Kidnapped California Mom Faked Abduction, Branding: Prosecutors

COSTA MESA, CA — A northern California mother who was found with bindings and a brand in 2016 and said she was kidnapped now faces federal charges. Prosecutors accused her of fabricating the story and enlisting the help of her ex-boyfriend, whom she was staying with in Costa Mesa.

Sherri Papini, 39, of Redding disappeared Nov. 2, 2016, and was reported missing after she never picked up her two kids at from day care. She was last seen jogging around her neighborhood. Her cell phone with earbuds were found at an intersection.

An extensive search ensued for her in Shasta County, elsewhere in California, as well as in several other states. Twenty-two days later, she was found battered and bruised, but alive, along a freeway in Yolo County near Woodland. She had various bindings on her body and a brand on her right shoulder.

Papini told law enforcement that two Hispanic women abducted her at gunpoint and held her captive. She described her kidnappers to an FBI sketch artist, and law enforcement agencies began a search for the abductors based on her description.

But investigators eventually determined that she had made the story up, federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California said in a news release Thursday.

In 2020, DNA on her clothes pointed investigators toward an ex-boyfriend, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

Papini was staying with the former boyfriend in Costa Mesa and wounded herself to support her lies, prosecutors said. Papini asked the ex-boyfriend for assistance and said she needed to get away, he told investigators. He picked her up in Redding, the FBI wrote in court documents.

The man said he didn’t know what their final plan would be or whether the two would rekindle their relationship, authorities said in court documents. At one point, Papini asked him to brand her, and he did so using a wood-burning tool, court documents said. She later asked him to drive her back to Northern California.

When presented with evidence in August 2020 that she wasn't kidnapped, Papini insisted her story was true, even after a warning that it is a crime to lie to federal agents, authorities said.

Additionally, Papini requested and received about $30,000 in state victim assistance money from 2017 through 2021, including for therapy visits and for an ambulance that took her to a hospital.

“When a young mother went missing in broad daylight, a community was filled with fear and concern,” said U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert.

Authorities wasted countless hours following leads in a fruitless endeavor to bring the mother home to her family, prosecutors said.

"Ultimately, the investigation revealed that there was no kidnapping and that time and resources that could have been used to investigate actual crime, protect the community, and provide resources to victims were wasted based on the defendant’s conduct," Talbert said.

Authorities arrested Papini on Thursday on charges of making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and mail fraud. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the false statements charge, and up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 fine if convicted of mail fraud.