Current:Home > ScamsSentencing scheduled Wednesday for Heather Mack in mom’s Bali slaying, stuffing into suitcase-DB Wealth Institute B2 Reviews & Ratings
Sentencing scheduled Wednesday for Heather Mack in mom’s Bali slaying, stuffing into suitcase
lotradecoin registration View Date:2024-12-25 16:23:02
Sentencing is scheduled Wednesday in Chicago for an American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during a luxury vacation at a Bali resort nearly a decade ago.
Federal prosecutors are recommending a 28-year prison sentence for Heather Mack, considerably more time behind bars than defense lawyers are expected to ask when she is sentenced for conspiring to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014.
The government also is seeking five years of supervised release for Mack, 28, a $250,000 fine and restitution of $262,708. In a filing last week, prosecutors said the recommended sentence “is warranted and sufficient, but not greater than necessary to serve a just and appropriate punishment for Mack’s heinous crime.”
Mack pleaded guilty last June to one count of conspiring to kill Wiese-Mack with her then-boyfriend to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund. Prosecutors have said that Mack, then 18 and pregnant, covered her mother’s mouth in a hotel room while Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl.
The case gained international attention in part because of photographs of the suitcase Wiese-Mack was placed in, which seemed too small to hold an adult woman’s body.
Prosecutors have said Mack and Schaefer had planned the killing for months. They also said they had video evidence that showed both Mack and Schaefer trying to get the suitcase with Wiese-Mack’s body inside it into an Indonesian taxicab.
Mack, who lived with her mother in suburban Chicago’s Oak Park, served seven years of her 10-year Indonesian sentence. She was deported in 2021 and U.S. agents arrested her immediately after her plane landed at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Mack’s then-6-year-old daughter was with her when she was arrested. The girl later was placed with a relative after a custody fight.
Mack’s lawyers are seeking a 15-year prison term — but with credit for seven years spent in the Indonesian prison for her 2015 conviction of being an accessory to Wiese-Mack’s murder. Separately, she would automatically get credit for more than two years spent in custody in Chicago since her return to the U.S.
“For the taxpayers to incur the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to incarcerate Ms. Mack for an extended period of time within the BOP is particularly unnecessary,” attorney Michael Leonard said in a recent court filing, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The plea agreement calls for a sentence of no more than 28 years. As part of the plea deal, two other charges against Mack would be dropped at the end of the sentencing process.
Schaefer was convicted of murder and remains in Indonesia, where he is serving an 18-year sentence. He is charged in the same U.S. indictment.
veryGood! (1)
Related
- Get Designer Michael Kors Bags on Sale Including a $398 Purse for $59 & More Deals Starting at $49
- Woman pleads guilty to being accessory in fatal freeway shooting of 6-year-old boy
- NCAA softball career home runs leader Jocelyn Alo joins Savannah Bananas baseball team
- An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
- Hurricane Ernesto aims for Bermuda after leaving many in Puerto Rico without power or water
- Gold pocket watch found on body of Titanic's richest passenger is up for auction
- Mississippi lawmakers consider new school funding formula
- South Dakota governor, a potential Trump running mate, writes in new book about killing her dog
- Hideki Matsuyama will be without regular caddie, coach after their passports and visas were stolen
- PEN America cancels World Voices Festival amid criticism of its response to Israel-Hamas war
Ranking
- Video shows 2 toddlers in diapers, distraught in the middle of Texas highway after crash
- Matthew McConaughey, wife Camila Alves make rare public appearance with their kids
- Biden officials indefinitely postpone ban on menthol cigarettes amid election-year pushback
- You’ll Be Crazy in Love With the Gifts Beyoncé Sent to 2-Year-Old After Viral TikTok
- Giants trading Jordan Phillips to Cowboys in rare deal between NFC East rivals
- Freight train derailment, fire forces Interstate 40 closure near Arizona-New Mexico line
- A parent's guide to 'Challengers': Is Zendaya's new movie appropriate for tweens or teens?
- Venice becomes first city in the world to charge day trippers a tourist fee to enter
Recommendation
-
Family of man killed by Connecticut police officer files lawsuit, seeks federal probe of department
-
Dua Lipa and Callum Turner’s Date Night Has Us Levitating
-
Man convicted of involuntary manslaughter in father’s drowning, told police he was baptizing him
-
Matthew McConaughey, wife Camila Alves make rare public appearance with their kids
-
US Army intelligence analyst pleads guilty to selling military secrets to China
-
Will Messi play at Gillette Stadium? New England hosts Inter Miami: Here’s the latest
-
NFL draft winners, losers: Bears rise, Kirk Cousins falls after first round
-
Takeaways from AP’s investigation into fatal police encounters involving injections of sedatives