Accused Mar-a-Lago checkpoint crasher pleads insanity

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Connecticut opera singer accused of crashing her car through a checkpoint outside President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, drawing gunfire from law enforcement, has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Hannah Roemhild’s attorney filed the written plea to charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon and fleeing and resisting an officer. Authorities do not believe she was targeting the president or Mar-a-Lago.

Attorney David Roth has previously said the 30-year-old resident of Middletown, Conn., has a history of mental illness and had been off her medication when she crashed through the checkpoint on Jan. 31. She nearly struck Secret Service agents and Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies, who opened fire as she sped off.

Insanity defenses are both rare and rarely successful. Under Florida law, Roemhild’s attorneys will have to convince a jury she is mentally ill and that caused her to not know what she was doing or not understand it was wrong. Even if found not guilty, that would not necessarily mean she would go free as the judge could sentence her to a mental hospital for treatment.

No trial date has been set.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3hgj5uG