Serial stowaway arrested for ‘attempting to sneak on to flight in Chicago’
17 March 2021, 10:34
Marilyn Hartman’s electronic monitoring device was activated as she headed towards O’Hare airport.
A woman with a history of stowing away on airliners has been arrested for attempting to sneak on to a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, authorities said.
The arrest of Marilyn Hartman, 69, came two weeks after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have given her probation for a previous attempt to stow away on a flight.
She is being held on a trespassing charge.
Hartman allegedly left the facility where she had been staying while on electronic monitoring.
The device allowed Cook County sheriff’s deputies to track her as she headed for O’Hare. Officers activated an alarm on the device as she neared Terminal 1, where she was arrested.
Officials from Cook County Sheriff’s Department are seeking a felony escape charge for Hartman.
Her arrest came two weeks after a court hearing in which her lawyers and prosecutors said they had reached the plea deal on a pending case that would have imposed 18 months of probation, plus court-ordered mental health treatment.
Formal plea proceedings had not begun, but Judge Peggy Chiampas put lawyers on notice that she was not inclined to agree to that sentence.
Hartman was arrested at O’Hare in October 2019 as she was trying to pass the second of two security checkpoints, according to court records.
She was released from Cook County Jail about a year ago in an effort to protect low-risk detainees from Covid-19.
The 2019 arrest violated her probation sentence for sneaking past O’Hare security in January 2018, boarding a jet and flying to London’s Heathrow Airport without a ticket.
