Almost as instantly as she hit the global news cycle as a reputed U.S. traitor and alleged spy for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, former Seattle newspaper journalist Susan Lindauer dropped off the radar. Once the headlines faded in 2004, the public might have assumed she was convicted and sent to prison. But for the moment, Susan Lindauer's strange story remains incomplete. She is confined to a federal mental facility in Texas, perhaps never to get her day in court, according to friends, officials, and public records. Mostly unnoticed, a New York federal judge has found her incompetent to stand trial and ordered further evaluation. She is being held past her scheduled release date, which had been sometime early this month, and, she tells friends, might be forcibly medicated as part of her treatment.
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Susan Lindauer leaves the federal courthouse in New York on March 15, 2004.
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An ex–Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and former U.S. Senate and House aide, Lindauer, 43, was charged in March 2004 with conspiring to act as a spy and being an unregistered Iraqi agent. U.S. prosecutors allege the antiwar activist accepted $10,000 from Hussein's intelligence unit over five years and sought to support resistance groups after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She insisted her efforts—principally, to get economic sanctions lifted against Iraq—were misunderstood. She was not specifically charged with spying or espionage. The bigger question, however, was always her sanity. She had a history of mood swings and paranoid fears. People were watching her, she often said, although, as it turned out, federal agents indeed had set up surveillance and tapped her phone. Still, if she betrayed her country, did she do so knowingly?
Her mental illness is now official. Two court-appointed doctors determined, according to a ruling last fall by U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, "the defendant is suffering from psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, hallucinatory phenomena, and mood disturbance that render her mentally incompetent to the extent that she does not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her and is unable to assist properly in her defense at this time." Lindauer is undergoing observation to determine if she'll ever be able to defend herself in court, perhaps aided by antipsychotic drugs.
Friends say her mental state seems to have worsened during incarceration since October. "It's not clear when she's getting out now," says J.B. Fields, a federal employee with a low-level security clearance who rents a basement apartment from Lindauer at her Takoma Park, Md., home, and who talks with her regularly. "She has her good days and her bad days," he says, based on conversation when Lindauer calls from Texas. "On days when she gets emotional or scared, everybody's evil, you know."
In a letter written to her second cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, two months after Sept. 11, 2001, Lindauer made no secret about her activism or her emotional mission to aid Iraqi citizens. The letter, a copy of which she gave to basement tenant Fields, is apparently one of at least two she sent or gave to Card in 2001 and 2003. The undisclosed second letter, mentioned in the indictment, is being used to prosecute her. In the first letter, written Dec. 2, 2001, Lindauer indicates she was working back channels of government and meeting with officials at the Iraqi embassy, which prosecutors say she in fact did. She wrote Card about conversations with Iraqi diplomats and extended an olive branch on behalf of Hussein's government—in hopes, she said, of getting U.S. economic sanctions lifted against Baghdad. "I am truly praying, Andy," she stated, "that this correspondence will trigger some sort of response from you, so that this ugly quagmire in Iraq can begin to heal. Iraq is hoping for a reply through formal channels, but I would be willing to carry any response as well." After his relative's arrest, Card would not say whether he might have sparked an investigation of the sometimes-journalist by turning over that or the other letter to the FBI. The FBI would say only that Card was interviewed as part of the probe.
Lindauer, known also to prosecutors by the unexplained alias of "Susan Symbol," got out on bail, secured by her Maryland home, in 2004. She was awaiting trial until last September, when Judge Mukasey, after reading the assessments of two psychiatrists, decided more thorough observation was needed. He ordered Lindauer to turn herself in on Oct. 3 at Carswell federal medical center in Fort Worth, which specializes in mental-health services for female offenders. Sanford Talkin, Lindauer's court-appointed New York attorney, says he can't discuss the ongoing case. However, his firm recently sent an e-mail "To the Concerned Friends of Susan Lindauer," stating: "Please be assured that our office is working very hard on Susan's behalf. We understand the frustration some of you have expressed with the length of time it has taken to resolve this matter. I promise you that the decision of whether to take this case to trial or not is entirely Susan's to make. If she wants her day in court, that is what she will have. Our office has expended thousands of hours in preparing Susan's defense. Every decision has been made with Susan's best interests in mind. Additionally, Susan's Uncle Ted, a lawyer himself, has been kept appraised of everything we have done, and continue to do, to defend Susan. We appreciate your concern and would suggest the best way to assist Susan would be to send her letters of support. This is a difficult time, and she could use encouraging words from her friends to help her get through it."
