A woman purporting to be Heather Mack, who stands accused of killing her mother in Bali, called a Cook County judge’s clerk three times Wednesday to tell the judge she has fired her local attorneys.
The calls came the same day as attorney Anthony R. Scifo filed a motion saying he wanted out of case, citing a “substantial breakdown in communication” with Mack.
Scifo had been representing Mack in court as she seeks to get $150,000 from the $1.56 million trust fund set up for her by her mother. She wants the money for her criminal defense as she fights the murder charges in court in Indonesia. A Cook County judge agreed to the distribution but with tight restrictions.
The judge, Neil Cohen, said Wednesday that he had no idea whether the caller really was Mack but noted the communication was inappropriate.
If it was Mack, she could be “faulted for being ignorant of our legal system, but I tend to doubt it,” the judge said.
In Scifo’s motion to leave the case, he does not go into detail but notes that the breakdown in communication happened Tuesday and that it “renders it impossible” for him to continue representing her.
The judge postponed action on Scifo’s motion until Feb. 27.
On Monday, Mack filed another motion, arguing that her uncle, who was appointed trustee of the fund by her mother, was acting against her interests by selling her mother’s condo and shipping her belongings to another relative in St. Louis.
