The Cook County Sheriff’s Office is opposing a proposal which would allow “serial stowaway” Marilyn Hartman to be freed on electronic monitoring.
Hartman was arrested last week, after evading security at O’Hare and boarding a British Airways flight to London. Turned back from customs in Great Britain, she was returned to Chicago where she faces a Thursday hearing in Cook County Court.
But during a brief hearing on Saturday, a judge set her bond at $25,000, with a provision for possible release on electronic monitoring if suitable housing could be found inside Cook County.
“She is not an appropriate candidate for electronic monitoring and is in need of intense treatment,” Cara Smith, the Sheriff’s policy chief wrote the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. “She will remain in the jail as an NPTS (no place to stay). Please advise if a more appropriate bond order will be sought, and how we can be of assistance.”
Over two years ago Hartman promised that her stowaway days were over. She wanted to air her grievances, but told NBC5 that she knew getting on airplanes was not the way to do it.
“It’s fight or flight syndrome,” Hartman said. “I feel that I never got justice, because I wanted a trial.”
After her release Hartman had largely gone quiet over the last year. She was housed at a nursing facility called Lake Park Place in Waukegan. But she insisted she didn’t know why she was there, and said just before Christmas she was being evicted to a homeless shelter in Chicago, after being presented with a bill for over $55,000 in back rent.
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Lake Park Center officials would not comment. But just before New Year’s, Hartman said she had found alternative housing at a different facility in Grayslake. All seemed to have stabilized in her turbulent life.
Then came the arrest last week.
For the record, no one is commenting, or even speculating, on how the elusive Hartman manages to get past TSA screeners and airline gate agents. A TSA spokesman says last week’s breach at O’Hare is under investigation.
In the meantime, the sheriff’s office says a more permanent solution to the 66 year old Hartman’s issues needs to be found.
“What’s in her best interest is not electronic monitoring,” Smith said. “We have to operate far outside the normal box.”
