‘Super mom’ Sherri Papini sentenced to 18 months in prison for California kidnapping hoax

Calling her a manipulator and habitual liar, a federal judge on Monday sentenced Sherri Papini to 18 months in prison, ending a six-year saga that began when the Redding-area mom faked her own kidnapping and then shocked the world when she returned three weeks later with an outlandish tale of being abducted at gunpoint by two Latino women.

Inside the federal courthouse in Sacramento, Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb called Papini a “manipulator” who lied to police, lied to her own family, lied to her community and then lied to her psychiatrist hundreds of times over. He said he had no doubt she would have continued to lie if she hadn’t been caught.

He said Papini needed to be punished to deter other “copycat” criminals.

“We have to send a message that crime doesn’t pay,” Shubb said.

Papini’s attorney, William Portanova, had argued for a one-month prison sentence, with seven more in home custody.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Veronica Alegria and Shelley Weger asked for an eight-month prison sentence, writing in court papers that “there needs to be just punishment for her conduct.”

Federal probation officials had recommended a one-month sentence in custody, followed by seven months of home detention.

But Shubb said he needed to send a message.

“People don’t like to be conned,” Shubb said as Papini stood in his 14th-floor courtroom in downtown Sacramento as Portanova tried to comfort her.

“And I don’t believe those people who were deceived would believe that one month or eight months is sufficient.”

Judge: ‘That restitution is never going to be paid’

The judge noted that Papini had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in victims funding and other payments — including Social Security disability payments — as well as more than $49,000 from a GoFundMe account set up after the purported kidnapping.

“If I get away with it, I’ll get $49,000,” Shubb said a copycat might think. “If I don’t get away with it, I’ll spend one month or eight months.”

He ordered her to pay $309,902.23 in restitution but said there is little hope the 40-year-old Papini will be able to repay the money.

“Let’s be realistic about it,” the judge said. “That restitution is never going to be paid.

“That $300,000 she’s going to be ordered to pay will never be paid unless she wins the lottery.”

Portanova conceded as much.

“As she stands here today, she’s broke,” Portanova said.

Papini could have faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the false statements charge and a 20-year sentence and fine of $250,000 on the mail fraud count, but the plea agreement Portanova negotiated with prosecutors called for a much more lenient sentence.

Sending a message to would-be copycats

Shubb ordered Papini to report for prison by 2 p.m. on Nov. 8, and said he would recommend she be placed in a California institution, although that is up to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Papini seemed emotional throughout the hearing, reading a statement to the judge with her voice breaking at times.

After Shubb sentenced her to prison, Papini seemed taken aback, turning away from Portanova and staring off silently into the courtroom gallery, where her parents, other family members and friends had gathered.

“Look at these people here for you,” Portanova whispered to her as she began to make her way out of court.

Family members, including Papini’s sister, Sheila Koester, declined to comment. Portanova said Papini would not be commenting to the media.

After the 55-minute hearing, she walked out into the hallway and began to receive hugs from family members as Portanova told reporters that he and his legal team were convinced that she has come to accept what she did after years of lying.

“We believe she has changed,” Portanova said, adding that he still has never heard her explain why she staged the kidnap.

“It’s like trying to figure out why a suicide occurs,” he said.

Portanova argued in court that he had been “brutally frank” about Papini’s lies and “her own craziness,” and said she had finally admitted her guilt to his legal team before she pleaded guilty earlier this year.

Shubb asked about claims from prosecutors that she has continued to tell people she really was kidnapped, but Portanova dismissed that as “gripes” or “gossip” from people with ulterior motives.

He added that normally he might argue for a lenient sentence for a client because they have young children, but would not do so for Papini.

“I can’t say that here, because these are the same children she abandoned,” Portanova said, describing his client as “this broken woman, who did a terrible thing to herself, to her family, to her community.”

But Alegria argued that Papini “is a skillful liar and manipulator.”

“At this point, she would say and do anything to mitigate her punishment,” Alegria said.

Papini’s statement in court: ‘I am guilty of lying’

Shubb handed down the sentence after Papini, dressed in a black suit with light blue sweater top and her blonde hair pulled back into a bun, delivered an emotional statement to the judge admitting how much harm her hoax had caused.

“Your honor, I stand before you humbled by this court, truly honored and grateful you are allowing me to speak,” the statement began. “I am so sorry to the many people who have suffered because of me — the people who sacrificed for the broken woman I was, the people who gave willingly to help me in a time that I so desperately needed help. I thank you all.”

“You’ve seen so much dishonor laid before you here in this room,” Papini said before Shubb. “People who are not willing to walk through the shame to say they are guilty. I am not one of them, your honor.

“I am guilty of lying. I am guilty of dishonor. I stand before you willing to accept. To repent and to concede. I trust in this court. I trust the officers handling my release and I trust in you, your honor, to see me, to hear me.

“What was done cannot be undone. It can never be erased. I am not choosing to stay frozen like I was in 2016. I am choosing to commit to healing the parts of myself that were so very broken.

”I am choosing to humbly accept responsibility.”

Papini’s story was a national sensation

The sentencing ends a six-year drama that began Nov. 2, 2016, near the Papini family home in the Shasta County community of Mountain Gate, where Papini was reported missing after going for an afternoon run.

National media and tabloids flocked to the tale, dubbing her a “super mom” and splashing photos of her onto their front pages. On Monday, about two dozen journalists swarmed Papini and Portanova, as he escorted her from an SUV to the entrance of the Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse downtown. A man on a bike who rode past the scrum shouted, “Guilty! Guilty!”

After the sentencing, a group of a half-dozen friends or family members formed a barrier around her and held her hand as a swarm of journalists peppered her with questions that she wouldn’t answer as Portanova led her back to their SUV.

The disappearance of the petite, blond woman sparked a massive search for her and her possible abductors, with investigators tracking down old boyfriends and acquaintances, the family offering a $40,000 reward and community members raising money online and organizing support rally for her.

Twenty-two days after she disappeared, Papini was found wandering on a Yolo County road on Thanksgiving morning, partially bound with a chain, with bruises and her hair cut short, and a brand burned into one arm.

She told investigators she had been taken at gunpoint by two Hispanic women who beat and tortured her and kept her chained to a pole in a closet. She told detectives her would-be abductors branded her shoulder as if she was livestock, and told her she was going to be sold to a cop.

She described being fed only once a day, meals of rice or tortillas and sometimes apples.

“They would play music loudly,” she told investigators. “That really annoying Mexican music. And they would watch TV. ...

“There was a fireplace, I could smell it. I could hear that sound, you know when you move the handle to open the fireplace. It made like a creaky sound ... and it was cold. It was always cold. And it seemed like it rained almost every night.”

Her tale sparked concern among Hispanic women in the Redding area, who feared they might be blamed for her abduction, and law enforcement vowed to track down the kidnappers, coming up with composite drawings to help.

Papini collected thousands after ordeal

Papini settled back into her life, collecting more than $30,000 from the California Victims Compensation Board for her ordeal, attending PTSD therapy sessions and using $1,000 of the funds to purchase new blinds for her home.

She collected another $127,783.50 in Social Security disability benefits through last March for her trauma.

But some investigators always felt there was something off about her story, and law enforcement continued probing. In October 2017, nearly a year after her disappearance, investigators announced they had found male DNA on the clothing she was wearing when she was found and it was entered into a state database.

More than two years later, in March 2020, investigators got a hit: the DNA matched that of an ex-boyfriend of Papini’s in Southern California, and law enforcement went through his trash, finding an “Honest Honey Green Tea” bottle that contained DNA they matched to the sample from her clothes.

Court documents say the ex-boyfriend admitted helping her run away after she told him she was being abused by her husband, and investigators say she hid out for three weeks at his Costa Mesa apartment.

The FBI questioned her after that, warning Papini that it was a crime to lie to federal agents, but she stuck to her story and last March was arrested and charged with 35 counts of mail fraud and lying to federal agents.

She spent five nights in the Sacramento County Main Jail before being released, and in April she accepted a deal and agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of lying to the FBI.

This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 7:36 AM.