Nearly one year after being sentenced for faking her own kidnapping, Sherri Papini is back in the public eye.
According to People, Papini has been released from federal prison after serving 11 months of her 18-month sentence. Documentation received by People has revealed that Papini is now residing at a residential reentry facility in Sacramento County.
She is expected to be released from release from community confinement in late October. It’s unclear where she will go after that, or what her relationship is like with her ex-husband and two children.
As Mamas Uncut reported back in September 2022, months after Sherri Papini admitted the story of her kidnapping was a lie, the mom of two was sentenced for her crimes. According to BuzzFeed, Papini, now 40, had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release after pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI and committing mail fraud.
Additionally, Papini was ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI, BuzzFeed reported. Papini was to report to prison by November 8 to begin her sentence.
Sherri Papini Has Finally Been Sentenced After Lying to the World About Being Kidnapped—Her Sentence Is A lot Bigger Than Expected
CBS News reported that prosecutors initially sought eight months in prison. However, US District Judge William Shubb said that an 18-month sentence was necessary to deter others from doing something similar.
Whether you recognize the face or the name, Sherri Papini has become a controversial household name. And now her complicated story has seemingly come to an end.
Papini, as Mamas Uncut previously reported, was the 34-year-old mom from California who went on a jog and didn’t return for 22 days.
Sherri Papini Has Finally Admitted Her 22-Day Kidnapping Story Was a Lie
As the story goes, on November 2, 2016, Papini left her California home to go on a run. During that run, Papini mysteriously vanished and she was reported missing by her husband after she failed to pick up their kids from daycare like she normally did.
For 22 days, the search for Sherri Papini continued. Then on Thanksgiving Day 2016, Papini made her way to the side of Interstate 5 and flagged down a driver passing by nearly 150 miles from where she disappeared.
Papini was weak and battered with a swollen nose. Her hair had been chopped off and she claims that the “two Hispanic women” who allegedly abducted her branded her shoulder.
Now, she has accepted a plea deal and admitted her story of being kidnapped was all a hoax. According to the Sacramento Bee, Papini agreed to accept the plea deal on April 12.
The 39-year-old married mom has also issued a statement apologizing for her behavior.
“I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I’ve caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story, and those who worked so hard to try to help me,” Papini said in her statement. “I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done.”
As Mamas Uncut previously reported, since 2016, much of Papini’s case has remained a mystery, at least to the public that is. On March 3, Sherri Papini was arrested after investigators began to learn that Papini wasn’t telling the truth.
And as a result, the mom had been charged with lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state’s victim compensation board of $30,000. According to investigators, the 39-year-old’s story was an elaborate rouse to cover up her infidelity.
Investigators now believe Papini was really with her boyfriend in Orange Country, California, which is 600 miles from where she lived with her husband and children. Investigators believe she harmed herself in order to back up her claims of being kidnapped.
Her now ex-boyfriend revealed this information to investigators. Papini was then presented with the evidence against her in 2020. However, U.S. Attorney Phil Talbert’s office stated that “instead of retracting her kidnapping story, Papini continued to make false statements about her purported abductors.”
It remains unclear what type of punishment she will face now that she has signed the plea deal.