Sherri Papini, the woman involved in a kidnapping hoax, claims she was subjected to weeks of torture, speaking out for the first time since she went missing

The first time speaking out since her disappearance nine years ago, the California mother who orchestrated her own abduction in 2016 is featured in a new documentary series.

Despite pleading guilty in 2022 to charges linked to fabricating her own kidnapping six years earlier, Sherri Papini, known as “the perfect wife,” maintains that the 2016 incident involving her alleged abduction, torture, and branding was genuine, contrary to prosecutors’ claims that she orchestrated it herself.

“Haven’t you ever lied? And then, has the lie been blown up?” Papini asks in a trailer for the new docuseries, “Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie.”

“I vanished in 2016, was absent for 22 days. I underwent torture, branding, and was shackled to a wall. All of that is accurate. However, I did withhold some information from you,” she reveals in the preview.

Papini, now 42, pleaded guilty in April to two of the 35 total counts she was charged with — for engaging in mail fraud and making false statements to a federal office, prosecutors said. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison for her costly scheme. 

Sherri Papini departs a child custody hearing in Redding, California, on Friday, March 21, 2025. Papini previously served 18 months in federal prison for faking her own kidnapping in 2016. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

She is currently engaged in a legal battle with her ex-husband for visitation rights with their two children. 

In addition to her sentence, Papini agreed to restitution payments of up to $300,000. More specifically, she was ordered to pay nearly $149,000 to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, at least $127,568 to the Social Security Administration, $30,694 to the California Victims Compensation Board and more than $2,500 to the FBI, according to court papers.