By Tim StellohNBC
News
The California-born mother, accused of lying about the 2016 kidnapping that sparked a nationwide manhunt, admitted Tuesday that she had made up the story of her abduction.
She assured that she is "deeply ashamed" and that she will spend the rest of her life trying to make up for what she did.
"I am deeply sorry for the pain I caused my family, my friends, all the good people who suffered unnecessarily because of my story and those who worked hard to try to help me," Sherri Papini, 39, said in a statement.
"I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done," he
added.
Sherri Papini leaves a federal court in Sacramento, California, on April 13, 2022.Rich Pedroncelli / AP
Under a plea agreement he entered Tuesday in California's Eastern District Court, Papini agreed to plead guilty to two counts of mail fraud and lying to a law enforcement officer, charges that carry maximum sentences of 20 and five years, respectively.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper was the first to report on his guilty plea.
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According to court documents,
Papini will pay more than $300,000 in compensation
to federal, state and local agencies.
Prosecutors said they would recommend reduced sentences.
Papini, a Redding native and mother of two, was arrested last month, nearly six years after she was reported missing.
On November 24, 2016, three weeks after her disappearance, she was found 146 miles south on Interstate 5 with a metal chain tied around her waist.
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She was found with injuries that authorities now believe were self-inflicted, as well as a mark on her shoulder made with some kind of red-hot material, which she blamed on her alleged kidnappers, authorities said last month.
Papini said she had been kidnapped by two Hispanic women
, an accusation that prompted an FBI cartoonist to draw up a sketch and led to a search in California and other states that lasted five years, according to authorities.
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"In reality, Papini had voluntarily stayed with an ex-boyfriend in Costa Mesa and had harmed herself to justify her false statements," the US attorney's office said in a statement.
The ex-boyfriend told authorities he picked her up in Redding after she told him she needed to get away.
He also admitted to marking her shoulder with a wood-burning tool.
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In August 2020, authorities said Papini lied to officers when they confronted her with evidence that the kidnapping was faked, according to the prosecutor's office.
Between 2017 and 2021 Papini applied for $30,000 in victim assistance funds, which she used to pay for visits with a therapist and the ambulance that took her to the hospital after she was found injured.
His hearing to hear whether or not he will plead guilty before a judge will take place this Wednesday
, according to federal court records.
