Woman gets 5 years in prison for framing husband's ex-fiancée for stalking and posting 'rape fantasy' ads

A woman was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday (17 October) after she pleaded guilty to kidnapping, false imprisonment, forgery, perjury and grand theft, the Orange County District Attorney's Office in Arizona said.

Angela Maria Diaz, 32, was arrested on 6 January by the Phoenix Police Department in Arizona after authorities said that she had lied to the police, staged a crime scene and sent herself hundreds of threatening emails in order to implicate another person.

Prosecutors say they have not determined a motive yet.

Diaz had falsely accused Michelle Suzanne Hadley, 30, the ex-fiancée of her husband (who has only been referred to as a US Marshals Service agent by authorities), stating that Hadley was harassing her and even posting 'rape fantasy' ads online on her behalf that would solicit men to go to her home and try acting out sex acts forcibly, prosecutors said.

Hadley was earlier arrested twice on multiple felony counts based on Diaz's complaints and spent 88 days in an Orange County jail. But she was eventually released and proven innocent after investigations uncovered Diaz's plan.

Prosecutors added that Hadley could even have faced a life in prison sentence if she was convicted.

Hadley and her ex-boyfriend dated between 2013 and 2015. After their break-up, he married Diaz in 2016.

In 2016, Diaz began making false accusations against Hadley, the KTLA 5 News website reported.

Authorities had arrested Hadley in July 2016 out of safety concerns and she was subsequently charged with multiple felonies, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

After Hadley's arrest, investigators served search warrants to uncover the IP addresses linked to the threatening emails.

However, the case took a turn a few months later when investigators uncovered one IP address that linked the origin of the sent emails to Diaz's condominium in Anaheim.

Prosecutors said that the investigation was complicated because Diaz had used eight different accounts to send the emails to herself. She is said to have used private networks and third-party servers to disguise her internet protocol address.

Diaz pleaded guilty to multiple felonies on Tuesday following a preliminary hearing which lasted more than two months.

Among other charges, prosecutors said Diaz had also lied about suffering from cervical cancer and faked being pregnant.

She also pretended to be an attorney, forged doctor's notes and impersonated two of her husband's ex-girlfriends over email.

She initially faced 12 years in prison but received the five-year sentence under a court offer.