Prosecutors want Sherri Papini, the California woman who admitted to falsifying her own kidnapping in 2016, to receive an eight-month sentence.
In an updated sentencing letter submitted on Wednesday to the US District Court for the Eastern District of California, federal prosecutors recommended Papini serve one month in jail and seven months in home detention, CBS News reported.
Despite being on the lighter end of the sentencing guidelines, prosecutors said an eight-month sentence is appropriate for Papini because it "fully and fairly accounts for the totality of Papini's conduct and the relevant sentencing factors, and is sufficient but not greater than necessary to satisfy the sentencing purposes."
The one month of jail suggested by probation or home detention as an alternative to incarceration "is not sufficient to achieve the purposes of sentencing," per the prosecution.
According to US Attorney Phillip A. Talbert, Papini admitted in April to "making materially false statements to FBI investigators about the circumstances of her disappearance and committing mail fraud predicated on her being a kidnapping victim."
The California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, and the FBI were awarded more than $300,000 in reparations from the 39-year-old.
Papini Extended Deception To Obtain Benefits
Early in November 2016, Papini vanished, sparking a three-week search.
She was found on Thanksgiving Day with several wounds, including a bruised right shoulder and swollen nose.
However, investigators claim that she had been residing with a previous boyfriend around 600 miles from her Orange County, California, home.
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They assert that Papini intentionally hurt herself to support her bogus kidnapping narrative.
Even after she was discovered, according to the prosecution, she extended her deception even further by seeking disability and victims' compensation up to the time of her detention.
Prosecutors noted: "These additional fraudulent acts suggest that Papini was not, as her therapist opines, merely coping with past abuse, but calculating to create additional benefits from her crimes."
Kidnapping Hoax's Serious Impact on the Community
The community and other victims suffered grave consequences as a result of Papini's activities. Thus, appropriate "punishment" is required for her actions, the prosecutors said, per NBC News.
Prosecutors stated that an "entire community believed the hoax and lived in fear that Hispanic women were roving the streets to abduct and sell women."
Additionally, after serving her sentence, the prosecution suggested a three-year supervised release.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Papini continued to mislead authorities while they searched for the "kidnappers," according to the prosecution's written case, and even after she told Judge Shubb that she had not been abducted, she continued to tell people that she had.
"(It) is concerning that she has continued to tell multiple people, contrary to her plea and sworn statement before the court, that she was in fact kidnapped," the prosecutors noted.
Only a jail sentence can stop Papini from committing more crimes, such as making false claims that she was abducted in the future, prosecutors claimed.
For lying to the FBI, Papini could have had up to five years in jail and a $250,000 punishment; for mail fraud, he could have received a 20-year term and a $250,000 fine.
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