A Bellingham woman was sentenced to 10 months in prison for 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, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd announced.
Talisa Manuella Munoz, 32, failed to return the boy to his father as required under a final parenting plan, according to court records. She secretly obtained a passport for the child using false documents before flying to Panama, where she was later arrested and extradited to the United States.
At the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Seattle, U.S. District Judge John H. Chun told Munoz, “This is something you just can’t do. You can’t take the law into your own hands.”
According to records filed in the case, Munoz was scheduled to return the child to his father on September 8, 2025, following a weekend visitation. When she failed to do so, the father reported the matter to law enforcement, prompting the FBI to open an investigation.
Investigators determined that months before leaving the country, Munoz had falsely claimed on her son’s passport application that she had no way to locate or identify the boy’s father. She submitted a birth certificate listing “none named” in the space for the father’s name. The investigation further revealed that Munoz had schemed with family members for months to take the child to Panama, ultimately flying out of Seattle on or about September 7, 2025, prosecutors said.
The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Embassy in Panama City coordinated with Panamanian law enforcement to arrest Munoz and secure her extradition. She was returned to the Western District of Washington on January 8, 2026, and her son was reunited with his father, according to the release.
In a statement to the probation office ahead of sentencing, the boy’s father said enduring his son’s kidnapping “was the worst thing of [his] entire life.”
Judge Chun scheduled a restitution hearing for November to determine how much Munoz owes the child’s father.
The FBI investigated the case, which is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cecelia Gregson.
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