US woman jailed 18 months for faking own kidnapping
- Sherri Papini had staged the abduction so she could go back to her ex-boyfriend, sparking a three-week search across several states
- She was also ordered to pay over US$300,000 in restitution for the costs of the search and for disability payments she received after she resurfaced
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 last spring to staging the abduction and lying to the FBI about it. As part of a plea bargain, she is required to pay more than US$300,000 in restitution.
Probation officers and Papini’s lawyer had recommended that she spend a month in custody and seven months in supervised home detention, while prosecutors wanted her to serve the eight months behind bars. But Senior US District Judge William Shubb said he opted for an 18-month sentence to deter others.
The judge said he considered the seriousness of the offence and “the sheer number of people who were impacted.” They included law enforcement officers who searched for her, the community that believed her for four years, those who lived in fear because of her fake story of being abducted by two Hispanic women, and the Latino community that was falsely viewed with suspicion.
There was a community that lived in fear. … Miss Papini took money from real victims
“The nation is watching,” Shubb said, paraphrasing prosecutors’ argument in a court filing. “They need to be sent the right message … We have to make sure crime doesn’t pay.”