For Jocelyn Kirsch and Edward Anderton, it was the morning after.
The young Center City couple with the jet-setting tale that has captivated an international audience and undammed a stream of celebrity-like shots - most starring Kirsch - faced more charges yesterday in what police say was a conspiracy to reap cash by stealing identities.
They also faced their parents, who were forced to face the media after flying in from points south and west to bail them out and take them home.
"No comment," Anderton's mother, Lori, said softly, pressing close to her husband, Kyle, in the lobby of the Criminal Justice Center yesterday morning. The couple, from Everett, Wash., had just endured two hearings for their 25-year-old son in which his charges mounted - as did his bail, to a total of $130,000. They had arranged to pay 10 percent of that, needed for his release, and now must arrange to take him home.
"We really have no comment," Kyle Anderton said. He wrapped his arm around his wife, pulled her close, and the two turned as one. They left the building, only to find themselves in a tight circle of TV cameras. Huddled together, they took small steps as the circle moved with them, across the street toward a cab.
Kirsch's parents also said little, as her father, Lee, of Winston-Salem, N.C., politely accepted business cards and scrap paper with scribbled phone numbers from reporters.
Her mother, Jessica, who lives in California, sat beside her former husband during the hearings. And the two arrived together, with attorney Ronald Greenblatt, to pick up their daughter, 22, when she was released about 1:40 p.m. from Police Headquarters. The daughter was expected to return home with her father.
Kirsch and Anderton are expected to return to Philadelphia no later than February for a preliminary hearing. Greenblatt indicated that his client would reach a plea agreement.
"We're going to come to a fair resolution on these charges," he said.
Investigators say the pair paid for exotic trips and luxury items by stealing identities, some of them from neighbors in their Center City condo complex. They had been free on bail - Kirsch on $25,000 and Anderton on $50,000 - after being arrested last Friday on charges including forgery, identity theft, and unlawful use of a computer.
