Sherri Papini SENTENCED to PRISON – A California mother who claimed she was kidnapped and tortured for three weeks in 2016 — but was actually staying with an ex-boyfriend 600 miles from her home — has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for her elaborate hoax.
According to the Record Searchlight, prosecutors asked for an 18-month sentence followed by three years on probation, but Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb decided on a longer sentence for the so-called “super Mom,” Sherri Papini.
Papini pleaded guilty in April to two counts of mail fraud and making false statements that led to thousands of man-hours searching for her alleged “kidnappers” — and to her receiving $30,000 in victim’s compensation.
Sherri Papini: California ‘Super Mom’ Who Faked Her Own Kidnapping SENTENCED to PRISON
The plea agreement called for eight months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, but Papini’s attorney previously said the shame and embarrassment of what she did is enough; they asked for one month in prison and seven months under house arrest.
Prosecutors disagreed.
“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.” the prosecutors wrote, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Papini has also been ordered to pay more than $300,000 restitution to the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI.
Before her plea, she was facing 34 counts of mail fraud, with a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, and another five years for lying to the FBI.
Papini was reported missing on November 2, 2016, and found 22 days later, emaciated and with cuts and bruises all over her body. She told investigators that two Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint and provided descriptions for a sketch artist.
Investigators later learned via DNA that she was with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa, far away from her Shasta County home.
The former boyfriend gave investigators information about her stay with him and said the two communicated with one another over prepaid cell phones for nearly a year before Papini executed her fake kidnapping plan.
After Papini’s guilty plea in April, her husband, Keith Papini, filed for divorce.
Sherri Papini sentenced to 18 months in prison for faking her own kidnapping in 2016
A Northern California mother of two was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison for faking her own kidnapping so she could go back to a former boyfriend, which led to a three-week, multi-state search before she resurfaced on Thanksgiving Day in 2016.
Sherri Papini, 40, pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of mail fraud and making false statements to federal agents about circumstances surrounding the imagined kidnapping, in a deal that lowered her maximum possible sentence from 25 years and included more than $300,000 in restitution payments, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.
Monday’s sentencing hearing came more than five years after Papini’s widely publicized disappearance prompted a three-week search that spanned multiple states ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in 2016, and about six months after her arrest this past March.
Papini’s defense attorney and probation officers had previously argued for a one-month sentence and seven months of supervised home detention, while prosecutors pushed for a full term in prison.
But Senior U.S. District Judge William Shubb said he opted for an 18-month sentence in order to deter others.
The judge said he also considered “the sheer number of people who were impacted.”
Papini, who was emotional throughout the proceedings, quietly answered, “Yes, sir,” when the judge asked if she understood the sentence.
The money Papini owes covers material losses to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation — as both law enforcement agencies were involved searching for Papini when she seemingly disappeared, and later, the “abductors” she claimed held her captive — in addition to the California Victim Compensation Board and Social Security Administration, according to the Department of Justice. Papini collected nearly $130,000 in disability payments since the kidnapping hoax and has received psychiatric care for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder totaling at least $30,000 in value.
“Papini’s kidnapping hoax was deliberate, well planned, and sophisticated,” prosecutors wrote in their court filing. And she was still falsely telling people she was kidnapped, prosecutors said, months after she pleaded guilty to staging the abduction and lying to the FBI about it.
In a responding court filing, defense attorney William Portanova described Papini as “outwardly sweet and loving, yet capable of intense deceit.”
