Sherri Papini failed to pay over $300,000 in restitution over California kidnap hoax, feds say
Eighteen months after Sherri Papini was sentenced to prison in her kidnapping hoax and ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution, federal officials say she has failed to pay up and are seeking a garnishment order to force payment of the debt.
In a two-page filing Sunday in Sacramento federal court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Tubesing filed an application for a writ of garnishment for $340,221.23 against Papini and a Redding law firm representing her in her divorce from her estranged husband, Keith.
“As of March 22, 2024, Debtor owes $309,292.23,” the filing says. “Despite the United States’ demand for payment, made more than 30 days before the date of this application, debtor has failed to satisfy the debt.”
The government notes that it is permitted to seek a 10% “litigation surcharge” of $30,929.00, bringing the total owed to $340,221.23.
The filing names Papini as “debtor” and the Redding family law firm of Kinney & Kinney as “garnishee” against any property held by that firm, court papers say.
William Portanova, Papini’s criminal defense attorney, said Monday morning that he expected Papini to try to satisfy the debt.
“I am certain that Ms. Papini is making every good faith effort to meet her financial obligations with the court,” he said. “It may take some time, but she is financially surrounded, and payment will come.”
Portanova added that “to the extent that Ms. Papini can earn income it is a condition of her release that she be open with the government and the court as to its sources and amounts.”
Van Kinney, whose Redding firm represents Papini in her divorce case, said he did not know anything about the filing and that Papini had no financial interest involving the firm. He declined further comment.
Papini, now 41, was sentenced in September 2022 to 18 months in prison following a kidnapping hoax that began in November 2016 and riveted the nation for six years as she insisted she had been abducted while jogging near her Northern California home and ultimately admitted she had made the whole thing up.
Papini spent part of her sentence in a Sacramento halfway house and was released from custody eight months early on Sept. 29, 2023, Federal Bureau of Prisons records show.
At the time of her sentencing, Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb called Papini a “manipulator” who lied to police, her family and friends and who likely would have continued if she had not been caught.
Shubb noted that Papini took hundreds of thousands of dollars in victims’ funding, Social Security disability payments and more than $49,000 from a GoFundMe account set up after the purported kidnapping.
He ordered her to pay $309,902.23 in restitution but said he had little hope that she could repay the money.
“Let’s be realistic about it,” the judge said. “That restitution is never going to be paid. That $300,000 she’s going to be ordered to pay will never be paid unless she wins the lottery.”
Papini was the so-called “super mom” who disappeared on Nov. 2, 2016, while jogging near her Redding-area home, setting off a frantic search and eliciting pleas from her family and friends for her safe return.
She was found 22 days later on Thanksgiving walking on a Yolo County road and partially bound with a chain, with bruises, a brand burned into one arm and her hair cut short.
Police said she claimed she had been taken at gunpoint by two Hispanic women who beat and tortured her and kept her chained to a pole in a closet.
Authorities later said she actually spent the three weeks she was missing at the Costa Mesa home of an ex-boyfriend, James Reyes.
That development came after the FBI traced DNA on Papini’s clothing that led them to the ex-boyfriend.
Papini later was charged with lying to the FBI and mail fraud and pleaded guilty.
