Eighteen months after he was arrested and three weeks after the charge against him was dismissed, Michael Lake remains incarcerated in the Cobb County jail.
A judge has ruled that the action that led to his jailing — mailing a copy of his appeal of a temporary protective order against him to the woman with whom he was ordered to have no contact — did not violate the order. He had a right to defend himself in court and appeal the order, according to the order issued by Cobb County Superior Court Judge Lark Ingram on June 14.
But Ingram opted not to release him after prosecutors strenuously objected. Prosecutors say they need more time to consider whether additional charges can be brought against Lake. They cite his mental illness and 20-year history of being obsessed with the woman he is accused of stalking as reasons for keeping him behind bars.
So Ingram remains in jail at least until another bond hearing July 18.
Lake’s predicament illustrates the difficulty of handling people with mental illness in the judicial system, where courts have to balance the defendant’s right to liberty while warding off the potential for future harm.
Statewide about 16 percent of the prison population and about a quarter of the jail population has need for mental health services. In Cobb County’s jail, the percentage is about a third.
But University of Georgia law professor Ron Carlson said the court’s decision to continue holding Lake after his charges were dismissed may raise legal questions.
In rare cases, inmates may be held temporarily when prosecutors are contemplating filing new charges, or are considering having a mentally ill defendant involuntarily committed to a state institution, he said.
Lake’s mother, Mary Lake, who is 67 and lives in Belgrade, Maine, is heartbroken about her son’s prolonged incarceration. She feels he’s been treated unfairly because he has a mental illness. Court records show Lake has been diagnosed with having overvalued ideation - a type of obsessive compulsive disorder that makes him prone to fixating on a person or idea.
Lake said that while in jail he has also been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder that makes it very hard to interact with other people.
“It’s no crime having a mental illness,” Mary Lake said. “It’s almost like they treated him like guilty before proven innocent.”
Michael Lake, 34, of Smyrna, has no history of violence and has not made overt threats to harm Leslie Arsenault, the woman he is charged with stalking. Cynthia Counts, a media and First Amendment attorney who is assisting Lake for free, said that Lake has not seen the woman since high school, has not gone to her house or workplace and has not called her.
Arsenault, reached by phone this week, said that the attraction is far from harmless.
“He is sick and someone needs to realize that and someone needs to help him,” said Arsenault. “I am very fearful for when he gets out.”
His track record with her dates back to an 8th grade crush at their Scowhegan, Maine, school that — by all accounts — blossomed into an obsession.
Over the years, he has even set up websites devoted to her, asking people online to sign a petition to convince her to be his friend. He has also attempted to sell T-shirts, hats and mugs devoted to the cause, according to prosecutors. In 2011, Lake moved from Maine to Georgia to be closer to her.
Lake’s mother said he is a harmless, mild-mannered (if a little eccentric) guy who never got over his first love.
“So when this girl was friendly towards him being a young teenager, he fell in love with her,” Mary Lake said. “You know the magical feeling when you first fall in love? I don’t think he ever got over that.”
Arsenault said Lake became irrationally attached to her after they met in an eighth grade advanced math class. He was a brainy loner. She was friendly toward him, but did not really know him or spend time with him outside of school.
She said he seemed to become obsessed with her in high school and over the next 20 years engaged in the following troubling behavior:
- Followed her around school.
- Sent a note to the yearbook committee in 1997 threatening to blow up the school if she didn't marry him by the time they graduated, prompting her mother to obtain a four-year protective order on Arsenault's behalf.
- Continued to email and call her sister and friends, trying to discern her whereabouts after she went to an out-of-state college in Philadelphia to get away from him.
- Sent her a 25-to-30-page letter on the day the protective order expired, which indicated he wanted to marry her and support her financially.
- Messaged her through her Myspace page when he learned she was getting married in 2005, threatening to hurt her future husband if he ever hurt her.
- Wrote malicious posts about her mother on her mother's employer's website in 2011.
- Emailed Arsenault through LinkedIn in 2011, asking her to meet him for pizza and letting her know he would be at a restaurant near their house every Sunday evening waiting for her.
When she received the last email, Arsenault said she decided to respond to him for the first time since high school. She said she hoped to clarify once and for all she did not wish to befriend him or have anything to do with him. But Lake responded with another lengthy email.
That was the last straw, according to Arsenault. She sought and obtained a one-year protective order effective Oct. 18, 2011.
Lake was arrested when, after drafting his own appeal of the protective order, he mailed a copy to Arsenault’s house on Nov. 28, 2011. According to the arrest warrant, the appeal included copies of emails and blogs about Arsenault and resources available to help her with “what the suspect perceived as her paranoia.”
Cobb County police said the mailing was a violation of a judge’s order not to contact Arsenault.
However, Ingram’s June 14 ruling to dismiss the indictment — a year and a half after it was filed — indicated that Lake was within his rights to file the appeal and was actually obligated by law to notify Arsenault, since she not then have a lawyer. The paperwork sent to Arsenault is an exact copy of the paperwork sent to the court.
Lake’s mother said he challenged the protective order because didn’t want it to show up in a background check. At the time, he was two weeks away from getting his second bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Kennesaw State University and would soon be looking for work.
A state forensic psychologist who examined Lake last summer found him to be mentally incompetent to stand trial. He has since been found competent to stand trial. But prosecutors say they are still concerned about Lake’s mental state.
Lake could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of aggravated stalking.
“It is very tough,” Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring said. “The whole issue comes down to what contact is in violation of the temporary order and what is harassing and intimidating. Unfortunately, in these cases so many times, there’s no good answer.”
But Counts said that fear is not a good enough reason to continue to hold someone in jail.
She said most of what Arsenault claims happened 15 to 20 years ago is unsubstantiated by evidence the state has produced.
Lake’s mother said prosecutors offered late last year to let Lake plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge, but he has so far refused. Counts believes it’s simply because Lake views the world in black and white - he doesn’t think what he did was wrong, and neither does Counts.
Attorney Jeff Filipovitz, who heads the mental health section of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said Lake’s situation is not unique. In many cases, the defendants’ mental disorders impair them from advocating for themselves, and they wind up spending longer in jail than they otherwise would.
“The truth of the matter is the jails are becoming the new mental hospitals,” Filipovitz said.
Arsenault has already obtained a new temporary protective order in anticipation of the possibility of Lake’s release.
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