RALEIGH - Allison Quets' most recent legal attempt to be reunified with the toddler twins she gave birth to, put up for adoption and later kidnapped happened behind closed doors Wednesday.

Wake District Court Judge Anne Salisbury opted to keep the public -- including a dozen local reporters and camera operators -- out of a hearing in which the adoptive parents, Denise and Kevin Needham, asked Salisbury to throw out Quets' lawsuit.

Salisbury decided confidential matters concerning the twin's August 2005 Florida adoption by Denise and Kevin Needham, an Apex couple, overrode the public's right to be inside the courtroom. The News & Observer had legal counsel at the hearing and argued unsuccessfully to keep the courtroom open.

Salisbury indicated she would make future proceedings public if she decides Quets has a legitimate right to ask for visitation with the twins. No timeline was given as to when she would decide.

Quets, 50, is serving five years of probation for taking the children to Canada during the 2006 Christmas holidays. The twins' disappearance touched off an international manhunt, with the FBI making public pleas for the twins' safe return. They were found in Quets' custody.

The Needhams appeared in court but did not make themselves available to the reporters camped outside the courtroom. Quets also declined to comment.

The Apex couple has gone to great lengths to keep aspects of their lives private in a situation that immediately captivated and intrigued people across the country, making the family's ordeal a topic of cable network news fodder and speculation. The couple, according to a Web site set up by friends, have sold their Apex home and moved elsewhere in the Triangle because of the attention the case has attracted.

A lawyer, in a court motion, also indicated that they have spent at least $200,000 in legal bills fighting Quets' attempts to be reunited with the twins.

"The Needhams have refrained from dealing with the media because they want to protect the privacy [of] their children," said Deborah Sandlin, a lawyer representing the couple.

The couple adopted Holly and Tyler in Florida in August 2005 after Quets, weakened from illness, approached them through a family friend to offer the children she conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The twins were born in July 2005.

The three settled on an open adoption, that would allow Quets, a former engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin, six visits a year and frequent updates on the children, according to a copy of the adoption agreement found in court documents.

Quets tried, through legal venues in Florida, to nullify the adoption. She was unsuccessful in the Florida courts and during a routine visit over the 2006 Christmas holidays, she fled to Canada with the twins without the Needhams' knowledge.

She pleaded guilty in September to kidnapping and was sentenced to probation in December.

At earlier court hearings, federal prosecutors indicated that Quets stalked the Needhams before the kidnapping and likened her most recent legal attempt to gain visitation to harassment.