felony. Under Statute 787.01 one is “kidnapped” when they are forcibly, secretly, or by threat, confining, abducting, or imprisoning another against their will. In this case he forcibly took his kids. They’re children and they aren’t legally deemed competent to decide whether they want to go so that defaults to the guardian, aka Granny. She didn’t want them to go and thus that is deemed the will of the kids. Crackalack, Hakky sack could be looking at life for that bad boy. Lest we forget the getaway car. Yes, Mr. Hakken you have fooled us again with your witty thievery of Grandma’s ride. That’s going to cost you at minimum a third degree felony and maybe more depending on the value of the car. You took it on purpose and intended to deprive Grams of her wheels albeit temporarily. Done and done.
What is the long and short of this all? Most Tampa criminal attorneys would agree that Mr. Hakken is in some deep doodoo and very likely his wife should she be in cahoots. It seems as if Ms. Hauser is credible and that the evidence is there to convict the Hakkens on all of the listed crimes above. They’re going to need some help.
Jason Mayberry is a Federal and State criminal attorney with offices in Tampa and Clearwater. We’re available at 813-444-7435 or 727-771-3847.