Threat defendant to get mental health evaluation
The preliminary hearing for a woman accused of threatening to kill Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger was delayed Monday after her attorney requested that she undergo a mental health evaluation.
Moments earlier, Brittany M. Hartos, 25, of Butler could be heard crying behind a closed conference room door while she spoke to her court-appointed attorney, Samir Hadeed of Pittsburgh.
State police arrested Hartos after they say she called a crisis hot line April 7 and “threatened to go to Goldinger's house and kill him.”
She also threatened to go to his work and kill him, police said.
The defendant was allegedly upset at Goldinger for not prosecuting a case in which she claimed she was sexually assaulted, authorities said.
Hartos has been in the Butler County Prison on $100,000 since her arrest April 8, just hours after she made the call to the National Crisis Hotline.
She is charged with a aggravated assault, a felony, and terroristic threats and simple assault, both misdemeanors.
Hadeed and his counterpart, Patrick Schulte, a senior deputy state attorney general, addressed the request for the mental health evaluation in front of District Judge William Fullerton.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case since the county's district attorney is the alleged victim.
“I talked to the DA and his position is basically as long as she has a mental health plan,” Schulte said, “he has no problem for a non-monetary bond to follow all pretrial services.”
Fullerton agreed to postpone the hearing for about 30 days and he said it would be up to Hadeed to make arrangements through Common Pleas Court for the evaluation.
Read more about this case in Tuesday's Butler Eagle.
