Decision Delayed Again On Mental Health Treatment In Jail For Serial Stowaway Marilyn Hartman
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman's attempt to get access to mental health counseling in jail was again delayed on Monday.
Hartman's attorney got a judge to sign a referral to Mental Health Court, but the ultimate decision about the move will be with the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
As it is, Hartman has access to medication while being held in the Cook County Jail, but no access to treatment sessions. Another hearing on the subject will be held in August.
Hartman was most recently 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 in March came just two days after we heard Hartman speak for the first time in an interview with CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards.
Last 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.
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 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.