( CNN ) -- The Pennsylvania woman who resurfaced last month after being missing for 11 years has been sentenced to nearly a year in a Florida county jail , a court clerk said Wednesday . Brenda Heist , 54 , was ordered to serve 364 days for violating probation , said Lisa Ates , senior court clerk for the Santa Rosa County Circuit Court in Florida . Heist had been reported missing in Pennsylvania in 2002 . On February 15 , before she admitted she was the missing woman , Heist was arrested in Florida for falsely using the driver 's license of a woman for whom she had previously worked as a cleaning lady , according to police documents . Heist was living under the name Kelsie Smith . Daughter to mom : Rot in hell . Heist had been sentenced to three years of probation for the identity theft and for giving false information to a law enforcement officer . After release from jail in April , she failed to report to authorities and a warrant was put out for her arrest , police records say . Heist turned herself in to authorities in Key Largo , Florida , in May , informing them that she thought she might be wanted in another county . Friends tell different story of woman who reappeared . The responding officer checked her name and saw that she was listed as `` missing and possibly deceased '' from Lititz , Pennsylvania , according to the Monroe County Sheriff 's Office in Florida . Authorities in Florida then contacted Lititz Borough police , who confirmed her identity as a woman who had gone missing in 2002 . Heist last had been seen dropping off her children at school in Pennsylvania more than a decade ago . She was going through a divorce at the time and was struggling financially . After being approached by a two males and one female who saw her crying in a park , she decided , on a whim , to hitchhike down to Florida with them , said Detective John Schofield of the Lititz Borough Police Department . Opinion : Why there are more walk-away moms . She told police she was homeless for the first two years , living under bridges and eating food thrown out by restaurants after they closed . For the following seven years , she lived in a camper with a man she had met , she said . They made money as day laborers , cleaning boats and doing other odd jobs for which they did n't have to show identification and were paid in cash . After that relationship soured , Schofield said , she lived on the street again for another two years . `` Everything seemed to be going against her while she was on the street , '' Schofield said . `` She was just worn out and at the end of her rope . She did n't want to continue on with her secret life down there . '' Heist left behind her ex-husband and two children in Pennsylvania . Opinion : Reviled for living apart from my kids .
Brenda Heist , 54 , is ordered to serve 364 days for violating probation . She left her family behind 11 years ago . She was convicted this year of identity theft , but violated probation . In May , she turned herself in and identified herself as the missing woman .