Sherri Papini, the California mother who faked her 2016 kidnapping in a hoax uncovered with the help of advances in DNA technology, was sentenced to a year and a half in prison Monday, the Justice Department said in a statement. .
Judge William B. Shubb ruled that Papini, 40, would have to serve 18 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release after admitting to the prank and pleading guilty in April to mail fraud and making false statements. He was also ordered to pay nearly $310,000 in restitution.
The sentence was much longer than the lawyers had asked for. Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence her to eight months in prison, while the defense asked for one month in jail and seven months of house arrest.
The charges date back to November 2016, when Papini was reported missing after going for a jog near her home in Northern California’s Shasta County. Three weeks later, she was found injured and alone on a highway about 140 miles away. She told police she had been kidnapped and tortured by two masked, Hispanic women who chained her to a closet, held her at gunpoint and pointed a heated tool at her.
The accusations led authorities to conduct an extensive search for the alleged Hispanic kidnappers who have been on the loose for several years. He also received more than $30,000 from the state in victim compensation funds.
However, her story fell apart when investigators in 2020 linked DNA from her clothing to an ex-boyfriend, who later admitted the alleged abduction was a hoax.
In their sentencing brief, federal prosecutors said the prank wasted resources and caused police to investigate innocent targets.
“Papini planned and executed an elaborate kidnapping hoax and then continued to perpetuate her false statements for years after her return, without regard for the harm she caused to others,” prosecutors said in the filing. “As a result, state and federal investigators devoted limited resources to Papini’s case for nearly four years before independently learning the truth: that she was not kidnapped and tortured.”
“Papini made innocent people the targets of a criminal investigation,” prosecutors added. “She left the public in fear of her supposed Spanish captors who supposedly remained at large.”
In the defense’s sentencing brief, Papini’s lawyer noted that she admitted to the hoax and said her reputation had suffered enough.
“Sherri’s years of denial are now definitely over. Her name is now synonymous with this awful farce. There is no escape,” attorney William Portanova wrote in the filing.
“It is hard to imagine a more brutal public exposure of a person’s broken inner self. At this point, the punishment is already severe and resembles life imprisonment,” he added.
Outside court on Monday, Portanova tried to distance the current Papini from the one who committed the crime.
“Whatever happened five years ago is a different Sherri Papini than you see here today,” she said.
The break in the case came in 2020, when investigators took unknown male DNA from the clothes he was wearing and tested it using the technology known as genetic genealogy. DNA was linked to a family member of Papini’s ex-boyfriend, and investigators took DNA from his ex-boyfriend to confirm him as a match, according to a 55-page affidavit released earlier this year.
In an interview with investigators, the ex-boyfriend admitted to helping Papini “escape” what he described as an abusive relationship and housing her at his Southern California home, the affidavit states. She said she had self-harmed, cut her hair and asked him to brandish a wood-burning tool at her as part of the ruse, the affidavit says.
Investigators corroborated the ex-boyfriend’s account through multiple means, including phone records, his work schedule, rental car receipts, odometer records, toll records and an interview with his cousin, who saw Papini at the home.
Authorities confronted Papini with the new information and warned her that lying to authorities is a crime. However, she stuck to her original story of two Hispanic kidnappers and denied seeing her ex-boyfriend, the affidavit states.
Authorities announced charges against her in March 2022, and she pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal a month later. Her husband also filed for divorce and custody of their two children, saying he was “not acting rationally,” court records show.
In court in April, Papini said she was in treatment for anxiety, depression and PTSD starting in 2016 and also struggled in high school.
“I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and deeply sorry for the pain I have caused my family, my friends, all the good people who have suffered needlessly because of my story and those who have worked so hard to help me ». Papini said in her statement. “I will work the rest of my life to make up for what I have done.”
