In 2022, a California mother admitted to faking her own kidnapping six years ago. Now, she is in court battling her ex-husband for visitation rights with their two children.

Sherri Papini, who faced media scrutiny for years, seeks to reconnect with her kids. In a court document for a visitation hearing, she expressed her desire to maintain privacy and focus on her children’s well-being.

Despite the attention her case attracted, Papini hopes for a chance to reunite with her children after years of being in the spotlight, including being featured in a Hulu documentary.

Her ex-husband, Keith Papini, is fighting to shelter the pair’s children from their mother. 

Attorneys for both sides pleaded their case in front of Judge Kathryn J. Barton of the Shasta County Superior Court. 

In November 2016, Sherri Papini left her Redding, Calif. home for a jog and did not return.

She reappeared 22 days later bound, beaten and with a brand on her shoulder 150 miles from her home, claiming that she had been abducted at gunpoint by two Hispanic females weeks prior. 

For years, local and federal law enforcement spent a vast amount of resources trying to solve the alleged crime, only to find that Papini had been staying in Costa Mesa with an ex-boyfriend during the three weeks she was missing. 

She was finally linked to her ex-boyfriend through DNA evidence, and he came clean with authorities, and charged in March 2022 with 35 counts of mail fraud and one count of lying to a federal officer. 

Her husband, Keith Papini, filed for divorce and custody of their children immediately thereafter. 

Later in the year, she accepted a plea deal and admitted to her guilt on one count of mail fraud and to the charge of lying to a federal officer. 

She was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but released in 2023 after about 11 months behind bars. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the attorneys for both parties.