The California mother who pleaded guilty in 2022 to charges related to faking her own kidnapping six years prior is back in court, this time fighting her ex-husband for visitation rights with their two children. 

“For eight years our family has been followed, stalked, harassed and bullied by the media,” Sherri Papini said in a court filing for a Friday visitation hearing according to KRCR. “I have done my best to stay private to focus on my children and healing from the events that transpired. For many years after my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our children before serving my time in prison. My children have always been my primary focus.”

Papini wants to be able to see the children again after an eight-year saga that has garnered international press attention and was even the subject of 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. 

Sherri Papini departs a child custody hearing in Redding, California on Friday, March 21, 2025. Papini previously served 18 months in federal prison for faking her own kidnapping in 2016. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

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

Sherri Papini, center, leaves the federal courthouse after Federal Judge William Shubb sentenced her to 18 months in federal prison, in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. Federal prosecutors had asked that she be sentenced to eight months in prison for faking her own kidnapping in 2016. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

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