'Mom influencer' convicted of lying about couple trying to abduct her kids
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Katie Sorensen told her followers in December 2020 that she didn’t want to talk about strangers nearly kidnapping her two young children about a week before. But, wanting to warn other parents and spur them to vigilance, the self-identified “mom influencer” nevertheless described the incident in Instagram videos that were viewed more than 4.5 million times in less than two weeks.
“I’m not ready to share this story, but I know it’s important,” she said.
On Wednesday, more than two years after posting those videos, Sorensen, 31, was convicted of filing a false police report at the end of a trial in which prosecutors said she made up the entire incident. After a week-long trial in Sonoma County Superior Court, jurors found her guilty of the misdemeanor while acquitting her of two other counts of falsely reporting a crime to government officials. She faces up to six months in jail when she is sentenced in June.
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“This verdict will enable us to hold Ms. Sorensen accountable for her crime, while at the same time helping to exonerate the couple that was falsely accused of having attempted to kidnap two young children,” Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said in a news release. “The case is also important in that it illustrates the importance of using social media responsibly.”
In a statement to The Washington Post, defense attorney Charles Dresow said that Sorensen is “grateful” that jurors acquitted her of two of the three charges against her.
On Dec. 7, 2020, Sorensen went to a Michaels craft store in Petaluma, Calif., with her two children to get materials to make holiday gifts, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. After buying a few items, she returned to her car, loaded her children inside and drove out of the Michaels parking lot. A few minutes later, she called police to report that a couple had tried to abduct her children.
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About a week later, Sorensen posted the Instagram videos, which have since been deleted, in which she added “significant details” that she hadn’t disclosed to police, prosecutors said. She also told an expanded account to KTVU around the same time, telling a reporter that a man and a woman followed her while she and her children roved around the store. At one point, she claimed to have heard the man, whom she’d noticed staring at her in the parking lot before going into Michaels, describing her children’s physical features, possibly to someone on the phone.
She told the station the couple waited in line behind her, even though they didn’t buy anything, and then followed her outside, where the man reached out like he was trying to grab the stroller. Sorensen said she screamed.
The couple fled to their car and took off, she told the TV station. Then, she claimed, another man in a nearby white van rushed up behind her before getting back into his vehicle and driving away.
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“I saw these people, they didn’t look necessarily clean cut,” she told the station. “I felt uncomfortable around them, and instead of making them uncomfortable with my discomfort, I chose to remain in my discomfort.”
Sorensen’s public accounts on Instagram and TV spurred police to reinterview her, prosecutors said. During the follow-up, she identified a couple in Michaels surveillance footage as the would-be kidnappers. After identifying the couple, investigators determined Sorensen’s account was a lie that was “resoundingly contradicted” by the couple and surveillance footage.
In April 2021, Sorensen was charged with three misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting a crime to government officials.
During the trial, prosecutors accused Sorensen, who had created a “mommy blog,” of lying to police about the attempted kidnapping to boost her notoriety as an influencer, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported. On the stand, Sorensen denied the accusation, telling jurors that she misunderstood what happened both inside Michaels and out in the parking lot. She testified that she truly thought her children were in danger but later realized she’d made a mistake.
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The woman whom Sorensen had accused of trying to kidnap her children also testified, telling jurors that nothing seemed amiss when she and her husband popped into the arts-and-crafts store to buy a Nativity scene 2½ weeks before Christmas, according to the Press Democrat’s coverage of the trial. But because of Sorensen’s baseless accusations, the woman said they have been permanently smeared.
“We were forever labeled child abductors,” she testified.
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Source: The Washington Post
