Keith Papini and Sherri Papini got married in 2009 and together have two young children- Tyler Papini And Violet Papini.
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More than five years after Sherri Papini claimed that she’d been kidnapped while out jogging in her rural Redding, Calif., neighborhood by “two Hispanic women,” the 39-year-old mother of two is finally admitting it was all a fabrication.
Her attorney, William Portanova, confirmed that Papini, who was arrested by federal authorities on March 3, signed a plea agreement in which she will plead guilty to counts of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud.
“I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I’ve caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me,” Papini said in a statement released through Portanova. “I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done.”
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Papini’s story began on Nov. 2, 2016, when she had said she’d gone out for a run and was kidnapped by the two armed, masked Hispanic women, whom she claimed had tortured her, branded her and kept her chained in a bedroom.
She was later found wandering in a parking lot 22 days later — on Thanksgiving Day. Her family, including her children ages 2 and 4, welcomed her back and the community of Redding, which had spent days searching for her, largely rallied around her.
But after investigating her alleged kidnapping, the DOJ found that Papini had fabricated the incident.
“In truth, Papini had been voluntarily staying with a former boyfriend in Costa Mesa and had harmed herself to support her false statements,” investigators with the Department of Justice said in a press release following her arrest.
Papini’s alleged staged kidnapping cost the California Victim’s Compensation Board over $30,000 in therapy visits and an ambulance trip, the statement said.
“The 22-day search for Sherri Papini and subsequent five-year search into who reportedly abducted her was not only taxing on public resources but caused the general public to be fearful of their own safety, a fear that they should not have had to endure,” Shasta County Sheriff Michael L. Johnson said in the release.
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