Tommy Schaefer is scheduled to appear in a U.S. court Thursday for the first time since Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s body was found in a suitcase left outside the St. Regis Bali Resort Aug. 12, 2014, according to court documents. He faces conspiracy charges related to the 2014 slaying. Schaefer had bee n serving an 18-year sentence in Indonesia for beating von Wiese-Mack to death, and was expected to land in the U.S. before the hearing Thursday morning. He was not yet in U.S. custody Tuesday afternoon.“The Court will make the necessary arrangements to have the defendant appear for the hearing,” Judge Matthew F. Kennelly Kennelly wrote in a minute entry filed Tuesday.It’s the latest movement in the yearslong international legal drama involving an  FBI investigation, litigation from Illinois to Indonesia, a YouTube confession, the trial being interrupted by the birth of Heather Mack’s child, and questions about whether the two former Oak Park residents would ever face consequences for the murder at home.Mack was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Indonesia and released after serving seven years before being arrested in the U.S. in November 2021. She eventually pleaded guilty to plotting her mother’s murder stateside and was sentenced to 26 years.Schaefer is expected to go through an experience much like Mack's where she was arrested at O’Hare International Airport upon landing before being taken before a judge at the Dirksen Courthouse.Prosecutors have said von Wiese-Mack was “was brutally beaten after being taken by surprise as she lay in her hotel bed” with the metal handle of a fruit stand so Mack, Schaefer and Schaefer’s cousin Robert Bibbs could profit from the proceeds of von Wiese-Mack’s $1.5 million estate.Mack’s 2023 plea agreement alleges that Schaefer “repeatedly beat Von Wiese in the head and face,” ending her life.The hearing is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. at Dirksen Courthouse. ...read more read less