Father of Siamese Twin Saved in Rare Operation Faces Arrest

The father of a Siamese twin who was saved in a rare operation that sacrificed her sister failed to appear in court Friday for a hearing to consider whether his probation should be revoked.

Superior Court Judge Daniel Molter, who issued a warrant for Kenneth Lakeberg’s arrest, said he had been prepared to show leniency if Lakeberg had shown up.

“I was really hoping to learn for the first time from Mr. Lakeberg why he has set out on this path of self-destruction,” Molter said. “And I was fully prepared to take that into account today.”

After issuing the warrant, Molter conducted a brief hearing, revoked Lakeberg’s probation and sentenced him to a year in jail.

Lakeberg, 26, was granted probation after slashing a cousin’s hand with a butcher knife during a Christmas Day brawl.

Friday’s hearing was ordered after Probation Officer Brian Mathis requested that probation be revoked because Lakeberg had admitted using drugs and failed a drug test.

Mathis said Lakeberg told him on June 8 that he had used alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, in violation of his probation.

Lakeberg’s wife, Reitha, gave birth to conjoined, or Siamese, twins on June 29 at a hospital in suburban Chicago, about 45 miles from the family’s trailer-park home in Wheatfield, Ind.

The girls, named Amy and Angela, shared a heart and liver tissue. They were separated on Aug. 20 at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Amy died, but Angela, who received the heart, survived and remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

Lakeberg, an unemployed welder, has admitted going on a cocaine binge about the time of his daughters’ separation, using $1,300 in charitable contributions raised for the children.

He has promised to replace the money and to pay his injured cousin about $4,800 with money from a deal he hopes to sign for a made-for-TV movie.