re: #158 Belafon

My phone autocorrected. It’s Palini.

It’s Sherri Papini and I kept an eye on this case because it occurred in Redding and was Bethel-adjacent.

DoJ press release: justice.gov

Complaint and affidavit: justice.gov

Basically, what they’re nailing her for is two things: 1) she continued to lie to the FBI years after the “kidnapping” and even after being warned of the consequences of lying to the FBI and 2) she received a number of payments from California’s victim compensation fund via the US mail. So not for the fraud on the compensation fund (I would presume that would be a California charge) but because she received checks in the mail from the compensation fund, hence mail fraud.

If she had pretty much disappeared after what happened and not lied about it afterwards, and not soaked the victim compensation fund, I think she could have gotten away with it.