Woman Arrested For Faking Her Own Abduction In 2016 By 'Two Hispanic Women'

California mom Sherri Papini who left the whole country in a buzz after claiming that she was kidnapped by two Hispanic women in 2016 is now facing charges six years later after the shocking revelation that the woman made up her own kidnapping.

On Thursday prosecutors charged 'supermom' Papini, 39, for lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state's victim compensation board of $30,000. 

Reportedly, the mom-of-two was found on Thanksgiving Day in 2016 weeks after federal officials had been searching for her in California and nearby states after she disappeared while jogging on November 2.

Papini was found in a distraught condition and was found tied up, with a broken nose, a 'brand' on her right shoulder and a shaved head. She told authorities at the time that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women, even providing descriptions to an FBI sketch artist. 

No one was ever arrested, and authorities could never determine what the 'Hispanic women's' motive was.

After finding Papini in 2016, officers gathered Papini's DNA sample from her clothes. They even ran these samples against the national criminal database but in vain.

Then in 2020, the officials were alerted about a potential match and the match was found to be of the boyfriend's father, whose DNA was on record with the DOJ. 

They then traced that sample to the ex-boyfriend, and the man admitted to the entire drama.

As it turns out, Papini was with her unidentified ex-boyfriend who according to police asked to pick her up.

An affidavit released by the US Attorney's Office for Eastern California details how Papini had multiple affairs and boyfriends and was described by exes as an 'attention hungry' woman who made things up for sympathy. 

The ex-boyfriend is not named but he revealed that together they came up with the plan to escape on the pre-paid cell phones which they used to text each other before he collected her in November 2016. 

She spent the next few weeks hidden in his apartment and the boyfriend even confessed to the FBI that one of his cousins saw her at his apartment.

He told how he also hired a rental car to drive her back to her family's neighborhood on November 24, 2016. 

Since then, Papini has claimed $30,000 from the Victim Compensation Board.  

'In truth, Papini had been voluntarily staying with a former boyfriend in Costa Mesa and had harmed herself to support her false statements,' an announcement by the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of California said in a release on Thursday night. 

Even after the drama ended, Papini continued to lie to the FBI and denied all charges when confronted with the evidence.

Between 2017 and 2022, Papini claimed a total of $30,000 in 35 payments from Victim Compensation Board. 

She is now being held in federal custody, awaiting her first court appearance. 

A 55-page affidavit released shows that the investigators were doubtful from the beginning over Papini's story.

Papini was reported missing by her husband Keith on November 2 after returning home from work. She was nowhere to be found and their two children were still at daycare. 

In panic mode, Keith used the 'Find My iPhone' app to locate Sherri's phone, which was sitting on the side of the road near their home next to her earbuds, which were tangled in blonde hair.

Keith told officers that he thought that the phone had been placed there deliberately as it was kept at a strange angle.

According to Keith, he and Papini had differences like a normal married couple but no serious marital issues. 

He said their last argument was the previous month and was over a messy room, and that Papini could be 'loud'. 

According to the affidavit, as police searched her phone, they came across a number of two men saved under the guise of a woman's name.

Neither was the ex-boyfriend she spent her 'missing' weeks with, but authorities interviewed them and one of her old bosses. 

The day before she went missing, Papini texted one of the men and discussed meeting up in Redding, California, near her home.

The man was from Michigan and was in California for a work-related trip. He informed to the police he'd met Papini in 2011 on a work trip and that the pair 'spent the weekend together'. 

They continued to exchange flirtatious messages for years, he said, but he did not end up meeting the weekend he was in California before she disappeared. 

The second man told the officials that he met Papini in 2000-2001 through a Friday Night Live youth program. He clearly told police that she was a liar and liked catching attention by telling her 'stories.'

He said she once told him she was the victim of abuse in her family. 

'Man 2 described Papini as an attention-hungry person who told stories to try to get people’s attention. The second man also stated that Papini fabricated stories of being the victim of abuse from her family, father, and then Man 2 after the couple broke up,' the affidavit reads.

Investigators also spoke with Papini's boss at the Friday Night Live youth program, and he said he worried about having her in the program because she 'was good at  creating different realities for people so that they would see what she wanted them to see, which got her really good attention.'  

Before marrying Keith, Papini was married to a military man. According to Keith, her whole marriage was a sham that was only done to include her in medical insurance to cover her treatment for a persistent heart murmur. 

When police spoke to the first husband, he said she told him she needed the insurance due to 'complications from regular egg donations'. 

Papini's mother said she'd told her she 'traveled the world' with her first husband when in reality, they had only traveled together once. 

The ex-husband told police that after they divorced, he was told by mutual friends that she had a history of lying. 

The bizarre drama had its drop scene after the DNA matched to the ex-boyfriend's father.

Local investigators in California asked the DOJ to run a familial search of the DNA they had collected from Papini's clothing in 2016.

The DNA was found on her clothes and it belonged to a man, even though she had told investigators she had been kidnapped by two women. 

This led the search in a new direction and it pinged a partial match for the ex-boyfriend's father. 

It is still unclear if the DNA was on the file because it was already present in a criminal database or it was submitted at an at-home DNA test.

Authorities then staked out the ex-boyfriend's home. They collected a bottle of Honest Honey Green Tea in June 2020,  

Papini now faces a mail fraud charge related to the reimbursement requests that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, while lying to a federal officer has a maximum five-year sentence.

'Everyone involved in this investigation had one common goal: to find the truth about what happened on Nov. 2, 2016, with Sherri Papini and who was responsible,' said Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson.

The hectic investigation not only cost time and money, he said, 'but caused the general public to be fearful of their own safety, a fear that they should not have had to endure.'

Following her return, it is reported that Papini was living a quiet life at her family home.

Neighbors said that she had been living as 'a recluse' but had begun to make more frequent appearances in 2017.

That year she was spotted doing the school run and relaxing in her yard with a book.

Keith, who was sure at the time that his wife could not leave him or their children voluntarily, even launched a GoFundMe account to raise funds for the search which eventually raise close to $50,000.

Officials also had skepticism over her story as Papini had a history in which she ran away as a teenager.

And according to the Sacramento Bee, uncovered documents from 13 years ago outlined how Papini's mother, Loretta Graeff, called police asking for help after her daughter was allegedly self-harming and trying to blame the wounds on her.

The incident report, filed in December 2003, is just two lines long and reads: 'RP states her 21y/o daughter that was living with her was harming herself and blaming it on the RP.

'RP states female is coming back to live with them and she wants advice.'

The newspaper also found two other incidents involving Papini, where her father and sister both claimed she damaged their property.

In 2000, Richard Graeff said his daughter 'burglarized his residence,' before Sheila Koester, 'alleged her back door had been kicked in and she believed Papini was the suspect', the Bee reported.

In retrospect, 'we are relieved that the community is not endangered by unknown, violent kidnappers,' said Sean Ragan, special agent in charge of the FBI's Sacramento Field Office.

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