Sherri Papini is changing her story—again.
After she pleaded guilty to making false statements and one count of mail fraud in connection with lying about being kidnapped in 2016, she switched her story again and denied lying about being held captive.
“I had told law enforcement I had been abducted by two Hispanic women, which wasn’t true,” Sherri said in the upcoming two-part special Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie. “I was abducted by my ex-boyfriend, who held me captive for 22 days.”
During the two-part Investigation Discovery documentary, she accused her ex James Reyes of being her abductor, despite previously telling authorities she had voluntarily stayed with him during search efforts. (Sherri said in the special that she had an emotional affair with him while married to her now ex-husband Keith Papini.)
“There was no consent,” Sherri—who served 10 months of her 18-month prison sentence and paid $300,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in 2022 following her kidnapping hoax—alleged of James. “He still did it. The injuries that occurred, the bites on my inner and outer thigh, the footprint on my back, the brand, the melting of my skin—I can’t do that myself. I am telling you there was no consent.”
However, when the Department of Justice announced Sherri’s sentencing, the 2022 press release confirmed that she had “harmed herself to support her false statements.”
James also told investigators in the 2022 criminal complaint filed by the U.S. government, obtained by E! News, that he “didn’t burn anything on her arm there.” He also said that Sherri asked him to create other injuries, although he said he “never laid his hands directly on her.” He explained that in one instance, she asked him to “bank a puck” off her leg, which he said he did “lightly.”
E! News has reached out to James for comment and has not yet heard back.
In the docuseries, the 42-year-old claimed she chose not to identify James—who previously denied any wrongdoing and was not charged with any crimes by the police—because she was afraid.
Back in March 2020, James was first brought into the investigation after his DNA was found on Sherri’s clothing from November 26, 2016, the day she was found on the side of a road. He told detectives in the interview at his home, “I didn’t kidnap her. A friend in need asked me for help.”
Later in the docuseries, Sherri admitted she led James on by telling him that she would run away with him, but claimed that “there was no plan to leave” with him the day of her disappearance.
As for her decision to initally identify two Hispanic women as her kidnappers, Sherri claimed that one supposedly looked like James’ mother.
“I was trying to give them little breadcrumbs and trying to give them little clues of who was involved, without directly saying who was involved,” she said. “Doing a sketch of James’ mom was like trying to lead them to James without revealing James’ identity. It was the best that I could do.”
However, the docuseries hired a private investigator and discovered his mom is Irish. Sherri brushed off the discrepancy, replying, “It had very little to do with his mother and her ethnicity. It was about trying to alert them to his identity without saying his name out loud.”
She added, “Quite frankly, I don’t give a f–k if she’s Hispanic or not. It was about James, it wasn’t about her.”
Meanwhile, lead investigator on the kidnapping case for the FBI, Denise Farmer, is confident in the outcome of the case.
“It was building a picture of a person that liked to embellish,” the now-retired special agent said of the investigation. “People lie for a number of reasons, for self-esteem, for attention, for sympathy and she was ticking all those boxes.”
“She’s a liar and she’s a convicted liar,” she emphasized. “We have proved what happened, we have the facts, we have the evidence. She can spin it however she wants.”
