Sherri Papini, California Mom Who Faked Her Own Kidnapping, Sentenced To 18 Months

SACRAMENTO, CA — Sherri Papini, the married mother of two who faked her own kidnapping so she could get back with an ex-boyfriend, was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison, according to reports. She pleaded guilty in April to mail fraud and making false statements, and must pay over $300,000 in restitution, authorities said.

“The public needs to know that there will be more than a slap on the wrist for committing financial fraud and making false statements to law enforcement,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Veronica Alegria and Shelley Weger wrote in a court filing, according to the Associated Press.

Papini, 39, of Redding, disappeared Nov. 2, 2016, and was reported missing after she never picked up her kids at daycare. Her cellphone with earbuds was found at an intersection.

An extensive search ensued for her in Shasta County, elsewhere in California, as well as in several other states. Twenty-two days later, on Thanksgiving, she was found battered and bruised, but alive, along a freeway in Yolo County near Woodland. She had various bindings on her body and a brand on her right shoulder.

Papini told law enforcement that two Hispanic women abducted her at gunpoint and held her captive. She described her kidnappers to an FBI sketch artist, and law enforcement agencies began a search for the abductors based on her description.

“An entire community believed the hoax and lived in fear that Hispanic women were roving the streets to abduct and sell women," prosecutors wrote, according to the Associated Press.

But investigators eventually determined Papini made the story up, federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California have said. In 2020, DNA on her clothes pointed investigators toward an ex-boyfriend, according to court documents previously obtained by NBC News.

Papini was staying with the former boyfriend in Costa Mesa and wounded herself to support her lies, prosecutors said. She asked the ex-boyfriend for assistance and said she needed to get away, he told investigators. He picked her up in Redding, the FBI wrote in court documents.

The man said he didn’t know what their final plan would be or whether the two would rekindle their relationship, authorities said in court documents. At one point, Papini asked him to brand her, and he did so using a wood-burning tool, court documents said. She later asked him to drive her back to Northern California.

When presented with evidence in August 2020 that she wasn't kidnapped, Papini insisted her story was true, even after a warning that it is a crime to lie to federal agents, authorities said.

“It is hard to imagine a more brutal public revelation of a person’s broken inner self," defense attorney William Portanova said, according to the Associated Press.

Papini has offered no rationale for her actions, which stumped even independent mental health experts, who said her actions didn't conform with any typical diagnosis, the Associated Press reported.

Judge William B. Shubb called Papini a “manipulator” who lied hundreds of times to a psychiatrist about whether she was kidnapped, The Sacramento Bee reported, and would have kept lying, had she not been caught.

Papini requested and received about $30,000 in state victim assistance money from 2017 through 2021, including for therapy visits and for an ambulance that took her to a hospital. Authorities wasted countless hours following leads in a fruitless endeavor to bring the mother home to her family, prosecutors said.

Now, she must pay $309,902 in restitution for losses incurred by the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to authorities. Her prison term will be followed by 36 months of supervised release, authorities said.

Shubb said he opted for the 18-month sentence in order to deter others, and ordered Papini to report to prison Nov. 8, according to the Associated Press.

Papini was emotional throughout the proceedings and quietly answered, “Yes, sir,” when the judge asked if she understood the sentence, the Associated Press reported. Previously she was in tears as she gave a statement to the court accepting responsibility and admitting her guilt.

“What was done cannot be undone," she said, according to the Bee. "It can never be erased. I am not choosing to stay frozen like I was in 2016. I am choosing to commit to healing the parts of myself that were so very broken. I am choosing to humbly accept responsibility.”