Attorney: Bensalem man kills himself in county jail day after sentencing

Posted: Aug. 24, 2018
Convicted in June of crashing into his ex-wife’s house and sentenced Friday to state prison, a Bensalem man has killed himself in county jail.

Charles Joseph Freitag, 57, took his own life ‪Saturday morning‬ at the Bucks County Correctional Facility, said his attorney Paul Lang.

Charles Freitag

County spokeswoman Juliet Kelchner confirmed the death as a “presumed suicide” ‪Saturday afternoon‬. No other information on the manner of death was released. A final report on the death was pending, she said.

″ I can tell you at this time is that it is under internal investigation as well as the detectives, though there does not appear to be any reason to believe it is anything but a suicide,” Kelchner said.

She added that mental health professionals were at the prison for those who needed anything after the incident.

Freitag’s death comes a day after Judge Diane E. Gibbons ordered him to serve six to 12 years in state prison for aggravated assault.

Prosecutors had accused him of driving his 1999 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front yard and into the living room of his ex-wife’s house in Falls in September. Less than a year later, a jury found him guilty in June after two days of trial.

He allegedly made statements at the scene indicating he was suicidal, and required surgery for self-inflicted wounds.

Freitag was on a Level 3 watch based on the sentence he just received, Kelchner said. A Level 3 watch means that he is being checked on every 30 minutes by a corrections officer, she said.

He was housed in a general population unit, not in a locked cell, and he was out to receive medication in the morning, Kelchner said.

The time between when he was last checked and when the incident was reported was less than 20 minutes, she added.

Lang, who took over the case for sentencing, argued Freitag’s mental illness made a lengthy prison sentence inappropriate in his case.

At his attorney’s request, Gibbons allowed Freitag to be held in the county prison for a week before he was transported to state prison.

Freitag is the second inmate to die at the prison this year.

In January, 52-year-old Frederick Adami died of complications related to opiate withdrawal one day after he was arrested on an outstanding warrant.