A Bellingham woman was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for using false documents to get a passport for her 4-year-old son before taking him to Panama.
A Bellingham woman was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for using false documents to get a passport for her 4-year-old son before taking him to Panama in violation of a parenting plan, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
Talisa Manuella Munoz, 32, was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle for making a false statement in a passport application.
According to court records, Munoz was supposed to return her son to his father on Sept. 8, 2025, following a weekend visitation. When she failed to return the boy, his father contacted law enforcement and the FBI opened an investigation.
Investigators determined Munoz had spent months planning with family members to take the child to Panama. She flew out of Seattle on or about Sept. 7, 2025, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Months before leaving, Munoz falsely claimed on her son's passport application that she had no way to find or contact the boy's father.
She also submitted a birth certificate that listed "none named" for the child's father.
Munoz was eventually arrested in Panama. She was extradited to the United States and returned to the Western District of Washington on Jan. 8.
Her son was reunited with his father.
In preparation for sentencing, the boy's father told the probation office that the ordeal was the worst experience of his life.
U.S. District Judge John H. Chun told Munoz at sentencing that she could not take the law into her own hands.
Chun scheduled a restitution hearing for November to determine how much Munoz must pay the child's father.
