Kathleen Rich has her routine: hit Wegmans on Wednesdays, the YMCA on Fridays.

But the retired Bethlehem Area School District French teacher has been warned to stay away from those places. Many times.

Bethlehem police have responded 47 times to her unwanted visits at the Y. Colonial Regional police have responded 28 times at the local supermarket.

Despite numerous warnings, the 74-year-old Bethlehem woman keeps returning. Now she faces jail time if she's convicted at trial of 17 trespassing charges. The most recent was a felony.

Why isn't she wanted at these places?

And why does she keep going there?

"It's a long story," she said.

Her story highlights the difficulty treating mentally ill individuals who refuse to be helped, the limitations of the mental health system and the challenges those limitations put on the courts, police and social service agencies.

Why it's a long story

Rich knows she suffers from schizophrenia. She's also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She acknowledges she's been hospitalized repeatedly, most recently in Allentown State Hospital in 2008.

But she believes she's cured. She lives independently, pays her bills, and keeps herself and her home clean.

Her only missteps come during her unwanted visits to the YMCA and Wegmans.

She feels the need to "defend her life, honor and dignity" to other shoppers. She believes a man she dated 48 years ago is spreading rumors in the community that Rich is promiscuous, specifically that she engages in oral sex and drug use.

So she tells random customers at length that the story isn't true.

"I'm not dangerous. I don't threaten people," she said. "If somebody doesn't want to talk to me I just move on. But I can talk. There's nothing wrong with talking."

She feels she has a right to go to these places like any other patron. Local police chiefs disagree.

"Her comments to shoppers are not solicited and are very sexually explicit," said Colonial Regional Police Chief Roy Seiple, whose jurisdiction includes the Wegmans in Hanover Township.

"You can't just trespass and fight or scream and curse at people," adds Bethlehem police Chief Mark DiLuzio.

While police reports don't detail Rich's comments, she has said in court she's not an "oral sex whore" or a "mouth whore." A corporate spokeswoman from Wegmans wouldn't comment on the case. Nor would Audrey Gerhart, the YMCA member services director who reported Rich to the police.

Rich doesn't understand why her actions are criminal.

"All I do is walk in, say hello. I sit down. I see a lot of people. I say 'I'm just defending my life, honor and dignity.' I have a loud voice. I am used to projecting a little bit. Considering what I'm up against I think I'm entitled to get a little excited," she said.

She refuses to stop going to these places. She invites police to arrest her if they dare.

Seiple said police have used discretion. She has four pending trespassing charges over the past four years. Seiple said police have stopped charging her until those charges are resolved at court.

"We have contacted MHMR (Northampton County's division of mental health and mental retardation), her family and her attorney for help," Seiple said. "We have been looking for their guidance to do some type of court-ordered evaluation."

Help wanted?



Rich's attorney, Jennifer Toth, didn't return numerous phone messages. Rich's parents are deceased. She has no siblings, never married and has no children. She said she's estranged from the rest of her family.

County workers are prohibited from discussing her case, although sources did confirm she is schizophrenic.

Andrew Grossman, the Northampton County mental health department administrator, said no one can force someone suffering from mental illness to comply with treatment or take medication. They must agree to seek help.

"Unless you're committed to a state center, all our services are voluntary," he said.

Involuntary commitment is available for those who pose an immediate danger to themselves or others. Or, if their living conditions are so poor that they're likely to die within 30 days, they can be committed.

Rich said she received a court-ordered geriatric evaluation on March 13. Sources who spoke under condition of anonymity weren't sure whether the evaluation would trigger more services to help her. The sources confirmed she refused treatment from county mental health workers.

Northampton County has a relatively new mental health court program where defendants can have charges dismissed if they comply with treatment. Rich didn't apply for the program, according to program coordinator Stephanie Spencer. It's possible Rich didn't apply because she refuses to seek treatment.

Police let Rich bother customers dozens of times while they tried to find her help, but the police chiefs said they decided finally they had no choice but to charge her. She has spent weekends in Northampton County Prison waiting to be bailed out while continuing her quest to maintain her dignity.

Her most recent stint went from Feb. 21 to 27, when she was charged with felony trespass at the YMCA.

"I hate jails and I hate hospitals," she said. The inmates' foul language bothers her, she said. She went to minimum security in February. She tried to stick with the older inmates because the younger ones teased her.

"There was a woman who was snoring next to me," she said. "There was some cackling going on with these young kids. I started complaining about the snoring and then the kids were doing a duet with the snoring. Then I knew it wasn't an accident. It was harassment. So I complained about that and I got put in the hole."

She spent 23 hours a day in her cell until she finally made bail.

"It was horrible," she said.

Her April trial date was postponed because she has a preliminary hearing coming up April 10 on her three latest trespassing charges, and her attorney wants to consolidate every case into one trial. If she's convicted of all 17 trespassing charges, Northampton County Judge Samuel Murray has the discretion to sentence her to up to 22 years in prison.

While on bail Rich is under the supervision of Northampton County Pre-Trial Services. So her pre-trial officer is trying her best to keep her out of Wegmans and the Y so she can remain out on bail. It hasn't always worked well.

Rich is extremely polite and checks in with her pre-trial officer when she's supposed to. Her only issue is her "obsession with her virtue," said Nina Reynard, who heads the pre-trial office.

Rich has been known to call her pre-trial officer to warn her she intends to violate her bail conditions and trespass again.

"It's challenging," Reynard said.

She would rather not bring Rich in front of a judge for a bail revocation hearing because putting her in jail won't solve the problem.

"Nobody wants to put a 74-year-old woman in prison," Reynard said. Prison seems to be the only thing keeping her from offending, at least for now.

Asked whether she'll go back to Wegmans or the YMCA some day, Rich said, "Not right now. It depends on what happens in court."

'Throwaway' people

A case like Rich's was a novelty when Bethlehem's Chief DiLuzio started as a cop more than 30 years ago. Now his officers deal with mentally ill people every day.

DiLuzio blames the state for closing inpatient hospitals and putting the mentally ill on the street. A pennlive.com report says the state has closed 10 hospitals since 1955 and the number of patients has gone from 41,000 a day to about 1,500. Two more hospitals will close over the next two years.

"This is one of the issues that have been dumped on police," DiLuzio said. "We're dealing with so much mental illness now."

Many of the city's homeless population are too mentally ill to take care of themselves, he said. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports 26 percent of homeless adults in shelters live with serious mental illness and 46 percent live with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders.

The alliance says 20 percent of state prisoners and 21 percent of local jail prisoners have "a recent history" of a mental health condition.

DiLuzio remembers a case in the last three years where police found a person with maggots growing out of an open wound.

"You're telling me some doctor can't look at this guy and say he has a mental health issue?" the chief asked. He calls the mentally ill society's "throwaway" population.

He thinks Rich probably belongs in Allentown State Hospital, but that facility closed in 2010.

"It's a sad commentary on a supposedly modern society," he said.

A spokeswoman for the state department of human services didn't respond to the chief's concerns. The trend is to put mentally ill people into the community where they'll have to live at some point.

"People do better when they are in the community," Pennsylvania Secretary of Human Services Ted Dallas told pennlive.com. "They get to interact with the world. They are closer to their families."

Diane Gilroy, president of the Bethlehem-based office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said you can't blame Rich's situation on a lack of state hospital beds. Another big part of the problem is "anosognosia," an inability of someone suffering from mental illness to comprehend the illness.

Half of schizophrenia sufferers and 40 percent of those with bipolar disorder suffer from this condition. When they refuse treatment, it's not accurate to call it "denial," because people with mental illness can't think clearly enough to be in denial, Gilroy said.

"If someone came up to you and said 'You have diabetes and you need to start getting treatment right now,' you'd look at him and say 'What are you talking about?' When people have this lack of awareness, that's what they feel like," Gilroy said.

Psychotropic medications can have side effects such as weight gain, tremors and loss of sex drive. Even if you factor out the side effects, officials said, dependency on a pill for the rest of one's life isn't always embraced.

When someone with schizophrenia "feels OK," they can justify throwing away their pills because they "don't need them," Gilroy said.

"Someone being in a position where they are not willing to admit mental health issues is not at all uncommon," added Margaret Murphy, the executive director for the National Alliance for Mental Illness-Lehigh Valley. "Unfortunately many of these people do end up in the court system."

Looking ahead

If she's convicted of all or some of her crimes, Rich might escape prison but will likely face some form of probation or parole.

Handling mentally ill defendants is nothing new for Northampton County Director of Adult Probation Marie Bartosh. Her staff reviews each case looking for a criminal offender's involvement in the mental health system. If they're not involved but should be, probation officers will look to reconnect them, according to probation officer Paul Singley.

Bartosh and Singley work closely with the county's mental health court.

The goal is not just to get defendants in therapy or medicated in the short term, but to get them to live a crime-free and illness-free life.

"We want to work with you to work this out because we don't want you back here," Singley said.

"We're always walking a line between being a caseworker and being in law enforcement," Bartosh said.

Probation officers can increase compliance by increasing the frequency of contact with offenders. They can call on an Assertive Community Treatment team consisting of a psychiatrist, caseworker and other counselors that meets with the offender once a week. An intensive case manager can also help.

"You try to increase those services to the point where that person every day has some type of point of contact," Bartosh said.

Of course, none of the treatment works unless the offender participates willingly. Not only has Rich declined treatment, she has suggested she'll go back to the YMCA as soon as her case is disposed of.

Patience is the key. The offender may be dead-set against treatment, but a good probation officer or counselor can show the offender that not only will treatment keep them out of trouble, it will improve their quality of life.

Communication is critical. The probation officer must strive to reach the offender on his or her level to convince them to accept the program, Bartosh said.

"Perception is everything," she said. "You need to step back and try and see what they are seeing."

Bartosh tells offenders that if they stop taking their medication, they should be honest about it. Maybe a doctor can prescribe something different to eliminate unwanted side effects. Maybe a doctor can alter the dosage.

Ultimately, the decision to seek treatment rests with the mentally ill individual.

"You do everything you can do," Bartosh said. "Jail is the final option."

Reynard, the pre-trial services director, admits Rich's case raises more questions than answers.

"Should we force these sorts of people into treatment? Should the police take a different approach? Who knows," she said.

THE CHARGES

Trespassing charges for Kathleen Rich:

Jan. 18, 2016, ShopRite in Greenwich Township (dismissed)

May 3, 2016, Wegmans (dismissed)

May 11, 2016, Wegmans (dismissed)

Sept. 7, 2016, Wegmans (also charged with disorderly conduct)

Sept. 23, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA (non-traffic citation)

Sept. 30, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Oct. 21, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Oct. 26, 2016, Wegmans

Oct. 28, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Oct. 30, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Nov. 9, 2016, Wegmans

Nov. 23, 2016, Wegmans

Nov. 25, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Dec. 2, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Dec. 9, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Dec. 16, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Dec. 23, 2016, Bethlehem YMCA

Feb. 3, 2017, Bethlehem YMCA

Feb. 14, 2017, Bethlehem YMCA

Feb. 21, 2017, Bethlehem YMCA (felony)

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.