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When Sherry Papini was found alone on the Interstate about 150 miles from her home on Thanksgiving Day in 2016, the Northern California mother told police she was abducted while jogging by two Spanish-speaking women with a gun and was stamped with a hot tool. Papini, whose husband said she weighed less than 90 pounds when she was found, told authorities how masked kidnappers kept her chained in a closet for three weeks in a case that sparked a national search.
But in reality, Papini was never abducted, according to the Justice Department. Instead, authorities found last month that Papini was staying with an ex-boyfriend and received more than $ 30,000 in money to help victims of the state as a result of what turned out to be a complex fraud, according to court documents. Authorities say the bruises and burns she received from her “kidnappers” are believed to have been caused by herself.
Now, the self-determined “super mother” of Reading, California, admits her big lie more than five years later.
The justice ministry said on Tuesday that Papini, 39, had signed a plea agreement “acknowledging that she had planned and participated in her own fraudulent abduction”. Papini, who was arrested on March 3rd, agreed to plead guilty to one charge of mail fraud and one charge of making false statements to a federal law enforcement official. She initially faced 34 charges of mail fraud.
Her lawyer, William Portanova, confirmed that Papini had signed the plea agreement before the Sacramento Bee, the first to tell the story.
“I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and I am so sorry for the pain I caused to my family, my friends, all the good people who suffered unnecessarily because of my story, and those who worked so hard to try to help me. help, “Papini said in a statement issued through Portanova. “I will work for the rest of my life to make amends.
Neither Portanova, a former federal prosecutor, nor Keith Papini, Sherry Papini’s husband, immediately responded to requests for comment early Wednesday. Portanova told Bee on Tuesday that her legal team “is taking this case in a whole new direction.”
“Everything that happened before today stops today,” he said.
If convicted of postal fraud, Papini faces a maximum legal sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000, according to the U.S. District of California Prosecutor’s Office. She faces up to five years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine if convicted of giving false testimony to a federal law enforcement officer.
Papini will pay more than $ 300,000 in restitution to local, state and federal agencies under the plea agreement. Prosecutors said they would recommend a reduction in sentences. A court hearing has not yet been scheduled for Papini to plead guilty, but Portanova told the Associated Press that she would likely present them next week.
On November 2, 2016, Papini went for a late morning jog while her husband was at work, then Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko told reporters. Her husband began to worry when she did not pick up their children from kindergarten or return home that evening. After he found her cell phone and headphones about a mile from their home, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office identified her as a missing person at risk.
As search and rescue teams conducted ground and air searches in California and several nearby states for three weeks, Papini’s family and friends begged for her safe return. A GoFundMe page created to support search and rescue efforts has raised more than $ 49,000. Her case has made national headlines, including in The Washington Post.
Then, at 4:30 a.m. on November 24, 2016, the sheriff’s office learned that Papini had been found safely near Interstate 5 in Yolo County – 146 miles south of her home – in what authorities describe as time as an “absolute miracle” on Thanksgiving. Keith Papini said in a statement to ABC’s “Good Morning America” that his wife weighed 87 pounds and “was covered in multicolored bruises, severe burns, red rashes and chain stains.” Her hair was cut and she was branded on her right shoulder, her husband said in November 2016.
“My reaction was extreme happiness and insurmountable nausea as my eyes and hands scanned her body. I was so relieved and disgusted at once,” Keith Papini said in a statement. “My Sherry has suffered a great deal, and all the visions that go through your mind about her appearance, I assure you, are not as vivid and horrible as reality.
The sheriff’s office released several details during Sherry Papini’s inauguration, but promised not to “rest until the kidnapper or sherry kidnappers are identified and brought to justice.”
But years after the alleged abduction, authorities concluded that Sherry Papini had invented everything.
“The investigation ultimately showed that this is a fake story fabricated by Papini,” said Philip A. Talbert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, in a statement last month. “In fact, Papini volunteered with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa and was injured to support her false allegations.
In August 2020, Papini was interviewed by a federal agent and a detective from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. She was then warned that it was a crime to lie to a federal agent, according to the Justice Department.
Investigators told her they found out she was staying with an ex-boyfriend for nearly 600 miles in his apartment in Costa Mesa, California, and that she was injured. FBI agents have found that items in the ex-boyfriend’s garage have DNA matching some collected from Papini’s clothes, court documents show. The man later told authorities he helped Papini “escape” when she claimed her husband was abusing her, according to court documents. No police reports of abuse have been filed, Bee said.
However, when Papini was presented with evidence that she had not been abducted, she did not withdraw her story. Instead, it doubled and “continued to make false statements about its alleged abductors,” the justice ministry said last month.
Authorities noted that the California Victim Compensation Council made 35 payments to Papini between 2017 and 2021 totaling more than $ 30,000 to help victims.
“Ultimately, the investigation revealed that there was no abduction and that the time and resources that could be used to investigate the actual crime, protect the community and provide resources to the victims were wasted based on the defendant’s conduct.” said Tolbert.
Portanova described her client’s case before the PA as “a very complicated mental health situation, but one that we have to deal with and deal with – and that includes admission, acceptance and punishment.” The lawyer admitted that it was still difficult for him to understand why Papini had falsified her own abduction.
“Honestly, I don’t know if anyone is doing it,” he said. “I don’t know if she knows.”
Lindsay Bever and Sarah Larimer contributed to this report.
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