NEW ORLEANS (AP) - 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.

Prosecutors say Thomas' former employer in Monroe, Louisiana, received text messages in November from a person claiming to have kidnapped Thomas. The texts threatened Thomas' life and demanded that $4,500 be delivered to a Jackson location.

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.