Latest news with #TheCuriousCaseof
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Sherri Papini Says Her 'Poor Mother' Was Taken 'Wildly Out of Context' in Doc: 'She Knows I Was Kidnapped'
In HBO's 'The Curious Case of Sherri Papini,' her mother Loretta Graeff is heard saying "It was not an abduction" Papini claimed during a new episode of 'The Viall Files' podcast that the quote was edited out of context and didn't reflect her mother's true beliefs She said her mother "definitely knows" she was kidnapped, despite Papini's 2022 guilty pleaSherri Papini — the California mom who admitted to faking her 2016 kidnapping — is pushing back on how her mother was portrayed in a new docuseries, claiming a quote that made headlines was taken "wildly out of context." In The Curious Case of Sherri Papini, Papini's mother Loretta Graeff is shown saying: 'It was not an abduction.' The quote appears to show Graeff doubting her daughter's version of events — a sentiment echoed by law enforcement and federal prosecutors, who ultimately revealed that Papini had orchestrated the entire disappearance herself. But now, Papini says the scene doesn't tell the whole story. 'My poor mother… when you don't have control over your own audio and it gets cut and clipped… it can be taken wildly out of context,' Papini, 42, said during a new episode of The Viall Files podcast. Pressed on whether her mother had changed her mind after initially expressing skepticism, Papini replied: 'Oh, no. My mom definitely knows that I was held captive and that I was kidnapped.' She added that while things were 'very confusing in the beginning,' her mother came to understand what 'actually happened' — and that the quote used in the documentary omitted that supposed clarification. The docuseries recounts the story that once gripped the nation: Papini disappeared while jogging near her Redding, Calif., home in November 2016. She resurfaced 22 days later on Thanksgiving morning, battered and shackled, claiming she had been abducted at gunpoint by two masked Hispanic women. That story unraveled in 2022 when federal investigators revealed Papini had been hiding out with a former boyfriend. She was charged with mail fraud and making false statements, later pleading guilty in a plea deal that sent her to prison for 18 months. She was released in 2023 to community confinement and remains under supervised release. In recent interviews — including the HBO project and her podcast appearance — Papini has positioned herself less as a manipulative hoaxster and more as a woman misrepresented by a hostile media, overzealous prosecutors and edited footage. The 42-year-old divorced mother-of-two says that her kidnapping wasn't a hoax, and that she only lied about the identity of her purported captor: her ex-boyfriend. She said she feared for her safety, and that her ex-husband Keith Papini would revoke her access to their children if she told the whole truth. (Papini's ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, has never been charged with a crime. He declined PEOPLE's request for comment in May, around when the documentary began airing.) Her alleged capture was preceded by a months-long emotional affair with James, she said, and she felt partially responsible for her circumstances after "leading him on," she said in the documentary. "I agreed with James to make up that someone else did it [in exchange for my release]," Papini claims. "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." Related: Why Sherri Papini's Own Mother Doesn't Believe Her New Story About Supposed Kidnapping Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. She calls the HBO project a 'trial by media,' noting that she never faced a criminal trial, and describes herself as living under a 'life sentence' of judgment. She also alleges that key evidence — such as interrogation audio in which, she claims, law enforcement guided her ex-boyfriend's responses — was left out of the final cut. Papini says she hopes her mother will publicly clarify her purported position if given the chance. 'I think given the opportunity, sure,' she said. But for many, the words spoken on-camera in the HBO series stand in sharp contrast to Papini's revised narrative. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Sherri Papini Says Her 'Poor Mother' Was Taken 'Wildly Out of Context' in Doc: 'She Knows I Was Kidnapped'
In HBO's 'The Curious Case of Sherri Papini,' her mother Loretta Graeff is heard saying "It was not an abduction" Papini claimed during a new episode of 'The Viall Files' podcast that the quote was edited out of context and didn't reflect her mother's true beliefs She said her mother "definitely knows" she was kidnapped, despite Papini's 2022 guilty pleaSherri Papini — the California mom who admitted to faking her 2016 kidnapping — is pushing back on how her mother was portrayed in a new docuseries, claiming a quote that made headlines was taken "wildly out of context." In The Curious Case of Sherri Papini, Papini's mother Loretta Graeff is shown saying: 'It was not an abduction.' The quote appears to show Graeff doubting her daughter's version of events — a sentiment echoed by law enforcement and federal prosecutors, who ultimately revealed that Papini had orchestrated the entire disappearance herself. But now, Papini says the scene doesn't tell the whole story. 'My poor mother… when you don't have control over your own audio and it gets cut and clipped… it can be taken wildly out of context,' Papini, 42, said during a new episode of The Viall Files podcast. Pressed on whether her mother had changed her mind after initially expressing skepticism, Papini replied: 'Oh, no. My mom definitely knows that I was held captive and that I was kidnapped.' She added that while things were 'very confusing in the beginning,' her mother came to understand what 'actually happened' — and that the quote used in the documentary omitted that supposed clarification. The docuseries recounts the story that once gripped the nation: Papini disappeared while jogging near her Redding, Calif., home in November 2016. She resurfaced 22 days later on Thanksgiving morning, battered and shackled, claiming she had been abducted at gunpoint by two masked Hispanic women. That story unraveled in 2022 when federal investigators revealed Papini had been hiding out with a former boyfriend. She was charged with mail fraud and making false statements, later pleading guilty in a plea deal that sent her to prison for 18 months. She was released in 2023 to community confinement and remains under supervised release. In recent interviews — including the HBO project and her podcast appearance — Papini has positioned herself less as a manipulative hoaxster and more as a woman misrepresented by a hostile media, overzealous prosecutors and edited footage. The 42-year-old divorced mother-of-two says that her kidnapping wasn't a hoax, and that she only lied about the identity of her purported captor: her ex-boyfriend. She said she feared for her safety, and that her ex-husband Keith Papini would revoke her access to their children if she told the whole truth. (Papini's ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, has never been charged with a crime. He declined PEOPLE's request for comment in May, around when the documentary began airing.) Her alleged capture was preceded by a months-long emotional affair with James, she said, and she felt partially responsible for her circumstances after "leading him on," she said in the documentary. "I agreed with James to make up that someone else did it [in exchange for my release]," Papini claims. "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." Related: Why Sherri Papini's Own Mother Doesn't Believe Her New Story About Supposed Kidnapping Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. She calls the HBO project a 'trial by media,' noting that she never faced a criminal trial, and describes herself as living under a 'life sentence' of judgment. She also alleges that key evidence — such as interrogation audio in which, she claims, law enforcement guided her ex-boyfriend's responses — was left out of the final cut. Papini says she hopes her mother will publicly clarify her purported position if given the chance. 'I think given the opportunity, sure,' she said. But for many, the words spoken on-camera in the HBO series stand in sharp contrast to Papini's revised narrative. Read the original article on People
USA Today
06-02-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Who are the engineers behind Elon Musk's overhauling the US government infrastructure?
Alexandra Alper Reuters Elon Musk is relying on a coterie of young engineers with little government experience in his takeover of the U.S. Federal government infrastructure. Here are some details about three of them. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) declined to comment. Gavin Kliger Gavin Kliger, who lists his job on Linkedin as 'Special Advisor to the Director @ OPM' since January, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 2020 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and boasting a 3.95 grade point average, according to the platform. Kliger, pictured donning a "Make America Great Again" hat on his profile page on social media platform X, was most recently a senior Software Engineer at San Francisco, California-based AI Startup Databrinks and served in a similar role at Twitter in 2019, his Linkedin Profile shows. His Substack features essays entitled 'The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys its Enemies,' in which he describes Gaetz as 'a congressman who was never charged with a crime... forced from office through the coordinated efforts of the intelligence community, the DOJ, establishment Republicans, and a media complex more interested in headlines than truth," a scenario that echoes Trump's own travails, he claims. Another essay, called 'Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears,' argues the controversial appointee represents 'a direct challenge to the entrenched power brokers who have spent decades turning the Pentagon into a revolving door for defense contractors and corporate lobbyists.' A third essay, titled "Why DOGE" with the subtitle "Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America," is available only to paid subscribers. Kliger did not respond to a request for comment, but reposted an Elon Musk post on X on Feb 3, saying, "Time to confess: Media reports saying that @DOGE has some of world's best software engineers are in fact true." U.S. President Donald Trump appointed Musk head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project. Luke Farritor Luke Farritor is a former intern at SpaceX, Musk's space company, where he worked 10-hour days writing software for the pumps, valves and other components that help fuel rockets, according to an article posted on the website of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where Farritor studied computer science. Farritor was part of an award-winning team that deciphered portions of an ancient Greek scroll, a LinkedIn post shows. He is also a Thiel Fellow, last year winning $100,000 and access to a network of tech founders, investors, scientists, and former fellows to focus on his Greek scroll project. According to the New York Times, Farritor, was among the workers given access to USAID systems. He is also listed as an 'executive engineer' in the office of the secretary of health and human services, and had an email account at the General Services Administration (GSA), the paper reported. The GSA is a federal government agency that manages federal property and provides contracting services. Musk's aides, including Farritor, have requested access to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services systems that control contracts and the more than $1 trillion in payments that go out annually, according to the Times. Farritor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Edward Coristine According to Wired magazine, Edward Coristine appears to have recently graduated from high school and to have been enrolled at Northeastern University. He also spent three months at Neuralink, Musk's brain-computer interface company, last summer, the magazine added. Coristine is listed in internal OPM records as an "expert" at OPM, Wired reported. A Connecticut registry of businesses shows that an Edward Coristine created three tech or computer-related firms that list as a principal place of business a New Canaan, Connecticut home, valued by Zillow at over $2.4 million. One of them, LLC, dedicated to "Professional, Scientific and Technological services" appears to still be in operation. Web-based platform Github, which allows developers to store, share and collaborate on code, shows an Eduard C as the only "member" of Diamond CDN -- one of the now dissolved Connecticut-based companies founded by Coristine. The same Eduard C, who describes himself as a technologist who is "passionate about improving humanity!" has contributed to Neuralink's code base, according to the platform. Coristine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meet the young team of software engineers slashing government waste at DOGE: report
Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk's DOGE efforts to slash government waste and streamline the federal bureaucracy include the hiring of several up-and-coming young software engineers tasked with "modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity." Six young men between the ages of 19 and 24 — Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger and Ethan Shaotran — have taken up various roles furthering the DOGE agenda, according to a report from Wired. Bobba was part of the highly regarded Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program at UC Berkeley and has held internships at the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund, Meta and Palantir. "Let me tell you something about Akash," Grata AI CEO Charis Zhang posted on X about Bobba in recent days. "During a project at Berkeley, I accidentally deleted our entire codebase 2 days before the deadline. I panicked. Akash just stared at the screen, shrugged, and rewrote everything from scratch in one night — better than before. We submitted early and got first in the class. Many such stories. I trust him with everything I own." 'Viper's Nest': Usaid Accused Of Corruption, Mismanagement Long Before Trump Admin Took Aim Coristine, a recent high school graduate who studied mechanical engineering and physics at Northwestern, previously worked for Musk's Neuralink project, Wired reported. Read On The Fox News App Bobba and Costine reportedly work directly under Anna Scales as "experts" at the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Kliger is listed on LinkedIn as a special advisor to the director of OPM and attended UC Berkeley in 2020. Kliger has also worked at the AI company Databricks. Kliger's substack contains a post, "The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies," as well as another titled "Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears." Usaid Closes Hq To Staffers Monday As Musk Says Trump Supports Shutting Agency Down Another post on the substack is headlined, "Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America." Killian is listed as a volunteer for DOGE who attended McGill University after graduating from high school in 2019. Wired reported that Killian previously worked as an engineer at a company called Jump Trading that deals with high-frequency financial trades and algorithms. Shaotran was studying computer science at Harvard University last year and is the founder of Energize AI, an OpenAI-backed startup. Additionally, Shaotran participated in a "hackathon" sponsored by an Elon Musk company where he finished in second place. Farritor, who dropped out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has a working GSA email address, was previously an intern for SpaceX and is also a Thiel fellow. In 2023, at 21years old, Farritor became the first person to successfully decode text inside a 2,000-year-old Greek scroll using AI, according to the University of Nebraska website. According to Wired, Bobba, Coristine, Farritor and Shaotran have working GSA emails along with A-suite level clearance that allows them to work on the top floor at GSA with access to all IT systems. Fox News Digital reached out to OPM and GSA for comment. Speaking to Fox News' Peter Doocy in the Oval Office Tuesday, President Donald Trump praised the intelligence of some of the young hires working for DOGE. "That's good," Trump said of the hires as young as 19. "They're very smart, though, Peter. They're like you. They're very smart people. "No, I haven't seen them," Trump said when asked if he had met the team. "They work, actually, out of the White House as smart people, unlike what they do in the control towers. We need smart people. We should use some of them in the control towers, where we were putting people that were actually intellectually deficient. That was one of the qualifications is you could be intellectually deficient. "No. We need smart people. Some are young and some are not young. Some are not young at all. But they found great things. Look at the list of things. I'll … maybe I'll do it tomorrow. I'll read off a list of 15 or 20 things that they found inside of the USAID. It has to be corrupt." Elon Musk has also publicly posted online about the qualifications he is looking for and the strength of his team. "If you're a hardcore software engineer and want to build the everything app, please join us by sending your best work to code@ Musk posted on X in January. "We don't care where you went to school or even whether you went to school or what "big name" company you worked at. Just show us your code." In another X post this week, Musk wrote, "Time to confess: Media reports saying that @DOGE has some of world's best software engineers are in fact true." Wired cited sources who raised concerns about Musk's team's clearance, and Democrats in Congress have been railing against DOGE in recent days, arguing that DOGE has received improper access to various government systems. Musk has pushed back on the criticism from Democrats, including allegations about DOGE's involvement in treasury payment oversight. "The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once," Musk, the chair of DOGE, posted early Saturday morning to X. Musk also responded to Democratic critics, including those upset about his efforts to push reforms at USAID, saying the "hysterical reactions" demonstrate the importance of DOGE's work. "An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government," a post on Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer's X account states, echoing remarks the lawmaker made during a press conference. "DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to make spending decisions. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law. DOGE's conduct cannot be allowed to stand. Congress must take action to restore the rule of law." Musk described the effort to slash government waste and bureaucracy as a one-time opportunity. "Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that @DOGE is doing work that really matters," he wrote in response to Schumer. "This is the one shot the American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people. We're never going to get another chance like this. It's now or never. Your support is crucial to the success of the revolution of the people." Since its creation last month, DOGE's X account has provided updates on its work to cut government spending, including an announcement last week that it had cut more than $1 billion from federal spending through now-defunct diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and personnel. "DOGE is fulfilling President Trump's commitment to making government more accountable, efficient and, most importantly, restoring proper stewardship of the American taxpayer's hard-earned dollars," a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities. The ongoing operations of DOGE may be seen as disruptive by those entrenched in the federal bureaucracy, who resist change. While change can be uncomfortable, it is necessary and aligns with the mandate supported by more than 77 million American voters." Fox News Digital's Emma Colton and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this reportOriginal article source: Meet the young team of software engineers slashing government waste at DOGE: report
