KANSAS CITY — A Lawrence woman has been sentenced to three years of probation for forging her ex-husband’s signature on official documents and fleeing to Europe with her two daughters.
Thirty-four-year-old Samantha Elmer was ordered Tuesday to serve six months home confinement as part of her sentence for aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors say Elmer used the forged documents to obtain passports for her 9- and 11-year-old daughters.
Authorities say Elmer took the girls in October 2015 and boarded a flight from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago to Vienna, via Istanbul, ahead of a custody hearing and a trial on theft charges in Missouri. The girls’ father called police when the girls missed six days of school.
The girls were reunited in December 2015 with their father, who lives in Smithville, Missouri.
