According to CBS affiliate WIAT, Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who staged her own kidnapping last year, entered a guilty plea on Thursday and was spared jail time.
After spotting a youngster by the side of the road, Russell, a 25-year-old nursing student, reported to Hoover police that she had been kidnapped on July 13.
She told police that she was forced into a car by an unidentified male and over a fence. Hundreds of police officers and volunteers looked for the missing Russell for the next forty-nine hours.
On July 15, she unexpectedly showed up at her house and informed the authorities that she had recalled seeing a woman and an orange-haired male in a trailer truck. In addition, she claimed to have heard a baby sobbing inside the truck.
Russell told authorities that she was able to get away in the end. Her timeline raised questions for the police. She eventually acknowledged making up the kidnapping.
At the Jefferson County Courthouse in Bessemer, on Thursday, she entered a guilty plea to filing a false police report and reporting an incident to law enforcement without being truthful, according to WIAT.
Russell will get a six-month suspended jail term rather than go to jail. She was mandated to complete 100 hours of community service and was placed on probation for a year.
The judge also mandated that Russell provide restitution of $18,000 to the city of Hoover.
