Federal authorities in Mississippi say a Louisiana woman has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison for faking her own kidnapping in an attempt to get ransom money.

A news release from U.S. Attorney Michael Hurst Jr. says 32-year-old Sharday Monique Thomas of Hammond was sentenced Thursday in Jackson. She had pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud.

The purported kidnapper had contacted a former employer of Thomas by way of text messages from Thomas’s cell phone.

The text messages stated that Thomas was being held against her will and instructed the former employer to bring $4,500.00 cash to an address in Jackson or she would be killed.

The text messages included specific threats such as, “No cops or she die,” “I’m tired of waiting my trigger finger is itching,” “Now or I’ll blow her head off,” and “I want my money now or she dies,” among others. The former employer, who was being assisted by the Louisiana State Police, requested proof of life and spoke to Thomas on two instances. Thomas told him that she would be killed if the ransom money was not delivered as instructed.

But FBI agents in New Orleans and Jackson determined that Thomas was near the Jackson address. Agents located her and the phone she confessed to using to send the texts.