A woman has been jailed for accidentally killing her boyfriend in a botched YouTube prank

An American woman has been sentenced to six months behind bars and on house arrest for shooting her boyfriend dead in a botched video intended to be uploaded to YouTube.

Monalisa Perez, now 20, was asked by Pedro Ruiz, 22, to fire a gun from 30 centimetres away, as he believed a thick book he held in front of his chest would stop the bullet from wounding him.

However, the bullet pierced the book, killing Ruiz last year. Mother-of-two Perez later pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

Minnesota Judge Jeffrey Remick set out the terms agreed under plea bargaining on Wednesday. Perez will:

Serve a 180-day jail term. This will be an alternating 10 days in jail and 10 days out for the first six months, amounting to 90 days behind bars. The remaining 90 days can be served in home confinement. The jail time can be served in South Dakota, where she now lives.

Serve 10 years of supervised probation.

Be banned for life from owning firearms.

Make no financial gain from the case.

The sentencing is below state guidelines but Norman County Attorney James Brue said ‘the reality [is] that this foolish stunt was dreamed up, planned and executed by Pedro Ruiz, and the defendant wrongfully and tragically relied on his assurances that the stunt was safe.’

Perez and Ruiz had posted a number of their pranks to a YouTube channel in a quest for internet fame. However, this stunt was the most extreme. On the day of the incident, Perez fired a Desert Eagle handgun from close range while Ruiz held an encyclopaedia in front of his chest.

The couple's three-year-old child and nearly 30 onlookers watched as she fired a fatal bullet. Ruiz was pronounced dead at the scene at their home. Perez was pregnant with their second child at the time.