From Hotel Lobby To Psychiatric Ward: The Troubling Ordeal Of Cassandra Fameux

By Milton Allimadi

Photo Above: Marriott.com: Courtyard by Marriott Okemos.

Photo Below: Linkedin: Arresting Officer Tyndall.

When Cassandra Fameux tried to check into the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Okemos, Michigan on Christmas Day in 2025, she expected nothing more than a place to spend the night. Instead, within 24 hours, she says she was locked inside a Detroit psychiatric hospital, restrained, and injected with powerful antipsychotic drugs against her will.

Her release, on Jan. 16, 2026, came only four days after intervention by Black Star News following inquiries about her confinement. The sequence of events that led to her hospitalization—beginning with a declined credit card in a hotel lobby—raises troubling questions about the actions of police officers, mental health officials, hospital staff, and the broader legal system surrounding a woman already entangled in a bitter divorce and custody battle.

A Christmas Day Arrest

Ms. Fameux’s ordeal began on the morning of Dec. 25, 2025, when she attempted to check into the Courtyard by Marriott in Okemos. According to her account and a police report obtained by Black Star News, her credit card was declined. She sat in the lobby attempting to call her sister, Jenny Smith, to ask if she could charge the room on her card.

She said while she was making the call, a hotel employee—identified in the police report as Rainer Kortgoede—told her to leave the lobby, saying it was reserved for guests. Ms. Fameux, who is Haitian-American, says she believed she was being racially profiled. She had stayed at the hotel at least six times before and maintained a customer account dating back to 2017, she said.

Instead of allowing her more time to reach her sister, Mr. Kortgoede called the Meridian Township Police Department and reported her as a trespasser when she refused to leave. Two officers—Natalie Tyndall was dispatched at 11 a.m. and Elisha Olgine afterwards—arrived and arrested Ms. Fameux shortly thereafter. “I made contact with Cassandra who immediately requested my card,” Officer Tyndall wrote in her report. “I informed her that the Courtyard by Marriot (sic) no longer wanted her on their property.”

The officer wrote that Ms. Fameux asked whether the order was “because she was Black,” and stated she had an account with Marriott. “I informed her that any business can have her trespassed,” the officer wrote. It’s unclear whether officer Tyndall is familiar with Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act which makes it illegal for hotels to deny service based on: religion; race, color, national origin; sex; sexual orientation; gender identity; and various disabilities. 

The report says Ms. Fameux told the officer that she would have to arrest her because she had done nothing wrong. “She then put her arms out and stood up. I placed Cassandra in handcuffs and searched her,” the report states. Ms. Fameux was charged with “trespassing” and “resisting officer” though the report itself contains no description of physical resistance.

Officials from Marriott International—including CEO Anthony Capuano, Senior Vice President Saba Landman, and Global Chief Communications Officer Tricia Primrose—did not respond to requests for comment from Black Star News sent via e-mail message before publication.

From Jail to a Psychiatric Facility

After the arrest, Ms. Fameux was taken to the Ingham County Jail. She recalls a sheriff banging on a desk and warning her not to use her phone to call anyone. Around midnight, she says, she was transported from the jail to Community Mental Health (CMH), a state agency where she regularly receives treatment for PTSD. Her psychiatrist there, Dr. Rita Aouad, had diagnosed the condition in 2024 and testified during Ms. Fameux’s divorce trial that it stemmed from years of alleged domestic abuse by her now ex-husband Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire. Ms. Fameux assumed she would see Dr. Aouad the next day.

Instead, she says she was awakened around 2 a.m. to find a man sitting in a chair in her room with the lights on. Documents reviewed by Black Star News identified him as Daniel Peters, a CMH social worker who had nothing to do with Ms. Fameux’s treatment at the agency. “I hear you’re not talking,” Ms. Fameux recalls him saying. “I’m sending you to Sparrow.”

According to Ms. Fameux, Peters called an ambulance that transported her to University of Michigan Health Sparrow hospital. For Ms. Fameux, the destination carried chilling significance and memories. It was the same hospital where she had previously alleged she was drugged for years by Dr. St. Claire, an anesthesiologist who once worked there, and a colleague, psychiatrist Dr. Dominic Barberio. After several hours at Sparrow, she was transferred again—this time by ambulance to Samaritan Hospital in Detroit.

Forced Medication

At Samaritan Hospital, Ms. Fameux says she initially encountered a doctor who did not medicate her. For the first week, she was attended by psychiatrist Dr. Navuluri Someswara. But during the second week, she says, Dr. Someswara was replaced by Dr. John Head. According to Ms. Fameux, Dr. Head asked why she had been brought to the hospital. 

She explained that after her arrest she had declined to answer police questions because she did not have a lawyer. Ms. Fameux says Dr. Head responded that her refusal to speak could be interpreted as a form of “psychosis” and ordered antipsychotic medication.

When she refused the injection, she says two men restrained her while her pants were pulled down and the drug was injected into her.

She says the same thing happened again the following day when she resisted a second injection. After that, she says she stopped resisting and was given oral antipsychotic medication. “I felt like I was being treated like a prisoner,” she said.

During her final week at the hospital, she says Dr. Head increased her dosage of Risperdal from 1 milligram to 5 milligrams.

Even nurses appeared puzzled, she said. 

Eva Garza Dewaelsche, President of Samaritan Hospital didn’t respond to an e-mail message seeking comment. 

A Call for Help

Ms. Fameux eventually managed to reach this reporter on Jan. 12, 2026 using a hospital pay phone. During the call, shouting and screaming could be heard in the background from other patients. Following the call, Black Star News sent inquiries the same day to Ms. Dewaelsche at Samaritan and Maxine Thome, the Chair of CMH, seeking explanations for why Ms. Fameux had been transported to Sparrow and then to Samaritan—and under what authority she was being forcibly medicated for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with antipsychotic drugs. 

The questions were copied to several officials including Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, State Attorney General Dana Nessel and the FBI. 

Ms. Fameux was released four days later. 

A History of Allegations

The events surrounding Ms. Fameux’s hospitalization cannot be separated from the broader legal conflict that has defined much of the past decade of her life. On Sept. 10, 2025, she filed a criminal complaint with police accusing her then-husband, Dr. St. Claire, and psychiatrist Dr. Barberio of drugging her with antipsychotic medications from 2014 to 2023.

According to her complaint, the alleged drugging was intended to coerce her into signing a Judgment of Separate Maintenance (JOSM) in February 2018 while under the influence of the drugs—a legal agreement that transferred millions of dollars in marital assets, including two homes, to Dr. St. Claire. The agreement also gave him a decisive advantage in custody proceedings by naming Dr. Barberio as the psychiatrist who would determine her mental fitness for co-parenting.

Ms. Fameux told police she had been falsely diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to justify the medication. Between 2017 and 2021, she said, she was injected monthly with the antipsychotic drug Invega Sustenna; between 2017 to 2021 the drugs came from Dr. Barberio’s storage cabinet and he didn’t even write out prescriptions, she told police. In 2023, she secretly recorded a conversation with Dr. Barberio in which he acknowledged she was not schizophrenic. She turned the recording over to police.

Hospital records later obtained by Black Star News show that while Dr. St. Claire administered the monthly injections—as he’s admitted— the documentation listed Dr. Barberio as the one who gave Ms. Fameux the shots. 

After a six-month investigation, Meridian Township police recommended that Dr. St. Claire be charged with domestic assault.

The Ingham County prosecutor John Dewane declined to file charges.

The Divorce Case

The couple’s marriage was formally dissolved in November 2025 after a contentious divorce trial presided over by Judge Carol N. Koenig in Ingham County, Lansing, MI.

Central to the dispute was the Judgment of Separate Maintenance signed in 2018. Judge Koenig denied a motion to set aside the JOSM by attorney Timothy Young, on account that Ms. Fameux was drugged and didn’t know what she was doing. 

Ms. Fameux’s new attorney Lisa Young then argued the JOSM was void because Ms. Fameux had been declared legally incompetent in 2015—which she blames in the alleged drugging by Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio—which required the court to appoint a Guardian Ad Litem before she could sign any binding agreement. 

Although the court appointed an Attorney Guardian Ad Litem to represent the children’s interests, no Guardian Ad Litem was ever appointed for Ms. Fameux herself. In May 2025, attorney Ms. Stern filed a motion asking the court to invalidate the agreement on that basis. Judge Koenig denied the motion.

As previously reported by Black Star News, Judge Koenig then became part of a scheme in which the existence of a Guardian Ad Litem was fabricated in order to justify her ruling upholding the JOSM.

The scheme dates back to December 2017, when Judge Janelle A. Lawless—now retired—was presiding over the JOSM negotiations. During those proceedings, Judge Lawless permitted Dr. St. Claire’s attorney, Jessica Larson, to place him on the witness stand. Dr. St. Claire then testified that he and Ms. Fameux had discussed marital matters with “her guardian ad litem,” even though all three individuals in the courtroom were aware that no such Guardian Ad Litem had ever been appointed.

Robin Omer, the lawyer who supposedly represented Ms. Fameux was not in court on that day; neither was Ms. Fameux. Mr. Omer was hired and paid by Dr. St. Claire. In 2003, during Dr. St. Claire’s divorce from his late second wife Dr. Marcy Street, he was represented by a lawyer named Jane Radner; Mr. Omer was Ms. Radner’s law partner at the time. 

Judge Koenig later relied on this testimony to uphold the agreement. In her Sept. 3, 2025 ruling denying Ms. Stern’s motion, Judge Koenig treated the nonexistent Guardian Ad Litem as though the position had in fact existed—despite the fact that no name of such a Guardian Ad Litem appears anywhere in the court record. She even quoted the earlier testimony given before Judge Lawless.

Curiously, Ms. Stern did not object to the fabricated claim nor did she file a complaint with the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission. She also declined Ms. Fameux’s instruction to file a motion for reconsideration, even though the record contains no evidence that a Guardian Ad Litem was ever appointed to represent Ms. Fameux.

Black Star News has notified Chief Probate and Circuit Court Judge Shauna Dunnings about the alleged scheme, as well as Governor Whitmer, Attorney General Nessel, the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, and the FBI.

A Custody Dispute

The conflict also extends to custody of the couple’s youngest child, a 15-year-old son.

Although the court ordered alternating weekly custody, Ms. Fameux says Dr. St. Claire has withheld the boy from her since July 2025.

She says repeated letters to the court have gone unanswered; Black Star News also sent inquiries to the court about the matter and received no response. The prolonged separation, Ms. Fameux believes, worsened her PTSD and left her emotionally vulnerable in the weeks before the Christmas Day arrest. At times, she said, she sat in her car or stayed in hotels rather than returning to an empty apartment.

Charges Still Pending

Despite the weeks she spent confined in a psychiatric hospital in December being injected with antipsychotic drugs for a disease two psychiatrists have said she does not have, Ms. Fameux still faces criminal charges stemming from the Dec. 25 arrest.

The case is being handled by Prosecutor Dewane—the same official who declined to bring charges against Dr. St. Claire after the police investigation into his alleged poisoning of Ms. Fameux.

Ms. Fameux says she believes the events that followed her arrest—from the jail transfer to the psychiatric hospitalization—were not random and was coordinated between Mr. Peters and people not affiliated with CMH.