An American woman has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after pleading guilty to helping kill her own mother and stuffing her body into a suitcase during a luxury holiday in Bali.
Judge Matthew Kennelly acknowledged that Mack was detained in Chicago for about two years after returning to the United States in 2021 while awaiting trial. Mack's attorney, Michael Leonard, said Mack's official sentence totals about 23 years.
Federal prosecutors had recommended that Heather Mack be sentenced to 28 years in prison for conspiring with her boyfriend to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014.
The government also required Mack, 28, to serve five years of supervised release, pay a $250,000 fine and $262,708 in restitution. Prosecutors said in a filing last week that the recommended sentence is “just and sufficient, but no more severe than necessary to provide fair and appropriate punishment for Mack's heinous crimes.”
The sentencing hearing began Wednesday morning with testimony from Bill Wiese, Mr. Wiese-Mack's brother and Mr. Mack's uncle. He called for Kennelly to receive the maximum possible sentence, saying Mack has never shown any remorse.
“If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” Wiese said.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses, Mac remained mostly expressionless as his uncle spoke, occasionally glancing at the attendees and flashing a small smile to some. .
Mack pleaded guilty last June to conspiring with his then-girlfriend to murder von Wiese-Mack in order to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund. Prosecutors said Mack, who was 18 and pregnant at the time, covered her mother's mouth while Tommy Schaefer hit Wiesemack with a fruit bowl in a hotel room.
Prosecutors say Mr. Mack and Mr. Schaefer had been planning the murder for months, and video evidence showed Mr. Mack and Mr. Schaefer taking a small suitcase containing Wiese-Mack's body into a taxi in Indonesia. He said the video showed him trying to pick her up.
Mack, who lived with his mother in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, was serving seven years of a 10-year sentence in Indonesia for being an accessory to Wiese Mack's murder in 2015. She was deported in 2021 and was arrested by U.S. agents upon arrival at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Mack's 6-year-old daughter was also with her when she was arrested. After a custody battle, the girl was placed in the care of her relatives.
Mak's lawyer asked for a 15-year sentence, giving credit to the seven years he served in an Indonesian prison. She was automatically given credit for the more than two years she spent in custody in Chicago.
“It is particularly unnecessary to cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to incarcerate Mr. Mack for an extended period of time at the BOP,” attorney Michael Leonard said in a recent court filing. he said, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The plea agreement called for up to 28 years in prison and the dropping of two other charges against Mack.
Schaefer was convicted of murder and is serving an 18-year prison sentence in Indonesia. He is also charged in the same indictment in the United States. His mother, Kia Walker, was in court for Mack's sentencing Wednesday.
