A 43-year-old Mexican national living in Los Angeles has pleaded guilty in federal court after fabricating a kidnapping story involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, a scheme prosecutors said was intended to discredit federal officers.
Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderón admitted Monday to staging the alleged abduction. She falsely claimed that armed bounty hunters had seized her outside a Jack in the Box and tried to force her to leave the United States voluntarily.
According to a Justice Department news release, Calderón on June 25, 2025, falsely told one person that “immigration” was taking her from or near a fast-food restaurant. She claimed officials had “turned the lights on,” threatened to break her vehicle’s window and were taking her into custody.
Two days later, Calderón used a blocked caller ID to contact another person affiliated with a tenants’ rights organization. She falsely said that “authorities” had taken her to San Ysidro, where she and others were pressured to sign voluntary removal documents, the DOJ said.
Calderón also told a third person that she had been transported to an unidentified warehouse and held there alongside other detainees.
Her family and attorneys later held a June 30 press conference to publicize the allegations. The fabricated account then generated inaccurate media reports about the supposed kidnapping.
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Although Calderón knew the reports were false, prosecutors said she did not correct them. Instead, she altered her appearance to suggest she had been mistreated, staged a fake release and shut off her phone from July 3 through July 5.
“Dangerous rhetoric that ICE agents are ‘kidnapping’ illegal immigrants is being recklessly peddled by politicians and echoed in the media to inflame the public and discredit our courageous federal agents,” United States Attorney Bill Essayli said last year.
A GoFundMe campaign was launched in connection with the claims but has since been removed.
Calderón was ultimately located in the parking lot of a Bakersfield shopping plaza on July 5. Even then, she continued to maintain that she had been kidnapped.
She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to “impede, obstruct, impair, and defeat the lawful function of Homeland Security Investigations.” Calderón faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, with sentencing scheduled for Feb. 8, 2027.
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