Matthew DeHart woke up scared, disoriented and strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. It was shortly after midnight, August 7, 2010. His heart was beating fast, and he was trembling. What had happened to him? Where was he going? His phone, keys and wallet were no longer in his pockets, and he was surrounded by strangers—the paramedics who’d arrived in the ambulance. And guards from a jail in Maine.
DeHart was rolled into an emergency room in Bangor, where a doctor made these notes: “26-year-old white male brought in in custody of Penobscot County Jail correctional officers.… Patient has multiple rambling complaints…restless and agitated, fairly tremulous as well as tachycardic. He reports [he is incarcerated] because Homeland Security is accusing him as well as several associates of his of espionage...hypomanic during examination.… He appears to be paranoid and delusional with an idea of the FBI monitoring him.”