Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP

Patricia, left, and Robert Hauser, right, escort their grandchildren, Chase Hakken, 2, second from left, and Cole, 4, during a news conference outside their home in Tampa, Fla.

The two little Florida boys spirited away to Cuba by their parents think the ordeal was a vacation and have no idea they were the subject of an international search, their grandparents said Thursday.

"We haven't asked the boys anything about the journey," Patricia Hauser told reporters at a press conference with her husband Bob. "We're just letting them tell us as things come out, if they feel like talking. We're just treating it like a vacation."

Hillsborough Co. Sheriff via AP

Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, charged with kidnapping their young sons after losing custody, made their first court appearance Thursday since Cuban authorities turned them over to the U.S.

She spoke a few hours after the boys' parents, Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, made their first courtroom appearance.

Joshua Hakken, 35, is accused of kidnapping 2-year-old Chase and 4-year-old Cole from Hausers, who had custody of the boys. He allegedly tied up Patricia Hauser.

Authorities say he and his wife then sailed with the boys in a 25-foot boat to Cuba, arriving Sunday in bad weather. By Tuesday, officials in Havana had decided to hand the family over to American authorities even though Cuba doesn't have an extradition treaty or formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

The Hakkens are charged with kidnapping, child neglect, false imprisonment, burglary and interference with custody. A judge ordered them held without bond until a detention hearing Friday.

The couple lost custody of the kids last year after the armed father was arrested in a Lousiana hotel room on drug possession and other charges and told authorities that he and his wife had been planning "a journey to the Armageddon,” police said.

Before the children went to live with their maternal grandparents, Joshua Hakken allegedly tried to kidnap them at gunpoint from a foster home and was wanted on a warrant when he fled with them to Cuba.

Friends of the couple told The Associated Press they were mystified by the episode.

"This is a train that went completely off the tracks, and I don't have any explanation for how it can go off the track that badly basically in a year and a half. It's very bizarre," said Darrell Hanecki, who was Sharyn Hakken's boss for nearly a decade, told The Associated Press.

Joshua Hakken was a U.S. Air Force Academy dropout who worked as an engineer before starting his own company.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:22 AM EDT

The couple accused of running off with their two young sons, causing a massive search that ended in Cuba on Tuesday, has returned to the United States and been placed under arrest.

Joshua and Sharyn Hakken were arrested by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office in Florida and jailed on charges that included child neglect, kidnapping, and burglary, according to records maintained by the sheriff’s office.

Their two boys, ages 2 and 4, were expected to be returned to their grandparents on Wednesday. The boys' grandfather, Bob Hauser, thanked authorities for the wide-ranging, multi-state search that brought the two boys home.

“We are very appreciative of that, and it was very, very comforting to my wife and I to know that that was going on,” Hauser said.

Police say Joshua Hakken tied his mother-in-law up around 6:00 a.m. last Wednesday in Tampa and drove off with the two children, who were still in their pajamas. After ditching a black pickup truck that was later recovered by police, the Hakkens apparently boarded a blue 25-foot sailboat and left John's Pass Marina in Madeira Beach, Fla., bound for Cuba.

Baynews9 via AP

This frame grabbed image provided by Baynews9 shows Sharyn Hakken being processed for booking into the Hillsborough County Jail early Wednesday morning.

News cameras caught a bearded Joshua Hakken with his wife in Havana on Tuesday before authorities turned the couple and their kids over. The family did not appear to be in distress when spotted at the city’s Marina Hemingway, though a heavy Cuban security presence limited access to the docks.

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations decided to turn the couple over to U.S. authorities early on Tuesday morning.

“After news reports surfaced of the Hakken couple’s association with a kidnapping case, the Cuban authorities communicated their presence in the country,” ministry official Johana Tablada said in a statement. The ministry exchanged information with the U.S. Interests Section in Havana “to try to guarantee the integrity and well-being of those minors,” he said.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana acknowledged the safe return of two young children in a statement, but declined to go into specifics.

“Tonight, thanks to a joint effort of the Department of State, FBI, and U.S. Coast Guard, two U.S. citizen children are safely on their way home,” the Interests Section said in a statement.  “We would like to express our appreciation to the Cuban authorities for their extensive cooperation to resolve this dangerous situation quickly.”

Related:

• Couple who allegedly abducted children return from Cuba
• Officials: 'Anti-government' couple may be at sea with kidnapped children
• Pickup found in suspected Florida double kidnapping

Roberto Leon / NBC News

Sharyn Hakken is escorted by a state security officer at the Hemingway Marina in Havana on Tuesday.

A couple accused of abducting their two young sons from their grandmother in Florida sailed with them to Cuba before being flown back to the U.S. early Wednesday.

Cuban authorities confirmed that Joshua Hakken, 35, and Sharyn Hakken, 34, arrived in the island nation in their sailboat the Salty Paw on Sunday. They notified the U.S. the next day and decided on Tuesday morning to turn over the couple and the kids, a government statement said.

Security agents escorted the family from the marina later in the day. NBC station WFLA reported that a flight carrying the family arrived in Tampa early Wednesday. 

"Our understanding is they're doing well," Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee told WFLA.

The boys, 2 and 4, had been living with their grandmother in Tampa after their parents lost custody of them. Police say Joshua Hakken entered the grandmother's house in the early morning of April 3, tied her up and took the children. 

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

"Salty," a boat believed to belong to Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, sits at the Marina Hemingway complex in Havana, Cuba, on Tuesday.

After evading Amber alerts in Florida and Tennessee and Coast Guard boats searching the Gulf of Mexico, the Hakkens made their way to Cuba in the 25-foot blue-and-white sailboat, arriving in bad weather, authorities said.

Even though the U.S. does not have formal relations with Cuba, Havana officials communicated with the U.S. Interests Section and the State Department "to try to guarantee the integrity and well-being of those minors," the statement said.

The boys had been placed in foster care after Joshua Hakken was arrested in a Louisiana hotel room in 2012 on charges including drug possession, according to police in Slidell, La. Sharyn and Joshua Hakken told officers that they planned to “take a journey to the Armageddon” at the time of the arrest, Slidell police said.

The children were there when the parents were arrested, police said, and several weapons were taken from the room

Terri Durdaller, a spokeswoman at the Florida Department of Children and Families, told The Associated Press it was not clear where the children would be placed when they returned to American soil.

"Louisiana is the ultimate decision maker on where these children will reside. It's likely they will be placed back in Florida with the grandmother," she said.

NBC News' Craig Giammona contributed to this report.

Related:

 Officials: 'Anti-government' couple may be at sea with kidnapped children

 Pickup found in suspected Florida double kidnapping

 Amber alert issued for Tampa siblings

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 9, 2013 9:44 AM EDT

Anna Pierre's introduction to North Miami politics has included intimidation and voodoo tactics.

On Easter Sunday somebody placed voodoo artifacts outside the door of her campaign office.

"I wish I knew," said Pierre, when asked if she had any idea who did it.

She said thinks one of her opponents may be behind the intimidation.

Pierre, who is not related to current Mayor Andre Pierre, is running for mayor.

She says the tactics against her have also included nasty phone calls and sign stealing.

The voodoo items placed outside her campaign office have included candles, food and dolls with pins stuck in them.

"At first it bothers me," she said. "Not that I am scared, but to see how dirty, how low can people go."

More news from NBCMiami.com

Voodoo is practiced by people in Haiti, and around the world, including the U.S. Voodoo has a spooky reputation, but it is a bona fide religion.

There is a huge Haitian population in North Miami.

Pierre said she's famous in her birth country of Haiti, recording a hit pop song before coming to America.

Her popularity there, she says, is helping her gain support here as she runs for mayor.

"The voodoo stuff, I don't know who's doing it, but I'm not afraid," she said. "It's just intimidation to ...  slow me down. But you know what? I'm not going to slow down until the finish line."

A 51-year-old Orlando man was arrested on charges that he stole a tractor trailer containing $75,000 worth of soup, authorities said.

Eusebio Diaz Acosta, 51, faces charges of grand theft of cargo worth $50,000 or more and grand theft of a motor vehicle following his arrest early Sunday on the Florida’s Turnpike, according to authorities.

Broward Circuit Judge John Hurley called the facts of the case “very unusual.”

“This is the first time the court’s ever seen $75,000 worth of soup stolen,” Hurley said Monday, as he set Diaz Acosta’s bond at $25,000.

The Florida Highway Patrol said that it received a report of a stolen tractor trailer hauling soup that was being tracked by GPS, and the tractor trailer driven by Diaz Acosta was pulled over at the 63-mile marker of the turnpike in Tamarac.

A passenger – described as a 5-foot-10-inches tall black male wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt – left the trailer, jumped over the concrete barrier wall, and escaped after he jumped over a chain link fence and fled northwest, an arrest report said.

Diaz Acosta told the troopers that he met the passenger, Pepe, a week beforehand, and that Pepe paid him to drive the tractor trailer and he knows nothing else, the report said.

The tractor and trailer, which both had Minnesota tags and are owned by Lessors Inc in Egan, Minnesota, were reported stolen out of Polk County, the report said. The total value of the vehicle and its contents was $350,000, it added.

Diaz Acosta was arrested at about 12:31 a.m., and the tractor trailer was towed away by SIRT Towing, according to the report.

Diaz Acosta has been been convicted of theft twice before, Hurley said.

Diaz Acosta said in court through a translator that he has $1,000 in the bank. A public defender appeared by his side at Monday’s hearing.

He is being held in the Broward County Main Jail, according to online jail records.

An “anti-government” man alleged to have kidnapped his two young sons from their grandmother’s house may be trying to escape in a sailboat, according to officials.

Police say that Joshua Hakken, 35, apparently broke into his mother-in-law’s Tampa home after 6 a.m. on Wednesday, tied up his mother-in-law and then fled with the boys, Cole, 4, and Chase, 2.

Cole Hakken, 4, left, and his two-year-old brother, Chase.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said that Joshua Hakken and his wife Sharyn, 34, may be traveling together in a 25-foot, 1972 Morgan sailboat, NBCMiami.com reported Friday.

The vessel is blue and has the name “salty” with a picture of a paw near the back of the hull on each side. It has a white sail with blue trim and its registration number is FL3717BK, the FDLE added.

The United States Coast Guard scoured a swath of sea spreading from Key West to Mobile, Ala. with helicopters and boats on Saturday in an ongoing search, said Petty Officer First Class Crystalynn Kneen, a USCG spokeswoman in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Coast Guard issued an “urgent marine information broadcast” on Friday, Kneen said.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office told NBC station WLFA.com that Hakken had recently bought the boat.

Deputies told the station a witness saw the boat going under the Johns Pass bridge a couple of hours after the abduction Wednesday.

"We've said all along, making irrational decisions doesn't always make you unintelligent. We know he's a very intelligent individual. He's an engineer," Hillsborough County Sheriffs spokesperson, Larry McKinnon, told WFLA.com.

"Wouldn't put it past them to be able to pull into one of these coves or one of these inlets and then board a vehicle. So we're not gonna eliminate our land search, we're still maintaining the Amber alert. We're now expanding it into the Gulf of Mexico, " McKinnon said.

"Hopefully, we're going to find them soon. As we've mentioned before, our goal is to reach out to them in a peaceful manner and to allow them to open an exchange of communication and dialogue so we can get this resolved without anyone getting hurt. "

Craig Johnson, an experience boater and volunteer search and rescue participant, said, "If I was him, he's probably heading towards Cancun or Cuba. If he's going to Cuba, he's gotta go around Key West. That wouldn't be too smart."

In a previous release, the sheriff’s department said that "both suspects are anti-government and have attempted a previous abduction at gun point in Louisiana.” 

Joshua Hakken was arrested in St. Tammany Parish, La. on June 17, 2012 after attending an “anti-government rally,” the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s department said in a press release. He was charged with the unlawful sale of narcotics in the presence of minors and possession of marijuana and spent one day in jail before making bond, said Officer Ben Sciambra of the Slidell city jail.

The couple was acting “in a bizarre manner that alarmed officers” during the arrest, according to press release issued by the Slidell Police Department on April 4. With both children present, the couple told officers that they were “completing their ultimate journey” and planned to “take a journey to the Armageddon,” according to the release.

The Louisiana Office of Child Services determined that the two young children needed to be placed in foster care after the arrest, according to the Slidell Police Department release. Officers also took several weapons at the time of the arrest.

NBC News' Craig Giammona contributed to this report.

Related:

Pickup found in suspected Florida double kidnapping

 Authorities: Man kidnaps his 2 young sons in Fla.

 Amber alert issued for Tampa siblings

This story was originally published on Sat Apr 6, 2013 8:29 AM EDT

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office via AP

Cole Hakken, 4, left, and his two-year-old brother, Chase

An abandoned pickup truck police say may have been used by an “anti-government” man to kidnap his two young sons from their grandmother’s house has been found in Florida.

Police say that Joshua Hakken, 35, apparently broke into his mother-in-law’s Tampa home after 6 a.m. on Wednesday and fled with the boys aged 4 and 2 – but not before tying up their grandmother.

Hakken put the boys, still in their pajamas, into their grandmother’s 2009 silver Toyota Camry and drove off, police believe. They think he traded cars a few blocks away for a black Sierra pickup matching the description of the one found late Thursday evening.

The grandmother freed herself and called the police around 6:40 am, according to a police statement. The state of Florida issued an Amber alert for the two boys and their father, along with mother Sharyn Hakken, 34.

“Both suspects are anti-government and have attempted a previous abduction at gun point in Louisiana,” the sheriff’s department said in a release.

Authorities in several states have been on the lookout for the couple. The abandoned 2006 GMC pickup was located in a parking garage in Madeira Beach, Fla., the Hillsborough Country Sheriff’s Office said in a release. The truck was processed for evidence in the garage before being taken back to Hillsborough County to be impounded, local NBC affiliate WFLA reported.

Warrants have been issued for Joshua Hakken on two counts each of kidnapping, interference in child custody, and child neglect, according to the sheriff’s department. Warrants have also been issued on charges of false imprisonment, burglary, and grand theft auto.

Joshua Hakken was arrested on multiple drugs charges in Louisiana in June of last year, according to the sheriff’s office. Soon after that, Louisiana placed the two boys in temporary foster care.

While the two boys were in foster care, Hakken “showed up at the foster care facility waving a gun and began beating on the front door,” according to the sheriff’s office. The man fled the scene without entering the facility or reaching his children.

Why the children were staying with their grandmother was unclear. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's office said in a statement that they were working with Louisiana and federal law enforcement to ascertain why the Hakkens lost parental rights.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office via AP

Joshua Michael Hakken and Sharyn Patricia Hakken in undated images.

Related:

• Authorities: Man kidnaps his 2 young sons in Fla.
• Amber alert issued for Tampa siblings

Denny Henry for NBCNews.com

Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio poses for a portrait on Capitol Hill, April 19th, 2011. Godinez-Samperio is an undocumented immigrant who is pushing for immigration law reform.

An undocumented immigrant who applied for a law license in Florida cannot be admitted to the bar, the State Supreme Court said Thursday in a case being watched closely by both sides of the immigration debate.

But the decision, according to legal observers, did not appear to be an actual rejection of the request made by Jose Godinez-Samperio, 26.

Rather, the court indicated it would be deciding on the larger question it had been asked -- whether or not to allow people unlawfully in the country to become lawyers -- and not on a specific individual case. 

“In this cause, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners has petitioned this Court for an advisory opinion regarding a clearly stated question. The separate issue of the individual movant's admission is not before the Court,” the court said in a short order.

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners asked the court in late 2011 to decide if undocumented immigrants can be admitted to the state bar after receiving the application of Godinez-Samperio, an undocumented youth who came from Mexico on a tourist visa with his parents as a child.

The board, which filed the request for an opinion last year, said last year that Godinez-Samperio met their requirements though the court has yet to issue an opinion in the case.

After receiving a work permit on Christmas Eve last year under the new deferred action program for undocumented youth, Godinez-Samperio had his lawyer submit a “motion of admission” to the bar in January.

That motion was rejected on Thursday, with the court indicating that the larger question on undocumented immigrants – not the specific case of Godinez-Samperio – was what they had been asked to review even though Godinez-Samperio's lawyer had been making filings in the case.

Bob Blythe, general counsel of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, said he didn’t “think that it’s accurate to say that the court has denied him (Godinez-Samperio) admission.”

"They’re just saying this case isn’t about his admission but rather the more general question,” Blythe told NBC News. “The answer from the court in this case is going to be whether undocumented immigrants can be admitted and then once we get that then the court will take the appropriate action with regard to his application. … In many respects it really doesn’t change anything at this point.”

Godinez-Samperio said the meaning of the order wasn’t entirely clear to him, but that he too felt the court was saying it would first address the larger question.

“We had moved to the court (in January) to just go ahead and admit me already and it’s a very strange ruling … One thing we are sure about is that I haven’t been denied to become a lawyer yet,” he said, noting that he didn’t view it as a setback.

“If anything … I am glad somebody’s looking at the file and I hope -- although I can’t predict what the court will do -- I hope that this means they’ll make a ruling soon,” he added.

Blythe said the court didn’t have a deadline or time frame for when it would issue a ruling.

Godinez-Samperio came to the U.S. at age nine with his parents from Pachuca, Mexico. They entered the country on tourist visas, which they overstayed. During that time, Godinez-Samperio graduated from high school, college and law school.

A case similar to his in California has reached that state’s supreme court, too. There, the State Bar of California has gone further than its Florida counterpart in saying that Sergio Garcia, a 36-year-old who was born in Mexico and first came to the U.S. as a child, should get a license, noting he had met the rules of admission and that his lack of legal status in the U.S. should not automatically disqualify him.

Related:

• California bar: Undocumented immigrant should get law license
• Obama administration won't seek deportation of young undocumented immigrants
• Can an undocumented immigrant become a lawyer?

New video of a sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man has been released -- nearly five weeks after the dark pit opened up and killed the man as he slept.

The video offers the first glimpse of the sinkhole that officials estimate eventually grew to be 60 feet deep, according to NBC affiliate WFLA.com in Tampa. Officials recorded it with a small camera that was slipped into the unstable home.

It shows a bedroom floor that's almost entirely collapsed into the earth, even though its walls and ceiling remain intact.

The bottom of the pit that swalled Seffner, Fla., resident Jeff Bush on the night of Feb. 28 is not visible.

"I've been a basketcase the whole day, ever since I've seen it," Janelle Wheeler, who lived in the house with Bush, said after viewing the video. "It's just like, like you ripped off that Band-aid."

Her family is staying in a rental for the next few weeks, paid for by insurance, WFLA.com reported on Tuesday. 

Bush's remains were never found, and he was presumed dead.

Hillsborough County has condemned two other houses next to Bush's home due to their instability, WFLA said.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow

The Boca Raton, Fla., prison company that donated $6 million to Florida Atlantic University to change the name of the college's football stadium has withdrawn the gift, the company said Monday.

GEO Group announced that they informed FAU that the gift would be withdrawn and the stadium would no longer be named GEO Group Stadium, calling criticism against the move an "ongoing distraction."

"What was originally intended as a gesture of GEO’s goodwill to financially assist the University’s athletic scholarship program has surprisingly evolved into an ongoing distraction to both of our organizations," GEO Group Chairman and CEO George Zoley said in a statement. "We employ many FAU graduates and Boca Raton community members. We take pride in running a well-respected company and are proud of our long-term support of the University."

Read more at NBCMiami.com

Shortly after the $6 million gift was announced in February, students and activists expressed outrage, saying some facilities operated by the group have come under fire for human rights violations.

FAU's Faculty Senate opposed the name change and the student government was expected to also vote on a similar resolution later this week.

The gift would have been a 12-year commitment with annual payments of $500,000.

"FAU alumnus and Trustee Emeritus George Zoley and his colleagues have been loyal supporters of this University," FAU President Mary Jane Saunders said in the same statement. "We are thankful for all of the companies, organizations and individuals who give to this university to support our mission, our pursuit of academic excellence and valuable contributions to this community."