'Barefoot Bandit' Signs $1.3 Million Movie Deal
The “Barefoot Bandit,” Colton Harris-Moore, the 20-year-old Washington State man responsible for a cross-country crime spree, has signed a movie deal with 20th Century Fox worth up to $1.3 million.
The money will help pay the minimum of $1.4 million he owes in restitution to the victims of his two-year burglary and theft rampage. Harris-Moore will not profit at all from the production of the film, reported the Daily Herald of Everett, Wash.
“I have absolutely zero interest in profiting from any of this and I won’t make a dime off it. That’s what I insisted on from the beginning and the contract I signed guarantees it,” Harris-Moore said in a written statement released by his attorneys.
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Lance Rosen, Seattle entertainment lawyer, who negotiated the contract on Harris-Moore’s behalf, said it’s not often such a large sum of money is paid for the story right to anyone’s life.
According to Harris-Moore, he is “humbled” that he can offer financial aid to the people hurt by his actions.
"I did things that were not only a violation of law, but also of trust. I can't undo what I did. I can only try to make things better,” said Harris-Moore in a written statement released by his attorneys.
The movie deal includes the motion picture and ancillary rights. Also Harris-Moore’s statements outside the courtroom are restricted to people associated with Fox, wrote the Daily Herald.
The 20-year-old was suspected in a spree of sometimes-shoeless crimes, hence the nickname, across nine states, British Columbia, and the Bahamas. Harris-Moore pled guilty in June 2011 under a deal with the prosecution to settle the charges against him in federal and state court.
Harris-Moore, in a 28-page agreement with federal prosecutors, agreed to relinquish any profits, intellectual property and life story rights from his crimes.
He faces a maximum of six and a half years in prison and has to pay over $1.4 million in restitution.
Harris-Moore will be sentenced in October.
