SEATTLE — The tale of the Barefoot Bandit is Hollywood-ready, with its barely schooled, shoeless scamp dodging police as he allegedly stole planes and cars in a cross-country dash before he was nabbed in a high-speed boat chase in the Bahamas.

A well-known entertainment lawyer hired by Colton Harris-Moore's mother says he is being swamped by unsolicited offers for book and movie deals, and no law would prohibit the 19-year-old or his mom from getting rich off his tale.

But hardball-playing prosecutors could seek to have them agree to turn over any profits from such deals in exchange for Harris-Moore avoiding a long prison sentence. The government could use the money to repay his alleged victims.

"Most victims in this case would not look kindly on either the defendant or his family getting rich," said Mark Bartlett, former first assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle. "It would be very difficult for him to make a pitch for leniency without a clean and total disgorgement of profits he or his family members are making."

Harris-Moore was arrested in the Bahamas a week after he reportedly crash-landed there in a plane stolen July 4 from an Indiana airport. He made initial court appearances in Florida last week and is being returned to Seattle, where he faces a federal charge in the crash-landing of a plane stolen from Idaho last year.

The self-taught pilot is suspected of more than 70 crimes across nine states since he walked away from a halfway house in April 2008, many of them in Washington's bucolic islands. Some prosecutors and a defense attorney who was asked to represent him have expressed interest in negotiating a "global" plea deal to resolve all or most of the allegations.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has declined to comment on how the prosecution will proceed, except to say it is reviewing crimes attributed to Harris-Moore to see which might be prosecuted in federal court. Police suspect Harris-Moore took stolen cars, a boat and planes across state lines, and interstate transportation of stolen property is a federal offense with a 10-year maximum sentence.

John Henry Browne, a Seattle lawyer who has been asked to represent Harris-Moore, did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment.

A global plea deal would be more efficient than prosecuting him in one jurisdiction after another, but it isn't clear that would satisfy the local, elected prosecutors who have dealt with Harris-Moore the longest.

"I never say never, but my preference is that he answer for Island County charges in Island County court," said Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks, whose jurisdiction includes Harris-Moore's hometown of Camano Island. "He's got a lot to answer for."

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