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http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts...cies-were-volatile-mix-for-joshua-and/2137007Mental illness, right-wing conspiracies seen as volatile mix for Joshua and Sharyn Hakken
Saturday, August 17, 2013 5:23pm
TAMPA — In April, Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, college-educated engineers who were hiding with two boys and an elderly rat terrier on a sailboat moored west of Havana, ventured ashore looking for help.
Sunburned from a 300-mile sea voyage, the couple had shed most of the trappings of their former middle-class life on Sterling Avenue in South Tampa. Joshua Hakken, 35, had grown a tangled, auburn beard that looked like an accessory from a costume shop.
"We cannot safely return to the United States and are seeking political asylum in your country," the Hakkens wrote in a letter explaining their predicament to the Cuban government. They claimed to have uncovered a shocking fact through their engineering jobs: U.S. officials were secretly trying to control Americans' minds with chemicals spread from airplanes.
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"After these discoveries … we were subjected to multiple attacks from our own government," the Hakkens wrote. "These attacks included surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), hacking of our personal computers, microwave radiation weapons attacks, drugging of our food, false imprisonments and the kidnapping of our two small children."
The three-page letter was part of a cache of documents theTampa Bay Times obtained last week after a judge ordered the disclosure of prosecutors' evidence — what attorneys call discovery material — in the Hakkens' criminal case.
The documents chart in unprecedented detail the world view that took the Hakkens from a quiet neighborhood north of MacDill Air Force Base to a cramped boat rocking off the coast of an island autocracy.
Joshua and Sharyn Hakken are now charged in Hillsborough Circuit Court with kidnapping their sons and sailing with them to Cuba after a court stripped their parental rights.
The Hakkens claim to have met with a Cuban attorney, but it is unclear whether they delivered their asylum letter to any foreign officials. Within days of their arrival at Hemingway Marina outside Havana, Cuban authorities gave the United States permission to apprehend the family and extradite them to Florida.
The boys, 5-year-old Cole and 3-year-old Chase, are living in Tampa with their maternal grandparents. The grandparents also gained custody of Nati, the 15-year-old dog who had gamely endured a week before the mast.
The newly released evidence could transform the Hakkens' legal terrain, perhaps most significantly with indications both parents suffered mental illness.
Federal, state and local law enforcement records depict them losing their hold on reality — ranting about mind control and secret government plots to poison them — in a downward slide that was likely accelerated by heavy marijuana use.
The documents also shed further light on the vexing topic of the Hakkens' personal politics. Described as "antigovernment" by authorities, the couple have assumed a status close to that of folk heroes among some conservative commentators.
Investigative reports and the Hakkens' own writings suggest the couple did subscribe to several conspiracy theories popular among right-wing extremists. But experts say the extent of what FBI records describe as the Hakkens' "paranoid ideation" suggests that psychiatric problems, not political convictions, drove their journey across the Gulf of Mexico.
"These are people who are mentally unbalanced, who are attracted, perhaps because of their personal paranoia, to conspiracy theories," said Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture.
Roots on the right
While the Hakkens' beliefs sound outlandish to the unpracticed ear, some of their ideas have a recognizable lineage among political extremists.
Once confined to fringe ideologues in the John Birch Society and 1990s militia movements, such concepts have experienced a renaissance among tea party activists leery of government.
In a July 2012 Facebook message to an acquaintance, for example, Joshua Hakken made ominous reference to a U.S. atmospheric research station in Alaska — called the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program — that conspiracy theorists believe secretly controls the planet's weather.
"If all hope is lost, head to the four corners in the Hopi reservations but stay the hell away from Denver International Airport," Hakken wrote, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report. "They're using HAARP to detonate underground ICBMs throughout the Midwest."
Fears of HAARP and "chemtrails" — the airplane exhaust patterns the Hakkens highlighted in their Cuban asylum letter — are common discussion topics on some tea party Web forums. Both made the Southern Poverty Law Center's 2010 list of the radical right's 10 most popular conspiracy theories.
The FBI assessment notes that Joshua Hakken also thought he "was destined to be a member of the Illuminati" and that he and his family "had to disappear so that they could not be found by the Illuminati."
The Illuminati were an 18th century society of Bavarian freethinkers, believed by conspiracy theorists to endure and clandestinely steer world politics. They are often associated on the radical right with a "New World Order" working behind the scenes to establish global, totalitarian government.
Despite such influences, experts say it could be a mistake to overemphasize the Hakkens' political convictions in light of the prominent role psychiatric problems played in their saga.
"We often see mentally ill people who have absorbed one or another shard of conspiracy theories from the extreme right," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "But the governing rule is their mental illness."
Fenster noted that the logic of the Hakkens' antigovernment views appeared to break down in their decision to seek refuge in a communist country.
"Some of the things that they seem to be afraid of are the same things the tea party (activists) are afraid of," he said. "But then they go to Cuba. What?"
Insanity defense?
The documents released in the Hakken case leave little doubt that mental illness, along with a combustible view of government, was a major factor in their saga.
While at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the FBI assessment states, Joshua Hakken "felt the Air Force was trying to 'poison' the minds of cadets." A similar theme emerged from 34-year-old Sharyn Hakken during a June 2012 encounter with police in Louisiana. She was found ranting about her brain being "reprogrammed," according to records.
Dr. Francisco Fernandez, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, said recurring worries about mind manipulation are a symptom of psychotic disorders.
Heavy marijuana use, Fernandez said, can "unmask and aggravate" such conditions. For the Hakkens, regular drug use may have been a catalyst in their break from society, according to the newly released records.
Joshua Hakken lost his engineering job last year because of "erratic behavior and continually coming to work smelling of marijuana," according to the FBI assessment. "While the reported marijuana use may serve as a sedative to Josh and Sharyn, it is also possible that it could exacerbate any mental illness," the assessment states.
Since the disclosure of evidence in the case, the Hakkens' attorneys have been guarded about defense strategies, which could also be complicated by another revelation.
Joshua Hakken told police officers last year he beat and choked his wife to remove "spirits" that "would take over her body and talk through her," the records show. If Sharyn Hakken asserts her husband coerced her into criminal acts, such abuse could lead to a split in what has been a joint defense.
The psychiatric problems on display in the newly released documents could also be invoked by the Hakkens to help their cases.
Defendants with mental illness can tack in two directions to avoid prosecution: arguing they are incompetent to stand trial or presenting an insanity defense.
In the first circumstance, a judge must rule the defendant is so severely impaired that he cannot understand court proceedings or communicate effectively with a lawyer. The accused is then typically sent to an institution for treatment with the goal of restoring competency.
Under the second scenario, defendants assert that mental illness blinded them to the consequences of their crimes or prevented them from realizing what they did was wrong. This is the argument more likely to arise in the Hakken case, Tarpon Springs criminal defense attorney Jerry Theophilopoulos said.
"It definitely looks like it's going to go through an insanity type of defense, based on the history of the individuals," Theophilopoulos said. "If they knew what they were doing, did they actually know that it was wrong? I think that's what's going to come into play in this case."
Peter Jamison can be reached at pjamison@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3337. Follow him on Twitter
@petejamison.
Peter Jamison, Times Staff Writer========================================================
http://tbo.com/news/timeline-of-the-hakken-kidnapping-case-b82476497z1Timeline of the Hakken kidnapping case
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Published: April 10, 2013
Joshua and Sharyn Hakken were arrested and charged Wednesday in the abduction of their young sons, Cole, 4, and Chase, 2. Here is a chronology of major events in the case (times are approximate):
February 2012 – Joshua Hakken comments on the libertarian website Adam vs. The Mann under the handle “sailingbull.” He writes of “challenging authority, sticking it to the man, and giving the millennial generation a voice.”
June 17 – Police are called to a hotel in Slidell, La., to investigate a disturbance and find the Hakkens acting “bizarre” and talking about traveling the country on a "journey to the Armageddon,” officials say. Joshua Hakken is arrested after officers say they find marijuana and weapons in the room. Their young sons, Cole and Chase, are present. Hakken is jailed “about a week” and the boys are placed in temporary foster care.
July – Joshua Hakken shows up at the foster family home in Hammond, La., with a gun demanding the return of his children, police say. The foster parents call 911 and Hakken leaves without his sons.
In recent months, Louisiana authorities send the boys to live with their grandparents, Bob and Patricia Hauser, at 14040 Shady Oaks Drive in North Tampa.
Jan. 25 - Joshua Hakken buys a 25-foot sailboat for $3,500, according to an FBI affidavit. He pays $400 for a boat slip and begins stocking the vessel with supplies.
April 2 - A Louisiana judge grants permanent custody of the boys to the grandparents. Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee, after reading the report, says “there was clearly neglectful behavior” and the Hakkens “did not participate in the system.”
6:10 a.m. April 3 – Officials say Joshua Hakken breaks into his mother-in-law’s home, ties her up and kidnaps his sons in the Hausers’ 2009 Toyota Camry. Officials say he dumps the car and meets up with his wife a few blocks away; the family then travels in Hakken’s black GMC pickup to Madeira Beach.
6:40 a.m. April 3 – Patricia Hauser frees herself and calls 911. “My son-in-law just kidnapped my two grandchildren,” she says. “… He’s not supposed to be near them. He’s been missing for nine months.”
7:30 to 8:30 a.m. April 3 - Joshua and Sharyn Hakken arrive at the boat slip in Madiera Beach with their sons, an FBI affidavit states. The children are placed in the cabin. Joshua Hakken tells the slip owner he may be headed to Key West or South America, the affidavit states.
10 a.m. April 3 – Unknown to authorities at the time, the Hakken family is on the 25-foot sailboat leaving Johns Pass, heading into the Gulf of Mexico. The escape is later seen on surveillance video.
1:30 p.m. April 3 – An Amber Alert for the boys is issued in Florida. An alert is also issued in Louisiana.
8 p.m. April 3 – Investigators execute a search warrant at the Hakkens’ South Tampa house and seize a computer, credit cards, an Ethernet card, bank paperwork, a map of Gila National Forest in New Mexico and North Carolina, and a list of contacts.
Midnight April 4 – Sheriff’s officials announce the GMC pickup is found abandoned on the second floor of the Johns Pass parking garage in Madeira Beach.
April 5 – Investigators learn the Hakkens left Johns Pass on the sailboat. Images of the boat are released by investigators.
April 6 - The Amber Alert is modified to include only states that border the Gulf of Mexico. Florida Fish and Wildlife officers begin extensive search offshore from Pensacola to the Florida Keys. Other boaters are advised by officials to watch for the Hakkens’ vessel.
April 8 – Hillsborough County officials learn from Cuban authorities that the Hakkens may be in Havana. A dialog begins between U.S. and Cuban officials over the case.
April 9 – The Hakkens and their children are spotted by reporters in the sailboat, docked in Havana’s Hemingway Marina. One of the boys is seen playing on the deck. They are under the close watch of armed Cuban security officials.
4:50 p.m. April 9 – Cuban officials decide to return the family to U.S. officials.
10 p.m. April 9 – Federal, state and local officials board a flight from Tampa to Havana.
1:30 a.m. April 10 – A plane touches down at Tampa International Airport carrying the Hakkens, their children, the American authorities and a counselor. The boys are returned to their grandparents.
2:30 a.m. April 10 – Joshua and Sharyn Hakken are booked into the Hillsborough County Jail on kidnapping and other charges.
Sources: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, The Associated Press, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, Slidell (La.) Police Department.
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those people were just paranoid stoners
