YOUNGSTOWN — Stacie A. Gilmore 50, of East Warren Avenue, was taken into custody Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and will be taken to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare for a competency evaluation to determine if she can stand trial in her kidnapping and felony child-endangering case.

Gilmore was before Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who ruled that Gilmore should be sent to the Heartland, a state mental hospital in Massillon, for several weeks to be evaluated because Gilmore did not complete an earlier attempt to evaluate her there.

She was free on bond when she came into Tuesday’s hearing, but she was booked into the county jail later Tuesday and is being held until she is transferred to Heartland.

Gilmore read a letter to the judge during the hearing alleging that she was falsely arrested in May of 2023. The letter also made other claims of misconduct and urged the judge to have her arrest investigated “before you take my life away from me.”

Donofrio told her he is trying to ensure that Gilmore can properly aid her attorney in “defense of your case.” If not, she will “get the help that you need,” he said. “For now, the only way we are going to be able to determine that is if you go to Heartland Behavioral Center and have an evaluation that is sanctioned by law that I just cited, and that’s what we are going to do,” he said.

Gilmore continued to read her letter regarding the circumstances of her 2023 arrest, but the judge advised her against speaking about the facts of the case. But she persisted, saying the charges against her will be found to be untrue.

Gilmore was secretly indicted last October on kidnapping involving a child in a “continuing course of conduct” from October 2016 through May of 2023, according to her indictment and county prosecutors. Daniel Yozwiak, assistant county prosecutor, said he cannot discuss the allegations in any greater detail.

The indictment alleges Gilmore removed the child from the place where he was found or restrained the child’s liberty for the purpose of committing child endangering against the child.

The felony child-endangering charge alleges that during the same years as the alleged kidnapping, Gilmore “did torture or cruelly abuse” the child.

If convicted of the kidnapping, she could get more than 10 years in prison. The felony child endangering could add more prison time.

Gilmore is also indicted on charges of misdemeanor child endangering and misdemeanor domestic violence, also involving the same child and also involving the same time period, according to court documents. Those allegations do not include the allegation of torturing or cruelly abusing the child, only “abuse” of the child or “knowingly causing or attempting to cause physical harm” to the child.