A former model who abducted a baby by posing as a film casting director and luring the tot with a fake listing on Craigslist is now a mother herself living in New York City.
Michelle Gopaul, 35, claims that she stole the one-month-old girl because she had told her ex-boyfriend that she was pregnant and felt the need to produce an infant.
She posted an ad for an 'Indian Baby' to star in a fictitious Bollywood film and abducted the baby who showed up for the fake audition in Toronto, Canada.
Gopaul, from Queens, New York, blames her actions on a mental health crisis and claimed that she felt immediate remorse and turned the baby into the police later that night.
She was jailed for two and half years for child abduction and later appeared on an MTV reality show called 'One Bad Choice' about young people grappling with their worst decisions.
Gopaul, an aspiring singer, lives with her husband, Timothy Maisonneuve, 34, and their daughter Heaven, four, and her stepdaughters London, eight, and Italy, eight, in Queens.
She says she has moved on from her shocking crime after her release from prison in 2013.
"Of course I feel remorse."I've apologized, but it's not enough to fix what happened."I try not to dwell on it." Gopaul says she's an entirely different person now, and that as a mother she constantly worries about her own daughter's safety."When I used to go food shopping, I always make sure my friend watches her closely because I never know if someone might take her."Gopaul initially lied about being pregnant in April 2010 as a way to get back at her boyfriend's friends who she believed were trying to break up the relationship.
The lie spiraled into an elaborate story with Gopaul posting a sonogram on her Facebook account.
"I lied about being pregnant as a prank to get back at my boyfriend's friends for always trying to spread rumors about us.
"They were always trying to break us up.
"We eventually broke up in June of 2010, but once I made a second post on Facebook saying I'd had the baby, he saw that and he kept texting me."I was trying to organize it so that I would have a baby to show him so he'd leave me alone."I only wanted the baby for a few minutes, I didn't want to do any type of kidnapping.
"As soon as I took the child I wanted to give her back, but there was so much fear.
"I had a bad breakdown because I felt really guilty."I turned the baby into the police that night, but I lost my passport, so I couldn't leave the country.
"I turned myself into the Toronto police the next day, which is why I got such a light sentence." Gopaul was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on April 1 2011 after being remanded for three months in protective custody.
This video was filmed in July 2021.