The 4-week-old daughter of Heather Mack, a Chicago teen on trial in Bali in connection with her mother’s murder, is now at the center of a legal battle surrounding a $1.3 million trust fund.
Attorneys representing the infant announced plans Sunday to file court documents on behalf of her 19-year-old mother, who they say wants to give up a significant percentage of her trust fund to "guarantee her baby’s financial future."
"What ever [sic] your opinion of the adults in this case, I believe everyone would agree that the baby bears no culpability in this truly sad affair," Chicago attorney Vanessa Favia said in a statement.
The move comes after Mack claimed in court in February that her uncle denied her access to her trust fund. A Cook County judge has since approved the release of $150,000 to help pay for her defense and another $2,240 for living expenses.
Mack’s attorneys said the teen and her child have been treated in a "humane and decent manner," but noted Balinese prisons require prisoners to pay for basic necessities like soap, toilet paper and quality food.
Mack gave birth to the baby, who she named Stella, in March while in jail. The child’s 21-year-old father, Tommy Schaefer, is also in Bali prison while on trial.
Schaefer and Mack, both from Chicago, are charged with deliberately murdering Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, whose badly beaten body was found last August in a suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside an upscale hotel on Bali island.
U.S. & World
"Now that the prosecution and defense have rested, Heather says she no longer wants to wait," Mack's attorney Michael Elkin said in a statement. "Heather wants Stella to be provided for, regardless of what people may think of her. She said, 'I just need to protect [Stella].'"
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Prosecutors have asked the judges to find the defendants guilty of premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death, but have sought 15- and 18-year jail terms respectively for Mack and Schaefer.
Prosecutors claim that their evidence showed the couple deliberately plotted to kill von Wiese-Mack while vacationing on Bali, based on the testimony of witnesses and messages between the defendants.
They argued that Schaefer deliberately brought a metal fruit bowl when he came to the room at the St. Regis resort where Mack and her mother were staying. They said he then used the bowl to strike her, while Mack helped stuff her mother's body in the suitcase by sitting on it to enable Schaefer to close it.
The prosecutors said they decided to be lenient with Mack because she repeatedly expressed remorse and recently gave birth.
Both Mack’s and Schaefer’s lawyers insist the murder was not premeditated.
Schaefer testified that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with the bowl.
The Indonesian Criminal Court will makes its rulings Tuesday.
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