Mack’s lawyers did not contest her detention Wednesday, but Mack is free to ask for her release at another time.
Heather Mack will remain held in federal custody for the time being after her attorneys agreed not to fight her detention during a hearing Wednesday.
However, that will not necessarily stop Mack from asking a judge for her release some time in the future. She is next due in court Jan. 18.
Mack appeared for the hearing in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse’s 25th-floor ceremonial courtroom. She was dressed in orange jail garb, wore a white face mask and had her hair in a ponytail. Her legs were again shackled.
She spoke only briefly, when she confirmed for the judge that she did not wish to say anything substantive.
“Correct, your honor,” she said.
The hearing was also attended by the siblings of Mack’s mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, whose 2014 overseas murder Mack is accused of plotting. The siblings, Bill Wiese and Debbi Curran, made a brief statement to reporters after the hearing.
“Debbi and I are incredibly relieved and appreciative that this decision was reached today,” Wiese said in the lobby of the Dirksen building.
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Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Wiese later confirmed that Wednesday’s hearing was the first time he and his sister had seen Mack since 2014.
Mack spent her first week back in the United States in Chicago’s downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center, in custody and under indictment. She pleaded not guilty through a lawyer during her arraignment last week.
U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle also planned to hold a detention hearing Wednesday, but former federal prosecutors told the Chicago Sun-Times that Mack’s chances of release were slim.
The international legal saga surrounding Mack began when von Wiese-Mack’s body was discovered in a suitcase left outside the St. Regis Bali Resort on Aug. 12, 2014. Mack and her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, were prosecuted in Indonesia in connection with the murder. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for beating von Wiese-Mack to death, and Mack was sentenced to 10 years for helping.
Mack was released from an Indonesian prison in late October after serving seven years and two months. Schaefer remains behind bars overseas.
As a flight carrying Mack neared O’Hare last week, a three-count indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court that charged Mack and Schaefer with conspiring to kill von Wiese-Mack. Federal prosecutors have said von Wiese-Mack was killed so that Mack, Schaefer and Schaefer’s cousin, Robert Bibbs, could enrich themselves with the proceeds of von Wiese-Mack’s $1.5 million estate.
Bibbs was prosecuted in federal court in Chicago for encouraging and advising the couple on the murder from the United States. He was sentenced in 2017 to nine years in prison.
During Mack’s arraignment last week, lawyers discussed the potential detention hearing with Norgle, and a prosecutor referenced the many visits made by Oak Park police to the Mack home before von Wiese-Mack’s murder.
Von Wiese-Mack told police that Mack bit her repeatedly and punched her in her already broken ankle during an argument over household chores, the Sun-Times previously reported. In all, Oak Park police said in 2014 they were called 86 times in 10 years to the Mack home.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney said the police reports also referenced psychological evaluations of Mack, which he hoped to subpoena in time for the detention hearing.
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