A California wife and mother who faked her own kidnapping in 2016 has been released from prison after serving less than a year of her 18-month sentence.
Sherri Papini, 41, was released from federal prison last week and is currently under community confinement, People Magazine reported. She is currently living at a residential re-entry facility in Sacramento County, California.
Papini pleaded guilty in April to mail fraud and lying to a law enforcement officer, just two counts of a 35-count indictment, NBC News reported. Those charges were related to Papini’s actions after she faked her own kidnapping, rather than the faked kidnapping itself.
Prosecutors had requested eight months in prison for Papini’s plea deal, arguing that “A lesser sentence, such as the one month of imprisonment recommended by probation or home detention in lieu of incarceration, is not sufficient to achieve the purposes of sentencing.”
U.S District Judge William Shubb went further, sentencing Papini to 18 months in prison plus 36 months of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay $309,902 in restitution to the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI.
Papini’s counsel claimed she was a different person now.
“Whatever happened five years ago, that’s a different Sherri Papini than the person you see here today,” her attorney, William Portanova, said at the time.
Three weeks after Papini disappeared, she was found on the side of a Yolo County freeway with a chain around her waist and a “brand” on her shoulder, which she claimed had been put on her by her kidnappers.
“In truth, Papini had been voluntarily staying with a former boyfriend in Costa Mesa and had harmed herself to support her false statements,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a press release.
Papini originally told investigators that two Hispanic women kept her captive at gunpoint, and even worked with an FBI sketch artist to come up with images of the two women, which police used to search for them. It was DNA from her clothing that ultimately unraveled her story. DNA had been collected and put into a database that was routinely checked, NBC reported. It was this DNA that led to Papini’s ex-boyfriend.
When questioned, the ex-boyfriend, who has not been charged and thus has not been named, told investigators that Papini had told him she needed help and to get away, so he agreed to pick her up in Redding, California, and let her stay with him the entire time she was missing, according to FBI documents. The ex-boyfriend told investigators he didn’t know what Papini’s “final plan was” or if the situation meant they were getting back together.
The ex also said that Papini asked him to brand her using a wood-burning tool and eventually asked him to drive her back to Northern California.
“Investigators say the ex-boyfriend’s story was corroborated with car rental receipts and phone records, and the ex-boyfriend knew details not known to the public,” NBC reported. “The ex-boyfriend told investigators he initially thought he was just helping a friend, but after seeing the news about the later kidnapping claims he got worried, according to the affidavit.”