Federal prosecutors want a U.S. judge to give Heather Mack a 28-year prison sentence on top of the seven years she spent locked up overseas, potentially keeping her behind bars until her late 40s for her role in her mother’s brutal 2014 murder in Bali.
That request — formally made in a 47-page court filing Wednesday — has been expected ever since Mack pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to kill a U.S. national. Mack is set to be sentenced Jan. 17 by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly.
Prosecutors wrote that the murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack was “vicious.” And they explained that von Wiese-Mack “struggled to stay alive, meaning that in the last moments of her life she realized that her daughter, and only child, was responsible for her death.”
“Von Wiese had been worried that Mack would one day kill her, and it is hard to fathom the physical and emotional pain Von Wiese endured in the final moments of her life,” the prosecutors wrote.
Mack, 28, faces a wide variety of outcomes when she is sentenced. That’s because it’s not clear whether Kennelly will give her credit for the time she spent in an Indonesian prison, where her former boyfriend Tommy Schaefer was also held. Her attorneys on Monday asked Kennelly to give her a sentence that could set her free in her early 30s.
She could have asked for a lesser sentence of time served.
Meanwhile, the feds asked for the maximum under the terms of Mack’s plea agreement. She will likely serve 85% of whatever sentence is handed down and be given credit for the time she spent in Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, starting in November 2021.
The feds’ filing included an image of Mack at the rear of a taxi in Bali, manipulating the suitcase in which von Wiese-Mack’s body was ultimately found.
The suitcase was left outside the St. Regis Bali Resort on Aug. 12, 2014. The feds have long said von Wiese-Mack was bludgeoned to death with the metal handle of a fruit stand so Mack, Schaefer, and Schaefer’s cousin could enrich themselves with the proceeds of von Wiese-Mack’s $1.5 million estate.
Mack’s plea agreement alleges that “Schaefer repeatedly beat [von Wiese-Mack] in the head and face” and that she “died shortly thereafter.”
The feds went on to say Wednesday that von Wiese-Mack “was brutally beaten after being taken by surprise as she lay in her hotel bed.”
Their document contained images of the injuries inflicted upon von Wiese-Mack in the years before her death, allegedly by Mack.
Oak Park police said they were called 86 times in 10 years to the Mack home before von Wiese-Mack’s murder. The mother allegedly told police that Mack bit her repeatedly and punched her in an already broken ankle.
“The objective evidence is that despite enduring years of abuse, Von Wiese loved her daughter and did everything she could to provide the best for her,” the prosecutors wrote. “Far from neglect or abuse, Mack was a child who was provided for financially and given many opportunities.”
The feds pushed back on claims Mack made earlier this week about her own abuse by her mother, noting that “there is little evidence to support these allegations.”
Meanwhile, six Tiffany & Co. boxes were found after the murder of von Wiese-Mack inside Mack’s desk drawer, along with von Wiese-Mack’s bank account information.
“This is hardly the desk drawer of a neglected or financially deprived young adult,” the feds wrote.
Mack and Schaefer already faced a previous prosecution in Indonesia over von Wiese-Mack’s murder. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison overseas for beating von Wiese-Mack to death, and Mack was sentenced to 10 years for helping. Mack gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Stella, during their 2015 trial.
Still, signs long pointed to a separate prosecution in the United States if the pair ever returned. For Mack, that day came in late 2021 after she served seven years and two months in Indonesia. She was deported with Stella and, as expected, an indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court as their plane neared O’Hare Airport.
It charged Mack and Schaefer with conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Schaefer remains locked up overseas.
A maternal cousin of Mack’s was named guardian of Stella, now 8, last year.
