Judge: woman charged with faking kidnapping can leave jail

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A Northern California woman who was arrested last week for faking her own 2016 kidnapping and lying to federal agents investigating the alleged abduction can be released from jail, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Sherri Papini, 39, can be released after her family posts a $120,000 bond, which they were expected to do later Tuesday, The Sacramento Bee reported.

During a virtual detention hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremy D. Peterson agreed with Papini’s attorney that she wasn’t a flight risk or a threat to the community.

She was arrested Thursday on charges of lying to federal agents about being kidnapped and defrauding the state’s victim compensation board of $30,000.

Papini, of Redding, was found on Thanksgiving Day in 2016 after three weeks of searching in California and several nearby states. She had bindings on her body and injuries including a swollen nose and a “brand” on her right shoulder.

She had been reported missing Nov. 2. 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 along with extensive details of her purported abduction.

In reality, authorities said, she was staying with a former boyfriend nearly 600 miles (966 kilometers) away from her home in Orange County, in Southern California, and hurt herself to back up her false statements.

Papini’s abduction hoax cost Shasta County, state and federal taxpayers, crime victims and donors more than $200,000, according to prosecutors and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office.