CHICAGO — Peter Baumgartner’s tool belt hangs exactly where he left it more than a month ago.
Nothing in the handyman’s tidy work station along the east wall of the garage — not the hanging lawnmower or push broom, the rope or work boots — has been disturbed since the day in late February when he was taken to Cook County Jail.
Like many Chicagoans, Baumgartner’s neighbors on their West Rogers Park block have been gripped by news of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve stood on front lawns together, at a distance, holding candles to support first responders.
But worries over the impact of the deadly virus have hit even closer to home, with one of their own neighbors stuck in Cook County Jail on an unusually high bond of $475,000.
Baumgartner, 55, pleaded guilty to a 2017 charge of evading a drug test but has a long history of missing required probation appointments and court dates, including once when he walked out of a courtroom on a hearing date, according to court records. He was finally picked up in February on an outstanding warrant.
Some of his neighbors were aware that Baumgartner has had struggles with the law. But on their block, they said he is still a gentle giant they also know has worked to overcome issues in his life.
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On Wednesday morning, Baumgartner’s case was before a judge for the second time since he was picked up on the warrant.
But a lot had changed since February. The Cook County court system is now on a near-shutdown with a reduced number of courtrooms open. Two “duty courtrooms” at the county’s main criminal courthouse are open to hear cases on an emergency basis.
Baumgartner was not even in the courtroom, as jail detainees are no longer being brought to the courthouse. Instead, his public defender waived his presence and asked that the bond be reduced.
Judge Angela Petrone, the duty judge who that day was handling cases from more than a dozen other judges’ court calls, immediately asked for time to catch up.
“I want to get his court file,” she said. “I am not operating in the dark. I see there is such a history here.”
A court employee volunteered to go get the paperwork.
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Cook County Jail under any circumstance is the wrong place for Baumgartner, his neighbors said. And as the pandemic ripped through the jail and forced a delay in many court hearings, they became desperate for answers about how to get him out.
“One of our neighbors is presently in the Cook County Jail,” read an email sent late last week to the Chicago Tribune by someone in the area who knew the situation. “He is not a threat to anyone. He is a handyman and has done work for some neighbors including myself. A number of our neighbors are concerned. Can you help?”
Since that email arrived, an inmate at the jail has died after contracting the virus. And attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit to try and expedite releases from a facility that now ranks among the U.S. locations with the highest number of known COVID-19 cases.
The Tribune reached out to the Cook County public defender’s office, which is representing Baumgartner, on April 1. The office has refused to comment, but a day later, filed a motion for an immediate hearing to reconsider Baumgartner’s bond, calling the current amount “oppressive.”
“His friends are concerned about his health and safety in the jail,” the motion reads.
Baumgartner went into the jail just as the coronavirus was taking hold across the U.S.
It has spread to those who find themselves behind bars, presenting a distinctly dangerous threat to inmates and detainees inside prisons and jails, where social distancing is not possible and sanitary conditions are often lacking.
In response, Cook County officials in mid-March launched a concerted, if at times rocky, effort to expedite releases, targeting low-level, nonviolent offenders for hearings to reconsider bail. Hundreds of inmates have been released, some with the help of nonprofit organizations that posted bail money. As a result, the jail population has fallen to its lowest level in recent memory, at 4,567.
But Baumgartner, though not accused of a violent crime, had an enormously high bail, likely reflective of his history of skipping multiple court dates and repeatedly defying orders from Judge Thaddeus Wilson.
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Neighbors on the block have maintained contact with Baumgartner by phone. And they said they’ve called his public defender for updates.
On one call to neighbor Maggie Speer, Baumgartner asked her if she could ask his attorney to move up his court date. He didn’t seem to understand that the courts were all but shut down, she told the Tribune.
“He is lost in the system,” Speer said.
So Speer did what she could. She went down twice to put cash into his commissary account.
When Baumgartner’s landlord Frank Jeffers spoke with him April 3, Baumgartner told him he had talked to a social worker in the jail. But he was still uncertain about what would happen.
“He is,” Jeffers said, his voice trailing off, “it’s like, almost helpless.”
Jeffers spoke to Baumgartner again Tuesday evening. Jeffers said his friend was in a good mood, though he didn’t know that a judge had agreed to hear his case the very next morning.
On the block where Baumgartner lives, passing neighbors wave cheery hellos to each other.
He has become a beloved presence on the block, where he lives in a basement room of Jeffers’ home and is often hired by neighbors for odd jobs.
“See there, he did the painting,” Jeffers said from his front steps recently, gesturing to his next door neighbor’s house and then to his own garden. “And here, he planted for me. Painted the eaves.”
Jeffers said Baumgartner quickly folded into the fabric of the close-knit neighborhood.
“They love him,” Jeffers said. “He does terrific work. He is always friendly. He is like a light in the neighborhood.”
Jeffers, 66, knew Baumgartner and his family from growing up in the neighborhood.
While Jeffers stayed — he lives in a home that his grandfather lived in — Baumgartner moved away from the neighborhood for several years, Jeffers said.
Their paths crossed about three years ago when Baumgartner walked into a social service agency where Jeffers was working to seek assistance, Jeffers said. Soon after, Baumgartner found himself looking for an apartment, and Jeffers offered him a room in his basement, just off a sweeping backyard.
Baumgartner planted hydrangeas and gardenias there, a huge space where Jeffers hosts neighborhood parties.
Jeffers showed the Tribune a corner of the property where Baumgartner built a fire pit and a place to sit, just outside the car garage where his workspace is.
Mike Kneafsey, a neighbor across the street who met Baumgartner at one of Jeffers’ parties, stood nearby in the yard, saying he was hoping something could be done to help the handyman, who is known on the block for his generosity.
“He shouldn’t be there,” said Kneafsey, 83, who had written the email to the Tribune. “No matter what happened.”
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After Judge Petrone finished the rest of her call, she returned to Baumgartner’s file.
Sitting on the bench wearing a mask, she read through the papers as the public defender and assistant state’s attorneys waited. They wore masks as well and sat at opposite sites of the courtroom, more than 6 feet from each other.
Already there had been a few other attorneys seeking COVID-related relief on behalf of detained clients. One represented a 24-year-old who had allegedly stabbed someone in the back with a sushi knife. That request was denied.
After a few minutes, Petrone looked up.
“OK, counsel, you may begin,” she said to the public defender in the courtroom.
Baumgartner’s public defender asked Petrone to release him on his own recognizance, pointing out that Baumgartner is being held on a nonviolent charge and has some mental health concerns. He told the judge about Baumgartner’s strong support network.
The prosecutor objected, pointing to the eight times Baumgartner had failed to appear in court, and also adding Judge Wilson, who set the bond, had previously indicated he would be sentencing Baumgartner to prison.
Baumgartner’s public defender, Juan Ponce de Leon, pleaded for mercy, citing the coronavirus and its grip on Cook County Jail and the larger state system.
“Right now I don’t think is the time to be held in the Department of Corrections, county or IDOC,” Ponce de Leon said. “Until this whole mess gets straightened out.”
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Jeffers said Baumgartner has worked in the past as a painter and construction worker.
But he said he has also suffered setbacks in life. It’s a history confirmed in public court records showing that Wilson ordered alcohol and drug evaluations.
Jeffers and other neighbors also said Baumgartner sometimes experiences bouts of anxiety. They are convinced, in fact, he had a panic attack before he ran out of court.
According to a Tribune review of court records, Baumgartner has a criminal history that includes numerous nonviolent offenses, including felony forgery convictions, and misdemeanor drug possession and fraud charges.
In 2017, he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of trying to evade a drug test.
What followed, according to the public record, are numerous failures by him to report to probation as required by the court or to pay fines. There is at least one missed court date and one time when Baumgartner was in court but walked out before the case was called.
When he appeared in court on Feb. 26 after his arrest on what Jeffers said was a traffic violation, Wilson set the cash bail amount at a stunning $475,000.
Jeffers said he attended the February hearing and listened in shock as Wilson strongly chastised Baumgartner for having walked out of a previous hearing and for failing to live up to the terms set by court.
Jeffers said attorneys assigned to the case tried to speak, telling the judge that Jeffers was there on Baumgartner’s behalf. But Wilson was not persuaded.
Baumgartner’s next date was set for March 17, but it was the first day of the court shutdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. So the case was automatically continued until April 21.
That was until his public defender filed a motion last week and got a hearing moved up to Wednesday. Neither Judge Wilson nor Baumgartner himself could be reached for comment on this story.
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Before issuing her decision, Petrone acknowledged that what had brought Baumgartner’s plight before her Wednesday was “not the worst case.”
“But it is a class 4 felony,” she said, before also outlining the numerous times Baumgartner failed to show in court and otherwise defied the orders of judges.
“Because of that I am not going to disturb the bond,” she said. “There has been a repeated history of non-compliance and failure to come to court. I am not going to touch what Judge Wilson has done.”
The case was continued to May 20.
None of Baumgartner’s neighbors opted to come to court for the hearing amid the pandemic.
When reached afterward, Jeffers was stunned. He knew that Baumgartner had defied the judge and that he might be heading back to prison because of it, he said, but to hold him now was not safe. It would be longer before his friend could return to their neighborhood.
“I think it is putting his life in danger,” Jeffers said. “If he had committed murder, to hell with COVID. But he didn’t.”
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