Judge OKs Insanity Plea for Driver Who Breached Trump Checkpoints
A woman who authorities said drove through two checkpoints outside Mar-a-Lago during President Donald Trump’s last year in office will undergo court-ordered psychiatric treatment after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer accepted the plea from Hannah Roemhild, a 32-year-old opera singer from Connecticut, after her attorney struck a deal with Florida prosecutors. Roemhild was initially charged with assault on a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon, fleeing or attempting to allude, and resisting an officer without violence, Palm Beach County Court records show. She faced similar charges in Fort Lauderdale federal court, where that case reached the same conclusion in September, records show.
“Defendant is ‘mentally defective’ and shall be prohibited under federal law from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing any firearm or ammunition,” U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II wrote in the September sentencing. “Defendant shall continue with treatment and medication which is currently in place … Mandatory monthly monitoring of blood levels for medication compliance, with sharing of results to her supervision psychologist, in conjunction with her current medication monitoring program shall be established.”
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters that deputies opened fire on Roemhild’s SUV after she drove through two checkpoints as she fled a Florida Highway Patrol officer who tried to speak with her at The Breakers on January 31, 2020. Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago — which had been dubbed the “Southern White House” during his presidency — at the time of the breach and shooting.
“Deputies and Secret Service agents had moved out of the way just in time,” Bradshaw said during a news conference on the day of the incident.
The woman’s attorney, David Roth, said that she “is relieved that these matters have been resolved and that she can go on living a normal, productive, healthy life,” according to The Palm Beach Post.
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