COUPEVILLE, Wash. — Colton Harris-Moore, the “Barefoot Bandit,” stood bolt upright in orange jail garb before Judge Vicki I. Churchill in the small courtroom here on Friday and was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison. His hands were folded in front of him because they were shackled, and he struggled to hold back tears as he pleaded guilty to 33 state charges including burglary and identity theft.

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Colton Harris-Moore at his sentencing in Coupeville, Wash., on Friday.
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Chalk footprints left last year in a store on Orcas Island, Wash.
The young man had eluded law enforcement for more than two years, becoming something of a folk hero in the process before crashing a plane in the Bahamas.

The state had asked the court to sentence Mr. Harris-Moore, 20, to the maximum sentence of nine years and eight months. His lawyer, John Henry Browne, had asked for six years, saying that his client’s exploits could be explained, in part, by his troubled upbringing.

“I’m not surprised that Colton survived five plane crashes, but I’m completely surprised that he survived his mother,” Mr. Browne said.

An investigation into Mr. Harris-Moore’s childhood commissioned by the defense focused on his mother, Pamela Kohler, who was described as a cruel alcoholic who spent her disability checks on beer and cigarettes instead of food. Neighbors said she would shoot her rifle into the woods while swearing lustily.

When Mr. Harris-Moore was 10, a caseworker wrote: “The food found inside the refrigerator appeared to be spoiled with the exception of a dozen or so eggs. The freezer contained one bag of French fries and was completely covered with mold.”

As a child, Mr. Harris-Moore was obsessed with drawing airplanes. He had few friends — among them were the animals that lived on his mother’s five acres. He named the chickens and loved his dogs, Kodi and Melanie.

Mr. Harris-Moore fended for himself by stealing food from his neighbors’ homes, the report said. At 16, he was sentenced to three years in a juvenile group home, but he escaped within months. Moving through the evergreen woods of the San Juan Islands, north of Seattle, he sometimes went barefoot, hence the nickname.

By 2008, Mr. Harris-Moore squeezed his 6-foot-5 frame into his first stolen plane, which he crash-landed in central Washington State. He had no formal flight training. Two years later, the police on his trail, he journeyed to Indiana, where he stole a Cessna and flew it to the Bahamas. There, in the summer of 2010, Mr. Harris-Moore was arrested after leading authorities on a high-speed boat chase.

In June, Mr. Harris-Moore pleaded guilty to seven federal charges. He will be sentenced on those charges next month in Seattle. He agreed to pay for the planes and other items he stole with the proceeds from a $1.2 million movie deal.

His lawyer has submitted him to psychological tests, which concluded that Mr. Harris-Moore did not, contrary to the popular myth that sprang up around him, have a superior I.Q. The psychiatrist for the defense also noted that his mother drank while she was pregnant with him, which he said had probably affected his development.

Ms. Kohler, who still lives in the trailer where she raised her son, has tacked up “No Trespassing” signs to the two cedars that flank her long driveway. She did not respond to a note left in her mailbox requesting comment. Nor did she attend Mr. Harris-Moore’s plea hearing on Friday morning.

Neighbors on Camano Island this week repeated that Mr. Harris-Moore, frustrating as he was, “never stood a chance.” A neighbor who lives two doors from the plot where Mr. Harris-Moore grew up put it this way: “He’s not a folk hero. He’s just a punk kid.”

At the Tyee Grocery, just down the road, Helen Simmons, 83, said she felt fondly toward the boy who used to steal beef jerky and potato chips from her small store. Other burglars could not figure out how to disarm her alarm, she noted. “He was not taking booze or cigarettes,” Ms. Simmons said. “He was taking jerky. He was hungry.”

Mr. Harris-Moore’s story of neglect also moved Judge Churchill. “We cannot excuse people because of their upbringing,” she said, “but we can recognize that that upbringing has some effect.”