California ‘chameleon’ awaits 2016 kidnapping hoax sentence

By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say a Northern California woman should be sentenced to eight months in prison for carefully faking her own kidnapping. The hoax triggered a multi-state search before Sherri Papini resurfaced on Thanksgiving Day in 2016. She is to be sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in April. Her attorney says his troubled, disgraced client should serve one month in custody and seven months of home confinement. Passersby found her with injuries including a blurred “brand” on her right shoulder. All the injuries were self-inflicted. The married mother of two was actually staying with a former boyfriend in Southern California. He dropped her off about three weeks after she disappeared.