MOBILE, Ala. – As expected, a federal judge Monday accepted the sentence recommended by prosecutors for a woman convicted of international parental kidnapping in a case that drew headlines last year.
After a jury deadlocked in March, both sides agreed to allow Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock to decide the case against Haley Leah Harris, who took her daughter from the Orange Beach home of the child’s father and went to Mexico. The judge found her guilty of international parental kidnapping.
The girl, Kionni, was 3 years old at the time.
Beaverstock sentenced Harris to the time she had spent locked up following her return from Mexico in October 2025 until the judge agreed on June 15 to release her . Harris, 24, also will have to spend a year under supervision by the U.S. Probation Office. During that time, she will not be able to leave Oregon, where she now lives.
“It was a recommendation by the government that we thought was acceptable,” defense attorney Richard Shields
Shields said his client intends to appeal, and he added that he believes she has a good case on the central argument that the defense advanced at trial – that since there was no court order revoking her custody rights at the time she left with Kionni, she had every right to travel with her own daughter.
Kionni’s father, Bryce Haugen, submitted a written victim impact statement and said in court Monday that Harris had made his family’s life miserable for two weeks when they did not know where the child was.
The case drew the attention of some of Alabama’s highest elected leaders, who worked to try to secure Kionni’s return from Mexico.
While in jail in Alabama following her return, Harris gave birth to a baby she had with the man in Mexico she had gone to be with. Shields said his client has custody of that baby and remains engaged to the Mexican man. The conditions of the supervised release term include a mandate that Harris receive mental health treatment and that she have no contact with the victim or the victim’s family. Shields said Harris plans to seek joint custody of Kionni when her supervised release term ends.
“At some point, she’d like to go back and have a normal relationship with her daughter,” he said.