U.S. Attorney: Sherri Papini told multiple people she was kidnapped after plea
SACRAMENTO — Sherri Papini, the Redding mother of two who faked her own kidnapping in 2016, will be sentenced Monday in Federal Court.
Papini told authorities she was kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women after she disappeared in early November 2016.
Her disappearance sparked a three-week search and she was found on Thanksgiving Day with injuries, in Yolo County, that included a "brand" on her right shoulder.
Authorities would later report Papini had actually been staying with a former boyfriend 600 miles away from Redding in Orange County, California. They say Papini inflicted the injuries on herself to back up her story, which she would, later on, admit in court documents years later, was false.
Papini will appear in a federal courtroom in Sacramento on Monday for sentencing. Her attorneys have recommended she serve one month in federal custody and seven months of an "intensely supervised period of home detention."
In the sentencing memorandum provided by Papini's attorney William Portanova, their recommendation is explained, "At this point, the punishment is already intense and feels like a life sentence."
U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert recommended Papini serve eight months.
"Additionally, it is concerning that she has continued to tell multiple people, contrary to her plea and sworn statement before the Court, that she was in fact kidnapped." sentencing documents state.
Legal expert and attorney Justin Ward told CBS13 that Papini could receive a different sentence than what either side recommended because the judge makes the final decision.
Another person hoping Papini's sentencing teaches a lesson: is Bill Garcia, a private investigator who volunteered to help find Papini in 2016.
Alongside his scent-certified Beagle, Dos, Garcia went to Northern California multiple times to search for Papini. He said he found two women who matched the description given by Papini of her kidnappers, but when he learned the story was a hoax, he realized she had misled nearly everyone involved.
"Two kids that had a missing mother, to us, that's the most important part. It always has been since day 1," said Garcia.
He said in the three weeks she was missing only one piece of information stood out to him as suspicious: earbuds.
"The one thing that the uncle had conveyed, you know, the earbuds, rolled up and tucked up, where they could be seen but not necessarily taken, that always sat in the back of my head." said Garcia, who shared the earbuds were found at the location she said she was taken.
"I think the sentence is probably appropriate if that's where it stays. Hopefully, others will learn a lesson on the same. I mean, we're busy enough." said Garcia.
When asked if he was upset when he learned Papini faked her own kidnapping, he admitted he was not.
"It didn't upset me because what it did do, it helped promote the information out to the public, mostly through law enforcement, that human trafficking does happen," said Garcia.
