Years after lying to police investigators and saying that “two Hispanic women” abducted her while she was out for a jog, Sherri Papini, 39, has been charged with making false statements to law enforcement and mail fraud. She now faces up to 25 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.
California mom Sherri Papini accused of faking her 2016 disappearance. @KayleeHartung has more details on her arrest. https://t.co/kWY5S6eOU4 pic.twitter.com/m0VZTs40as
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 4, 2022
Papini was reported missing on November 2, 2016. She was found 22 days later – on Thanksgiving Day – on the side of the road approximately 150 miles from her home in Redding, California.
At the time, Papini told cops she was abducted by “two Hispanic women” and held at gunpoint. She even provided physical descriptions of her alleged kidnappers, so police could create a pair of sketches.
Sketches released by @FBISacramento in Sherri Papini kidnap case. Husband excluded as suspect, per @ShastaSheriff pic.twitter.com/rQPspo7VED
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) October 25, 2017
Since her disappearance, the United States Department of Justice learned that Papini was not, in fact, taken by force, but, instead, was staying with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa, California, a city between Huntington Beach and Irvine.
Sherri Papini even went as far as to harm herself to make her story more believable and continued to make false claims through August 2020. She also received more than...
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