County Judge Talks To Serial Stowaway Like An Exasperated Dad

By Mae Rice in News on Feb 24, 2016 5:26PM

The Serial Stowaway—a 64-year-old woman arrested at O'Hare International Airport last week trying to sneak onto yet another plane—has prompted a local judge to talk like an exasperated dad, according to the Tribune's report from the courtroom.

Cook County Circuit Judge William Raines described himself as "disappointed" in Tuesday’s hearing for Marilyn Hartman, whose latest stowaway attempt resulted in her sixth Cook County arrest in 10 months, according to the Tribune.

After Hartman's last arrest, she was released into a Chicago nursing home, Sacred Heart, on mental health probation. (In 2014, Hartman reported having severe depression and an unrecognized ailment, “whistleblower trauma syndrome.”)

She was ordered to keep away from O’Hare, Midway Airport and Union Station—which she did, until she didn’t.

Here are some of the things Judge Raines said in Hartman’s hearing:

"I can't tell you how disappointed I am right now that we're facing this issue.”

"Whatever we do going forward, we can't keep doing this over and over and over again… How many times do we have to revisit this?"

On the option of re-releasing Hartman to Sacred Heart: “[R]ight now I'm not feeling very confident that that worked so well for you."

"And I said that the last time, that this was the last opportunity. So maybe this is the last last opportunity.”

"I gotta make sure in my mind that Ms. Hartman gets it that there's not many more chances left. So we can make this work. It's going to be a lot more restrictive. It's not going to be as easy."

The moral here: It’s really hard to figure out how to humanely discipline repeat offenders, as parents of cool teens around the world can confirm.

Judge Raines asked a probation supervisor and a representative from Sacred Heart to come to his courtroom next week, where they will decide on next steps for Hartman—which, as the judge says above, will not be as relaxed as her previous probation.