CALIFORNIA, USA — A Northern California mother who faked her own kidnapping so she could go back to an ex-boyfriend is now out of federal prison several months early.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Sherri Papini was transferred from the camp next to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Victorville Medium I to community confinement overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Sacramento Residential Reentry Management (RRM).
That means Papini is either under house arrest or in a halfway house. She has a projected release date of Oct. 29, 2023.
She was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Sept. 2022 after pleading guilty in April.
In a court filing, Papini’s defense attorney said the married mother ran away to an ex-boyfriend in Southern California about 600 miles south of her home in Redding. He later dropped her off on Interstate 5 about 150 miles from her home.
Passersby found her with bindings on her body, a swollen nose, a blurred “brand” on her right shoulder, bruises and rashes across her body, ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, and burns on her left forearm. All of the injuries were self-inflicted and were designed to substantiate her story that she had been abducted at gunpoint by two Hispanic women while she was out for a run.
The kidnapping hoax led to a three-week multi-state search back in late 2016.
She received an 18-month sentence due to a plea deal with prosecutors, down from the maximum 25 years she could’ve received for the two charges. She never said why she did what she did.
Watch more on ABC10
