Woman who shot boyfriend dead in YouTube stunt jailed

CHICAGO: A judge in the US state of Minnesota sentenced a YouTube prankster to six months in prison for fatally shooting her boyfriend in a botched video stunt they hoped would go viral.

Monalisa Perez, a 20-year-old mother of two children, believed her boyfriend Pedro Ruiz would be shielded by a thick book as she shot him at close range last June in front of onlookers.

Ruiz, 22, died at the scene. Perez accepted an agreement with prosecutors in December and pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

Judge Jeffrey Remick followed the plea agreement recommendations in his sentencing, and allowed Perez to serve her prison time in 10-day increments over three years.

She is eligible to serve the final three months of her sentence in home confinement and is subject to 10 years of supervised probation.

Perez and Ruiz were recording the stunt for their YouTube channel which published videos of their daily lives and pranks.

Ruiz convinced Perez to shoot him from a foot away with a powerful Desert Eagle .50-caliber pistol while he held a 3.8cm thick book in front of his chest.

The young man, who had hoped for Internet fame, presented Perez with another book with a bullet hole on one side and no exit hole, as proof his plan would work, police said.

“Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever,” Perez wrote on Twitter prior to performing the stunt.