A woman was sentenced to jail for parental kidnapping Tuesday after fleeing the state with her 11-year-old son. She had been granted shared custody with her ex-husband, according to a Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office press release.
Erin Hale was sentenced to six months in jail and five years of probation after pleading no contest to felony deprivation of child custody or visitation. She was arrested Aug. 24 in New Jersey by the district attorney’s Child Abduction Unit, with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service’s Child Abduction Task Force and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
The District Attorney’s Office said Hale, then 50, took her son on Nov. 6, 2015. The mother had failed to return her son to his father after visitation time and moved to different areas in California before fleeing to Kentucky and New Jersey.
A felony warrant for her arrest was issued by the Sacramento Superior Court on Dec. 3, according to the initial press release. The mother and child were seen in a champagne-colored pickup truck Feb. 17 in the El Dorado County town of Cool.