Sherri Papini Transferred to Community Confinement as Prison Release Date Approaches

Sherri Papini, the mother sentenced for lying to authorities when she staged her disappearance, is now out of prison and in community confinement ... ahead of her projected release date.

A rep for the Bureau of Prisons tells TMZ ... Sherri transferred out of the satellite camp adjacent to FCI Victorville Medium I last week, and is now in a facility overseen by the BOP's Sacramento Residential Reentry Management Office.

Community confinement often means the inmate is either finishing their sentence at home or is at some sort of halfway house -- but the BOP official wouldn't provide any further details on Sherri's situation.

We've also learned Sherri's projected release date has been moved up to the end of October, after originally being due to get out in May 2024 -- so she's shaved a good 6 months off her sentence.

Remember, Sherri made national headlines after she was reported as missing in 2016, and then was found weeks later on Thanksgiving ... about 150 miles away from her home in Northern California.

She claimed, at the time, 2 Hispanic women had abducted her at gunpoint.

The plot thickened, as they say, when she was arrested and charged for lying to FBI agents about the whole thing -- the feds said she was actually living with an ex-boyfriend at the time of her "disappearance."