Wednesday, October 29, 2008 2:38 PM CDT
Sleepwalking trial draws documentary crew
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — After her film company began working on a documentary about sleep disorders, Maro Chermayeff discovered someone she called “one the most renowned experts” on the topic.
Because of that, the New York filmmaker ended up spending a week in a Coles County courtroom.
Chermayeff’s company, called Show of Force, plans to include the case of Eastern Illinois University Associate Athletic Director Mark Bonnstetter in a documentary on sleep disorders that’s set to air next year. She said she learned about the case from Rosaline Cartwright, a Chicago sleep specialist who testified for Bonnstetter during his trial, which ended Monday.
“Sleep is such a land of mystery,” Chermayeff said of her interest in making a documentary on sleep disorders. “It’s a relatively new and certainly evolving science.”
She spent the trial in the courtroom listening to the testimony in a case where Bonnstetter’s attorneys tried to convince a jury that he was sleepwalking when he entered a neighbor woman’s house on Nov. 25, 2006. The jury acquitted Bonnstetter of charges alleging he entered the home without permission and tried to fondle the woman while she was sleeping.
During breaks in court sessions, the film crew followed Bonnstetter and his family through the courthouse halls, filming their conversations about the case and about Bonnstetter’s sleepwalking. Chermayeff said Bonnstetter and his family agreed to cooperate for the film, and the company also made itself “available” to the alleged victim and her family as well.
Chermayeff said the documentary will cover a “larger umbrella” of sleep disorders including “night terrors” and a suspected Parkinson’s Disease precursor with which a person wakes up in an aggressive mood or acts out dreams.
She said the film will highlight about a half-dozen people and will include interviews from “many more.”
The documentary will air sometime in 2009 with the exact date to be determined. It will be broadcast on truTV, formerly Court TV, and in France, where the film company also did research.
Show of Force’s other work includes an Emmy Award-winning series about life on an aircraft carrier and a documentary on a traveling circus, which both aired on PBS. Its other medical topic films include one on organ transplants that aired on HBO.
The unusual aspect of Bonnstetter’s case that made sleepwalking a major part of his defense was how two Boston attorneys, Raipher Pellegrino and Charles Dolan, ended up representing him at the trial. Pellegrino said Bonnstetter and his family did research on the matter and contacted his firm after learning he’d handled similar cases.
Pellegrino said he got an acquittal in the only Massachusetts case that used sleepwalking as a defense, and that involved a similar situation to Bonnstetter’s, where the defendant was accused of going into rooms and fondling women.
Sometimes, prosecutors will re-evaluate whether to charge someone after they learn about a sleepwalking condition, he added.
“A lot of times, they’ll reassess in light of the recognition of the illness,” Pellegrino said.
Assistant Coles County State’s Attorney Mick McAvoy, who prosecuted Bonnstetter’s case, said there have been a few earlier cases in Illinois in which sleepwalking was used as a defense.
When Bonnstetter’s attorneys indicated that they were going to have Cartwright testify, it became “pretty obvious” that the prosecution needed its own expert testimony, McAvoy said.
That led them to bring in psychiatrist Henry Conroe of Evanston, who said he didn’t think Bonnstetter was showing the symptoms of sleepwalking at the time he was in the woman’s house, he explained.
“We wanted someone who was not hired by the defense to tell us if the defendant was not guilty,” McAvoy said.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
