Inside federal court in Sacramento, Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb called Papini a “manipulator” who lied to the police, lied to her family, lied to her community and then lied to her psychiatrist hundreds of times. She said she had no doubt she would have continued to lie if she hadn’t been caught. He said Papini needed to be punished to deter other “copycat” criminals. “We need to send a message that crime does not pay,” Shubb said. Papini’s lawyer, William Portanova, had asked for a one-month prison sentence, with seven others under house arrest. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Veronica Alegria and Shelley Weger asked for an eight-month prison sentence, writing in court documents that “there must be a just punishment for her behavior.” Federal probation officials had recommended a sentence of one month in jail, followed by seven months of house arrest. But Shubb said he had to send a message. “People don’t like to be made fun of,” Schump said as Papini stood in the 14th-floor courtroom in downtown Sacramento as Portanova tried to comfort her. “And I don’t believe that these people who were deceived would think that one month or eight months is enough.” Sherri Papini, center, appears in a courtroom sketch in Sacramento Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. The 40-year-old Shasta County woman, shown with her attorney William Portanova, listens as Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb, right, sentences her to 18 months in federal prison for fabricating her kidnapping in 2016. Vicki Behringer Special to The Bee
Judge: ‘This compensation will never be paid’
The judge noted that Papini had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in victim funding and other payments — including Social Security disability payments — as well as more than $49,000 from a GoFundMe account set up after the alleged kidnapping. “If I get away with it, I’ll get $49,000,” Shubb said a copycat might think. “If I don’t make it, I’ll spend a month or eight.” He ordered her to pay $309,902.23 in restitution, but said there was no hope that Papini, 40, would be able to repay the money. “Let’s be realistic about it,” the judge said. “This compensation is never going to be paid. “That $300,000 he’s going to be ordered to pay will never be paid if he doesn’t win the lottery.” Portanova conceded the same. “As she sits here today, she’s broken,” Portanova said. Papini could have faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the perjury charge and 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the mail fraud count, but the plea deal Portanova negotiated with prosecutors called for a much lighter sentence. .
Send a message to would-be copycats
Shubb ordered Papini to report to the jail by 2 p.m. on Nov. 8 and said he would recommend she be placed in a California institution, although that is up to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Papini appeared emotional throughout the hearing, reading a statement to the judge with her voice breaking at times. After Shubb sentenced her to prison, Papini appeared taken aback, walking away from Portanova and looking silently into the courtroom gallery, where her parents, other family members and friends had gathered. “Look at these people here for you,” Portanova whispered to her as she started to walk out of the court. Family members, including Papini’s sister, Sheila Koester, declined to comment. Portanova said Papini would not comment to the media. After the 55-minute hearing, he walked down the aisle and began receiving hugs from family members as Portanova told reporters he and his legal team were convinced he had come to terms with what he had done after years of lying. “We think she has changed,” Portanova said, adding that he has never heard her explain why she organized the kidnapping. “It’s like trying to understand why a suicide happens,” he said. Portanova argued in court that he had been “brutally honest” about Papini’s lies and “her own madness” and said she had finally admitted her guilt to his legal team before pleading guilty earlier this year. Shubb asked about prosecutors’ claims that she kept telling people she was actually kidnapped, but Portanova dismissed that as “accusations” or “gossip” by people with ulterior motives. He added that normally he can argue for a lenient sentence for a client because they have young children, but he wouldn’t for Papini. “I can’t say that here, because these are the same children she abandoned,” Portanova said, describing his client as “this broken woman, who did a terrible thing to herself, to her family, to her community ». But Alegria argued that Papini “is a skilled liar and manipulator”. “At this point, she would say and do anything to mitigate her punishment,” Alegria said. Sherri Papini arrives in court with her attorney William Portanova on Monday for her sentencing. Papini, the Redding-area woman who became a national sensation after faking her kidnapping in 2016, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb to 18 months in prison for orchestrating the hoax. Hector Amezcua [email protected]
Papini’s statement in court: “I am guilty of lying”
Shubb imposed the sentence after Papini, dressed in a black suit with a light blue sweater and her blonde hair pulled back into a bun, delivered an emotional statement to the judge admitting how much harm her prank had caused. “Your honor, I stand before you humbled by this court, truly honored and grateful that you allow me to speak,” the statement began. “I feel so sorry for the many people who have suffered because of me – the people who sacrificed for the broken woman I was, the people who willingly gave to help me at a time when I so desperately needed help. Thank you all.” “You have seen so much dishonor before you here in this room,” Papini said before Shubb. “People who are not willing to go through the shame of saying they are guilty. I am not one of them, your honor. “I am guilty of lying. I am guilty of dishonor. I stand before you willing to accept. To repent and relent. I have confidence in this court. I trust the officers handling my release and I trust you, your honor, to see me, to hear me. “What has been done cannot be undone. It can never be deleted. I don’t choose to stay frozen like I was in 2016. I choose to commit to healing the parts of me that were so broken. “I choose to humbly accept responsibility.” Keith and Sherri Papini pose with their children in a family photo before her disappearance. Papini family
Papini’s story was a national sensation
The sentencing concludes a six-year drama that began on Nov. 2, 2016, near the Papini family’s home in the Shasta County community of Mountain Gate, where Papini was reported missing after going for an afternoon jog. National media and tabloids flocked to the tale, dubbing her a “supermom” and splashing photos of her on their front pages. On Monday, about two dozen reporters crowded Papini and Portanova as she was escorted from an SUV to the entrance of the Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse downtown. A man on a bicycle who rode past the scrum shouted, “Guilty! Guilty!” After the sentencing, a group of half a dozen friends or family members formed a barrier around her and held her hand as a swarm of reporters peppered her with questions she would not answer as Portanova led her back to their SUV. The petite, blonde woman’s disappearance has sparked a massive manhunt for her and her possible abductors, with investigators tracking down old friends and acquaintances, family offering a $40,000 reward and community members raising money online and organizing a support rally for her. Twenty-two days after her disappearance, Papini was found wandering a Yolo County road on Thanksgiving morning, partially chained, with bruises and cropped hair and a brand burned into one hand. She told investigators she had been held at gunpoint by two Hispanic women who beat and tortured her and kept her chained to a post in a closet. She told detectives her would-be captors branded her shoulder as if she were livestock and told her she was to be sold to a police officer. She described being fed only once a day, meals of rice or tortillas and sometimes apples. “They were playing music loudly,” he told investigators. “That really annoying Mexican music. And they would watch TV. … “There was a fireplace, I could smell it. I could hear that sound, you know when you move the handle to open the fireplace. It was making a crazy noise… and…
