The girlfriend of disgraced hedge-fund manager Samuel Israel III has pleaded guilty to helping him skip bail by faking his suicide.

Debra Ryan told a federal judge in New York on Tuesday that Israel woke her up the night before he was due to report to a Boston prison in June and asked her to help him flee. She said they packed an RV, which was later found abandoned on a bridge outside New York with the words "suicide is painless" written on the hood. Israel surrendered to police about three weeks later. He is currently undergoing a psychological evaluation before he begins serving a 20-year term for fraud. 

Ryan, who was arrested the day after her boyfriend fled, faces up to ten years in prison for aiding and abetting a failure to report to prison, though prosecutors are expecting a more lenient sentence of four-to-ten months.