

She may have expected that the kidnapping hoax would bring her “fame and fortune,” said Dr. Papini’s organization and planning would seem to make conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression an unlikely explanation, two mental health experts said independently.īoth cautioned that they have not examined Papini and that many factors in the case remain unknown to the public. The former boyfriend told investigators they didn’t have sex while she stayed with him. Prosecutors say her faked kidnapping wasn’t impulsive, and that she planned it for more than a year without her husband knowing. Papini said Monday that she has been receiving psychiatric care for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder ever since her return - more than $30,000 worth of treatment for which she billed a state victim compensation fund and which is now part of her restitution. He suggested “a very complicated mental health situation,” and said her long-delayed acceptance of responsibility and punishment is part of the healing process. Her attorney, William Portanova, said last week that he doubts even she knows. Papini has offered no rationale for why she did it. The married mother of two kept lying about it as recently as August 2020 when in fact there was no kidnapping, she admitted in her guilty plea. She had other bruises and rashes on many parts of her body, ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, and burns on her left forearm. She had bindings on her body and self-inflicted injuries including a swollen nose and blurred “brand” on her right shoulder. Three weeks later, he dropped her off along Interstate 5 nearly 150 miles (240 kilometers) from her home. Papini was actually staying with a former boyfriend nearly 600 miles (966 kilometers) away in Southern California’s Orange County.

That includes the cost of the search for her that covered several Western states, and the subsequent investigation into the “two Hispanic women” she said had kidnapped her at gunpoint.

She also agreed to pay restitution topping $300,000. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence on the low end of the sentencing range, estimated to be between eight and 14 months in custody, down from the maximum 25 years for the two charges. Papini agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors reached last week and is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. “Did you lie to government agents when you told them you were kidnapped?” Shubb continued. “Were you kidnapped?” he asked her later in the hearing. District Judge William Shubb asked her how she was feeling. “I feel very sad,” she said tearfully when Senior U.S. Sherri Papini, 39, of Redding, offered no explanation for her elaborate hoax during the half-hour court hearing. (AP) - A Northern California woman pleaded guilty Monday to faking her own kidnapping and lying to the FBI about it, leaving her motive unanswered in the carefully planned hoax that set off a massive three-week search before she resurfaced on Thanksgiving Day in 2016.
