She casually admits being a serial offender and even seems proud of her “hobby.” Her counselors have been working with her to remedy that, but therapy hasn’t seemed to have any lasting effect. Now that the psychiatrists have announced she’s “fit to stand trial,” frequent ticket-less flyer Marilyn Hartman will go to criminal court once again.
Fit for trial
Prosecutors in Chicago, Illinois are thrilled to announce that they are actually able to bring a criminal into court for trial. Not someone accused of anything violent, of course. Randomly shooting at people, arson, looting, or drug dealing rarely results in prosecution. Instead, they’re targeting a White grandmotherly type woman, who seems to have an unusual preoccupation with travel.
She’s a lot easier to find and doesn’t shoot back when they arrest her.
The real reason prosecutors want to bring Marylin Hartman to trial is because she’s so embarrassing to the TSA. Outsiders consider her more of a “white hat” security tester but if she was a terrorist, the Transportation Security Agency would have a whole lot of egg on their face.
The latest string of charges against her relate to her 2018 flight to London. She manages to fade through security cracks like a vampire, even though her picture is pasted up next to the security monitors at all the airports. She’s really, really, good at getting on a plane without a ticket.
On December 8, forensics clinical services issued their evaluation report indicating “Hartman is fit to stand trial with medications.” She’ll be in front of the judge, in person, on January 27 at 9:30 a.m. for her next appearance.
The 69-year-old serial stowaway “has been arrested numerous times at O’Hare, Midway and other airports across the country.” They don’t always notice her. She was trying to avoid the hassle of another messy round in court by leveraging her bipolar disorder. A plea deal is on the table but details haven’t been released.
The story is crazy
Hartman will be going to trial this time after being arrested at O’Hare International Airport in March, “when she was able to sneak away from a halfway house.” The compulsion must have been overwhelming for her because the incident happened “just two days after her exclusive interview with CBS 2’s Brad Edwards.”
During the interview, she detailed how she “bypassed airport security and slipped onto about 30 flights over two decades.”
Considering the level of post 9/11 security, Hartman’s story seems crazy. She baffled everyone and managed to fly all over the world with no ticket or identification.
She doesn’t mind, she says, when people say “she’s a nut.” Because “when I look at it objectively, that’s how I see it. craziness.” Not crazy enough to get out of trial though.
The episode before that landed her in jail and that’s when she met the reporter who interviewed her. A Transportation Security Administration agent spotted her at O’Hare on October 10, 2019. “There’s been a Marilyn sighting over here,” he called in to police. The dispatcher replied, “can you keep an eye on her for me?”
With around 30 stowaway flights to her credit, Hartman relates, the “first time I was able to to get through I flew to Copenhagen” and “The second time I flew into Paris.” The really surprising thing is it “wasn’t until some 12 years later that she popped on the radar of law enforcement.”
