SEATTLE — A Bellingham woman will spend 10 months in federal prison after making a false statement on a passport application as part of a scheme to kidnap her 4-year-old son and take him to Panama.
Talisa Manuella Munoz, 32, failed to return her son to his father as required by a final parenting plan before secretly flying with the child to Panama in September 2025.
U.S. District Judge John H. Chun sentenced Munoz Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
“This is something you just can’t do,” Chun said during the sentencing hearing. “You can’t take the law into your own hands.”
According to court records, Munoz had to return the boy to his father on Sept. 8, 2025, after a weekend visitation. When she failed to return him, the father reported the child missing to law enforcement. The FBI then opened an investigation.
False birth certificate used to obtain passport
Investigators determined that Munoz had planned to take the child to Panama for months.
Months before the trip, Munoz falsely stated on her son’s passport application that she had no way to locate or identify the child’s father. She also submitted a birth certificate that listed “none named” in the space for the father’s name.
The investigation found that Munoz worked with family members to carry out the plan. She flew from Seattle to Panama with the child on or about Sept. 7, 2025.
The case records also detail how Munoz used pandemic-era hospital restrictions to obtain an inaccurate birth certificate that did not identify the boy’s father.
Munoz arrested in Panama
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Embassy in Panama City worked with Panamanian law enforcement to locate Munoz.
Panamanian authorities arrested Munoz, and U.S. officials later secured her extradition to the United States. She returned to the Western District of Washington on Jan. 8, 2026.
Authorities then reunited her son with his father.
In preparation for sentencing, the boy’s father told the U.S. Probation Office that enduring the kidnapping of his son “was the worst thing of [his] entire life.”
Chun scheduled a restitution hearing for November. The hearing will determine how much Munoz must pay the child’s father.
The FBI investigated the case, while Assistant U.S. Attorney Cecelia Gregson prosecuted Munoz.
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