POPE CO. – It appears that a former public official is pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, and mainstream media is just lapping it up.
But those who are familiar with the antics of Eddyville’s former village treasurer certainly aren’t, and are in agreement that this latest stunt is likely a stall tactic while Kim Y. Smith waits for all the hubbub over her alleged criminal acts to die down.
Smith, 58, might even be waiting for the village’s mayor, Darrell Aly, to die of the cancer that his physicians have advised is limiting his life expectancy to only a couple more weeks.
Whatever the case, it’s made for good drama for the woman, who most of Pope County is by this time fed up with.
Massive theft accused
Smith is the woman who moved to little Eddyville, population maybe a hundred, from the Elgin area of Illinois, ostensibly because she had relatives in the area here.
She was almost immediately put in as village treasurer…and, say authorities, almost immediately began stealing money from the village.
Authorities alleged in charges filed back in mid-May of this year that from mid-2013 until early January 2016, Smith forged Mayor Aly’s signature on about $80,000 worth of village checks, and took the money for herself.
An arson at village hall in January, which destroyed a number of records, has been uncharged thus far in the whole mess.
Smith, however, was charged with a single count of Theft more than $10,000-less than $100,000 from a Government Entity, a single count of Official Misconduct, and four counts of Forgery, all significant felonies.
Toted out on ambulance August 2
Smith had been living high while village treasurer, enjoying tattoos on her too-old-for-that-kind-of-thing body, and putting an in-ground pool behind her double-wide.
When she was formally charged in mid-May, it appeared that maybe she simply realized that she was caught and would behave accordingly, assisting authorities in tracking down the funds missing, perhaps aiding by explaining what parts of the annual audits she allegedly hid from the village board in order to cover over her alleged criminal activity.
Instead, she opted to add a little more drama to the situation as opposed to trying to clarify things.
On August 2, an ambulance came to Smith’s double-wide in Eddyville and toted her off.
Sources speaking on condition of anonymity have advised that the service call was associated with Smith taking an overdose of medication.
Whether it was prescribed medication or something else remained unclear.
Oh but that was because….!
About a week later, almost as if in an effort to “explain” things, an article appeared in the very left-leaning (and thus public-official-supporting) Southern Illinoisan, wherein a huge amount of ink was spent disseminating information about Smith’s diagnosis of diabetes and a rush to the hospital in Harrisburg back in early March for same.
As well, at that time, she was also, according to court documents actually filed by Smith’s attorney Tammi N. Jackson of Robert Wilson’s law office in Harrisburg, suffering some other “health-related issues,” none of which, apparently, could be addressed by regular swimming pool activity: Anxiety and depression were two listed, and these were totally understandable, since in early March was when the heat was coming down on Smith (that was the time she was officially fired as treasurer).
Another “diagnosis,” however, was listed by Jackson as one having been offered up at that time: Long-term memory loss.
‘Begins as emotional crisis’….
Jackson’s paperwork on file indicates that a “neuropsychological exam” on April 9, as well as a follow up on April 28, indicated “retrograde amnesia and conversion disorder,” which diagnosis, it was stated in paperwork, Smith was relying on a description of from Mayo Clinic.
The diagnosis, according to Mayo, states that Smith is suffering a condition which is a real health problem that “begins as a mental or emotional crisis.”
Whether or not Smith has actually consulted with anyone at the world-renowned Mayo is unclear, but she has, according to documents on file, been referred to Vanderbilt University Hospital for more neurological testing, this following medical information filed which indicated that Smith, following initial testing in April, “make inappropriate responses when question regarding the allegations made against her” (reference the current charges - ed.), and notes that Smith “lack ability to focus and has no memories prior to March 3.”
Sure. ‘Emotional crisis.’ Right.
The very filing of the paperwork that indicates this has created a firestorm of scoffing not only in Eddyville, but literally across Pope County.
The very fact that the Southern covered it in all seriousness following Smith’s August 10 court date has created a tsunami of similar scoffing, especially after the August 2 ambulance run to Smith’s residence (which only Disclosure covered.)
During the court hearing that Wednesday (Aug. 10), the judge in the case, Joe Leberman, granted the motion Smith requested: That she undergo a psych eval to determine her fitness to stand trial and aid in her own defense.
Apparently, the defense position on this is that she is not capable of assisting in her own defense, since Smith “can’t remember” anything that happened to her prior to March 3 (conveniently, all the time period of when she was village treasurer, and what she did while she was.)
Leberman ordered, not Vanderbilt U or Mayo psychologists to study Smith’s “rare” condition, but a local doctor in Marion, William Donaldson, to conduct the exam. Whether Smith can pull it over on him or not will remain to be seen, as most downstate Illinois court-appointed psychological evaluators rely on “bubble page” exams to sort out a patient’s psyche, said bubble fill-ins having been proven ages ago to be highly inaccurate.
Don’t say ‘it’s all in your head,’ whatever you do….
Some surface research done by our staff on the term “conversion disorder” seems to indicate that this is a mental “illness” brought on by “recent stressful life events.”
It’s usually called when nothing else explains someone’s symptoms of a condition that has no outward signs or diagnostic tool signs whatsoever (CT scans, MRIs, etc) yet the patient is insisting a symptom (which is what amnesia is; merely a symptom).
Freud termed conversion disorders as those “serving to protect an individual from unacceptable feelings or unresolvable conflicts, which keep such feelings out of conscious awareness.”
(In other words, “feeling” bad over getting caught allegedly stealing large sums of money, which might result in an “unresolvable conflict” of being ordered to serve a prison sentence, might be a reality here…the only reality.)
The generally-accepted form of treatment of such a disorder is never to tell the patient “It’s all in your head” or “There is nothing wrong with you,” but instead, fib to them a little, and tell them that they “have a form of benign neurologic dysfunction that tends to be exacerbated by stress” and that organic disease has been ruled out as a causative factor for their (imagined) symptom, which in this case might be amnesia.
“Psychotherapy can be very helpful, and the patient is more likely to pursue it if the clinician takes an encouraging and destigmatizing attitude toward the patient’s symptoms,” read the online journal, Primary Psychiatry.
In the meantime a next court date for the emotionally-crisised (because getting caught is stressful, after all) Smith is September 21.