“I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and I am sorry for the pain I caused to my family, to my friends, to all the good people who suffered unnecessarily because of my history and to those who worked so hard to help me.” . Papini said in her statement. “I will work the rest of my life to make up for what I have done.”
Papini, 39, made the statement through her lawyer, William Portanova, as first reported by The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday.
As previously reported by CNN, her husband ignored Papini in November 2016, after he had gone jogging near her home in Shasta County. Three weeks later, on Thanksgiving, she found herself alone on a transnational highway 140 miles from home.
She told police she was abducted and marked by two women who kept her chained to a closet. She gave a complicated story of her abduction and treatment at the hands of the alleged perpetrators, who she said wore masks, spoke Spanish, held her at gunpoint and marked her with a heated tool.
However, according to the Department of Justice, Papini actually stayed with an ex-boyfriend in Southern California during the three weeks he allegedly went missing and received more than $ 30,000 in fraudulent aid to the victims under the hoax, court shows documents.
Papini was charged with making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and mail fraud and agreed to plead guilty to one charge, prosecutors said in a statement Tuesday. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and fines of up to $ 500,000.
The court will determine the sentence. The date of Papini’s appeal has not been set.
“We are taking this case in a whole new direction,” Portanova, a former federal prosecutor, told The Sacramento Bee. “Everything that happened before today stops today.”
Papini’s agreement was handed over to the US Attorney’s Office in Sacramento, Portanova’s office confirmed to CNN.
CNN has contacted prosecutors for details and a timetable for Papini’s case.
