Lawyer Asks For Mental Health Counseling For Serial Stowaway Marilyn Hartman While She's In Jail
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman's lawyer wants mental health counseling for her while she is in custody at the Cook County Jail, the CBS 2 Investigators have learned.
A judge ordered the state to look into Hartman's counseling request. There should be an answer by June 14.
Hartman was ordered back to jail after she was able to sneak away from a halfway house in March to go to O'Hare International Airport.
The latest arrest came just two days after we heard Hartman speak for the first time in an interview with CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards.
Earlier this month, Hartman's attorney – Cook County Assistant Public Defender Parle Roe-Taylor – asked to have Hartman's bond reduced so that she could return to the halfway house – A Safe Haven. Roe-Taylor said Hartman's doctor and the program manager at the halfway house both wrote letters to the court in support of Hartman's return there.
The program manager even noted they could put Hartman in a more secure location with constant camera and offer her an additional therapist.
But a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney given her escape that day, there is no guarantee that Hartman will not escape again if she goes back to the halfway house.
Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas expressed compassion toward Hartman, but also frustration at her history. Chiampas recounted the criminal cases against Hartman – from a 2018 incident in which she got on a flight to London without a ticket, to a 2019 arrest when Hartman was caught again at O'Hare when she had been ordered not to come back, and finally to the latest escape.
The judge advised that the court had made it very clear that Hartman is not to come anywhere near any airport, in particular Midway or O'Hare International Airport, if she is not a ticketed passenger.
The judge said Hartman's latest escape is not an aberration, but part of a pattern. She further said Hartman refuses to honor and respect court orders – not once or twice, but repeatedly – and ordered that Hartman would remain in jail.
Hartman has been arrested multiple times at O'Hare International Airport.
Among other incidents, she was sentenced to 18 months of probation in March after pleading guilty in March 2019 to sneaking past Chicago airport security, boarding a plane and flying to London without a ticket the year before.
She was arrested again in October 2019 after being spotted at Terminal 1, Checkpoint 2 at O'Hare and was seen attempting to pass through security without a boarding pass or identification. Police said by then, Hartman was on probation for a prior trespass incident and was prohibited from going to O'Hare or Midway international airports without a boarding pass.
In late March 2020, Hartman was released from Cook County Jail and put on home monitoring after being attacked at the jail, and also after the coronavirus pandemic became a concern for inmates.
Edwards talked exclusively with Hartman beginning in October 2019 for a report that aired this past Sunday night. She told Edwards she thought she had taken at least 30 flights over the years.
The CBS 2 Investigators -- through a series of sources, public records requests, Ms. Hartman's recollections, and more -- compiled a forensic accounting of her free rides. She went to Jacksonville, Seattle, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and even London.
She said it began in 2002. Hartman recalled, "The first time I was able to to get through I flew to Copenhagen" and, "The second time I flew into Paris."
It wasn't until some 12 years later that she popped on the radar of law enforcement, when she flew, sans ticket, flew from San Jose to Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 2014. A judge then warned her, don't do it again.