Sherri Papini Switches Up Her Story Again by Saying Ex Kidnapped Her
Sherri Papini made headlines after it turned out that her 2016 abduction was a hoax. Now, in a new documentary the mother-of-two is claiming she was in fact kidnapped—by her ex-boyfriend.
In a clip obtained by People from the four-part docuseries Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie, which premieres Monday, Papini revealed what she said really happened during the 22 days where she went missing.
'The truth is, I was concealing an affair from my husband, who [was] threatening to take everything from me if he found out that I was having any involvement [with another man],' she said in the clip.
Papini initially claimed that she was kidnapped in Nov. 2016 by two masked Hispanic women while she was out for a jog in Redding, California. She was found badly beaten three weeks later with Papini alleging that the women branded her and kept her chained up in a bedroom.
'All of that is true,' Papini said in a trailer for the doc regarding the torture she underwent. 'I did keep some secrets from you though.'
Six years after the alleged incident, Papini admitted to lying to investigators, revealing that the whole kidnapping had been a hoax to hide an emotional affair she was having with ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, from her husband.
Papini pled guilty to felony charges of lying to law enforcement and mail fraud in April 2022. She agreed to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to various government entities and received a prison sentence of 18 months but served less than a year.
Days after she took a plea deal, her husband Keith Papini filed for divorce. The couple originally met in middle school and reconnected in 2006, getting married three years later and had two children together.
Now, the 42-year-old claims that she was abducted by her ex-boyfriend Reyes, saying that 'I don't remember if I got into the car' before he drove away with her.
'I remember waking up briefly in the back of the vehicle and not being able to even keep my eyes open,' she said, and recalled thinking to herself: 'This is not where I'm supposed to be.'
'The injuries that occurred... the bites on my thigh, the footprint on my back, the brand, the melting of my skin—I am telling you there was no consent,' she said.
Papini claimed that she 'wanted to leave' but Reyes beat her when she tried to escape.
'And after being knocked out and waking up, that's when the chain was around my waist, secured with a padlock attached to a cable that was attached to a pole in the closet,' she added.
In the doc, she alleged that she told Reyes to let her go, to which he replied: 'Too much has happened.'
'So it all came down to me,' she claimed. 'It all came down to my coverup, and that's [when] I agreed to... make up that someone else did it.'
In previous investigations into the incident, Reyes told FBI agents that Papini had planned 'everything,' and even passed a polygraph test.
'I didn't kidnap her,' he said. 'She was just a friend in need asking for help. She was trying to get away from her husband.'
But in the doc, Papini stated that she was 'willing to do whatever it takes' to share the truth, asking the audience, 'haven't you ever lied?'
'It's so much more complex than just pointing the finger and saying you're a liar,' Papini said.
'And I wish, I wish more than anything I could've been more truthful,' she added.
Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie will premiere Monday and Tuesday night, and will be available to watch on Max and Investigation Discovery.
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