Sherri Papini got 18 months in jail for faking her own kidnapping in 2016
Sherri Papini, a California woman, was sentenced to 18 months in jail on Monday after she admitted to staging her own kidnapping and lying to the FBI.
Papini was recommended for an eight month sentence by prosecutors last week.
Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed on September 12 in U.S. District Court for Eastern California 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.” The panel also suggested that she be placed under three years of supervised release following her prison term.
After hearing the evidence, U.S. District Judge William Shubb sentenced Papini to 36 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. The California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI are all owed a total of $309,902 and she must turn herself in by November 8th.
After Papini’s sentencing, his attorney William Portanova deemed it a “fair.” punishment.
While pleading for leniency in his client’s sentence, he argued, “Whatever happened five years ago, that’s a different Sherri Papini than the person you see here today.”
As of Monday, Papini had already left the courthouse without saying anything.
In April, Papini pled guilty to mail fraud and lying to a law enforcement official, two of the 35 charges against him.
She was not accused of a crime because she faked her kidnapping, but rather because of the lies she told for years thereafter.
Mother-of-two from Redding, California, Papini, was finally apprehended after being missing since November 2016. It was three weeks later on Thanksgiving that she was found, about 145 miles south of where she had disappeared; she had bruises that officials now suspect were self-inflicted, and she had a mark on her shoulder that she said was from her captors.