April Goodman, the ex-wife of Goodman Theatre benefactor Albert Goodman, was ordered held in the psychiatric medical center of the Cook County Jail compound Wednesday on charges she solicited the murder of her ex-husband.
Although Circuit Judge William Lacy denied a request by Assistant State’s Atty. Kevin Byrne that he revoke the $150,000 bond set by another judge Tuesday night for the 33-year-old aspiring actress and model who lives in Bloomingdale, he signed an order that would keep her at the Cermak Medical Center at the County Jail compound to ensure she receives the anti-depressant medications that her lawyer, Thomas Breen, said she needs.
“It is my belief she has no funds to post bond,” Breen said outside of court Wednesday. “Right now she will be incarcerated while her family tries to come up with $15,000.”
Meanwhile, other details about the stormy relationship between Albert Ivar Goodman and his ex-wife surfaced in divorce papers, including the ex-wife’s history of psychiatric and psychological problems and a lengthy battle over a parcel of land in Bartlett.
Breen said his client “has been diagnosed with many psychological or psychiatric problems” and twice had been hospitalized–in 1991 and 1997. Court records show in a psychological evaluation in June 1997, hospitalization was recommended by Dr. Robert Shapiro, who was concerned that the stress of the divorce proceedings might cause April Goodman to commit suicide.
Shapiro diagnosed April Goodman as having a borderline personality disorder and said her symptoms were depression, anxiety, paranoia and agitation.
In July 1997, she was admitted to Columbia Lakeshore Hospital and later took part in the Therapeutic Day Program. Her prescription bills at the time were $630 a month.
April Goodman, who also goes by Summers since the divorce, grew up in South Holland, lived in Chicago and Bloomingdale and supported herself with modeling jobs, said her attorney. She and Albert Goodman were married in Wheaton in June 1995, when he was 48 and she was 30, according to Cook County Circuit Court records.
But on Aug. 18, 1995, Albert Goodman filed to invalidate the marriage, alleging April Goodman made untrue statements in order to get him to consent to the marriage. The divorce was finalized in September 1997.
Though they were married only two months, one of the main conflicts between the couple during the divorce proceedings appeared to be dividing a 24-acre vacant lot at 20 W 455 Lake St. in Bartlett.
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April Goodman, in a petition for financial support, said she had given up career opportunities to focus her time and energy on the real estate investment.
Authorities said on July 4, April Goodman met a man at a Rush Street bar and developed a relationship with him. After a few meetings, authorities said, she asked the man to kill her wealthy ex-husband or to find someone who would.
The man declined her offer but grew concerned when she delivered an envelope to his building that had a photograph of her ex-husband, keys to his car and North Shore home and a key to his mother’s north suburban home.
The man went to police and arranged to introduce an undercover police officer to April Goodman as a hit man, police said.
At one meeting, April Goodman described her ex-husband and explained the keys to the “hit man,” authorities said. They also agreed on a fee of $5,000, with $1,000 to be paid up front, authorities said.
At a second meeting in a van parked across from Wrigley Field, she gave him $1,000, and a few hours later, was arrested as she left a downtown acting class.
Breen said his client was set up by the tipster.
“There is a third party–a person who has abused her and used her in the past. It is a person she had a relationship with. This lady, to the best of my knowledge, was delivered to the Chicago police on a platter.”