A Netflix documentary titled A Toxic Love Story revisits the case that once led to Michelle Hadley’s arrest in Anaheim, California. According to E! News, Hadley was accused in 2016 of stalking her ex-fiancé Ian Diaz’s pregnant wife, Angela Connell, and of trying to set her up for sexual assault through Craigslist posts.
Hadley was arrested after Connell reported an alleged garage attack, but investigators later determined that Connell had fabricated the messages and the scheme herself. Orange County prosecutors said Hadley was ultimately an innocent victim of a “diabolical scheme,” and the charges against her were dropped in January 2017 after she had spent 88 days in jail.
Connell later pleaded guilty in October 2017 to charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment, perjury and forgery, along with misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting a crime to a peace officer. She was sentenced to five years in prison and, according to prosecutors, had also lied about having cancer and about being a lawyer.
Diaz was convicted in 2023 of cyberstalking, conspiracy, perjury and obstruction and is now serving a 10-year federal prison sentence. The Department of Justice said he worked with Connell to frame Hadley in an effort to keep a condo they had previously bought together.
