Did Sherri Papini Get Paid for Appearing in the ID Documentary? Find out the Details

For true crime aficionados, the Sherri Papini case was one of the most captivating ever. Many were completely enthralled as the case of the woman who faked her own kidnapping unfolded. Now freed from prison, Sherri appears in an Investigation Discovery documentary about her crimes, leaving many to wonder if she got paid to tell her side of the story.

In November 2016, Sherri disappeared from her California home while out jogging and reappeared three weeks later on Thanksgiving Day. She falsely claimed that she was kidnapped when she was actually with an ex-boyfriend the entire time.

The short answer is probably, but there’s a catch. According to KRCR News, Papini owes over $300,000 in restitution for funds used in the disappearance and also therapy after she returned home.

That restitution is to be paid to the federal government, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, the California Victims Compensation Fund, and her former mother-in-law, Kathleen Papini, who was granted over $50,000 in a lawsuit she filed against Sherri for money she provided for Sherri’s legal issues in 2022.

Since the priority for the bulk of the restitution funds goes toward the payment agreement of her plea deal, the government can garnish Sherri’s wages and any other funds she receives — this includes 75 percent of all payments for memoirs or media appearances that exceed $5,000, per the outlet.

This means that any money she made from the documentary Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie will not financially benefit her, but instead pay off her debt.

Despite previously admitting that she did fake her own kidnapping, now Sherri says that she didn’t tell the truth. In the documentary, she says that she was indeed kidnapped, and that she only lied about who abducted her — which she claimed at the time was an outsider, but now says it was her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, according to PEOPLE.

"I agreed with James to make up that someone else did it [in exchange for my release]," she alleges in the documentary. "It wasn't the right choice and I know that. ... I wish I would've told the truth from the day I was in the hospital — that it was James."

"I wasn't thinking about my neighbor that was searching for me,” Sherri continued. “I wasn't thinking about the churches that were lighting candlelit vigils. I was thinking about myself."

Sherri went on to say that due to prior infidelity, she and her ex-husband, Keith Papini, signed a post-nuptial agreement that would grant Keith full custody of the former couple’s two children if Sherri was caught cheating. Fearing that her affair with James would be revealed if she confirmed that he was indeed her captor, and as a result, she would lose custody of her children, Sherri kept the lie going.

In Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie, she also claimed that before her disappearance, the two rekindled their previous relationship and had an emotional affair.