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Sherri Papini, a California woman who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about being kidnapped by two women in 2016, now claims it was her ex-boyfriend who actually kidnapped her.
Papini, 43, made national headlines in 2016 after she told police that two Latina women had kidnapped her at gunpoint and taken her hostage for three weeks. She was found on Thanksgiving Day on the side of the road, covered in bruises.
In 2022, she admitted that the kidnapping was fake in a plea deal with the FBI after investigators found she’d actually been staying with a former boyfriend, James Reyes, in Costa Mesa during the time she was missing. Papini was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the hoax.
“I am guilty of lying,” Papini said during her sentencing. “I am guilty of dishonor. I stand before you willing to accept, to repent and to concede.”
Now Papini is claiming that it was Reyes ― the ex-boyfriend she was staying with during her 2016 kidnapping hoax ― who had really kidnapped her at the time.
“To be clear, there was one thing that I lied about,” Papini told ABC News in an interview published Friday. “Everything else was accurate and true. I lied about the identity of my captor.”
Reyes has previously denied allegations that he kidnapped Papini and told police that Papini’s bruises were self-inflicted. He was never charged with a crime. HuffPost could not reach him for comment.
Papini’s new accusation comes as she hawks a self-published book about the hoax she perpetrated. She claims she was afraid to tell police the truth over fears that her then-husband, Keith Papini, would be upset over her “emotional affair” with Reyes.
“Prison was far safer than the consequences that I would suffer if my ex-husband found out I was having an emotional affair,” Papini told ABC News. “I’d prefer prison over telling Keith Papini that I was having an emotional affair.”
In an interview with ABC News last year, Keith Papini said his ex-wife has “never apologized” for the lie she told him and their two children, which they believed for years until her 2022 plea deal. He filed for divorce that year.
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“She made us all believe that her story was true. Every single day, she committed to the lie,” he said at the time.
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