A California woman who faked her own kidnapping in 2016 and received $30,000 in victim’s assistance, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a press release.
Sherri Papini, who was arrested in March for making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and engaging in mail fraud, will additionally have to 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 the DOJ. She will serve 36 months of supervised release following her year-and-a-half sentence, the press release stated. (RELATED: Lawyer Who Exposed Monica Lewinsky Affair Dead At 76)
“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,” prosecutors noted in a sentencing memorandum filed Sept. 12 in U.S. District Court for Eastern California, NBC News reported.
NEW: Sherri Papini, the California woman who pleaded guilty to faking her own kidnapping and lying about it to the FBI, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. https://t.co/sMhi3i9m63
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 19, 2022
Papini was reported missing from Shasta County, California, on November 2, 2016, and “reappeared” 22 days later with various bindings and an imprinted mark on her right shoulder, the DOJ release noted. She claimed at the time that two Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint and abused her.
Four years later, DNA was tested and linked to a family member of Papini’s ex-boyfriend, according to CNN. Analyzing phone records, car rental receipts, and interviewing the ex-boyfriend’s cousin, uncovered Papini had actually been staying with her ex, the outlet reported. Investigators also found that she harmed herself to make her statements more believable, the DOJ stated.