EARLY RELEASE

Sherri Papini, Who Faked Her Kidnapping in California, Released From Federal Prison

Sherri Papini will now go to community confinement.

Sherri Papini, the 41-year-old California mom who pleaded guilty to fabricating her 2016 abduction, was released from federal prison last week, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Instead, she will go to community confinement and be held at a location overseen by the residential reentry management field office in Sacramento, jail records show. In September 2022, Papini was sentenced to 18 months in prison after admitting to lying to a federal officer and mail fraud in connection to her so-called kidnapping, in which she crafted an elaborate hoax to run away with her ex-boyfriend. She claimed two “Hispanic women” who played “really annoying Mexican music” abducted her at gunpoint and abused her. When Papini was found three weeks after her disappearance, she was emaciated, had a chain around her waist, and sported injuries she alleged her captors gave her—which turned out to be self-inflicted. Papini’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News on Saturday. Her full release is slated for Oct. 29.