Australian grandmother Ann Marcia Casey's life as a fugitive today came to an end in a US court room.
US authorities took her into custody ahead of her deportation to Adelaide to face 17-year-old social security fraud charges.
Casey, 60, fled to the US in 1993 after stealing a friend'sBritish passport in Adelaide.
She boarded a plane to Los Angeles with just $800 in her pocket and assumed her friend's identity.
Casey eventually settled in the historic Civil War township of Bamberg, South Carolina, married local man Michael Harris, took his surname and using the stolen passport, became a US citizen.
The fugitive's secret life unravelled last year when the Australian Federal Police were tipped off about Casey's whereabouts and the US Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were alerted.
In the District Court in South Carolina on Tuesday Judge Joseph Anderson Jr sentenced Casey to one year's probation after she pleaded guilty to a charge of using a false identity to become a US citizen.
Casey was immediately taken into ICE custody and will be held in the US prison system ahead of her deportation.
In Adelaide she faces 182 counts of social security fraud.
South Australian police believe she used the aliases Marcia Driscoll Coventry, Marcia Driscoll Hill, Marcia Hill, Marcia Bignell and Ann Peacock to illegally obtain in excess of A$41,000 before she fled to the US in 1993.
In court on Tuesday Casey, who worked in Bamberg as a caregiver for a man with Alzheimer's, said she was sorry for her actions.
In an interview with South Carolina's Times and Democrat newspaper last year, Casey admitted to stealing the British passport belonging to her friend, Janette Webster, before embarking on the flight to the US.
"I picked the passport up off her coffee table," Casey told the newspaper.
"I'm the godmother of her twins. We've been friends since maybe 1985.
"... I panicked and I just left the country without thinking what it could mean."
Two of Casey's children and three grandchildren lived in the US with her. Another daughter lives in Australia.
