A federal court detention hearing and preliminary examination for accused political assassin Vance Boelter were continued Friday to next week after his attorney told a judge that it has been “extremely difficult” to communicate with him because he’s been on suicide watch.

Boelter was brought into the federal courtroom in St. Paul wearing a green suicide watch suit, which his attorney told Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko is also called a “Gumby suit.”

Boelter has been in the suit since his June 16 booking into the Sherburne County jail, said his attorney, Manny Atwal, from the federal defender’s office.

Boelter, 57, is charged in the June 14 targeted shootings that killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman and husband, Mark, at their Brooklyn Park home, and that wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and wife, Yvette, at their Champlin home.Atwal said Boelter has been held in a cell where the lights are on 24 hours a day and with a mat and no pillow. Doors next to his cell slam frequently, and he’s been subject to the odor from an inmate in the next cell who spread feces all over, she said.

“It has been difficult to communicate with Mr. Boelter by phone. It has been difficult to communicate with him in person because he is sleep deprived,” she said.

Atwal said Boelter has been cleared medically and she requested he be moved from the suicide watch unit and placed in segregation, “where I can have communication like I would with any other client, where Mr. Boelter can be put into a jail uniform that is more dignified than having to meet with me in this outfit where he’s not even allowed any undergarments. It is making my job extremely difficult to communicate with him.”

Federal prosecutor Harry Jacobs said he had no objection to the continuance request.

When asked by the judge if he agreed to waive his right to have a preliminary hearing beyond the required 14 days after an initial appearance, Boelter said: “Your Honor, I haven’t really slept in about 12 to 14 days. And I appreciate the motion to extend this so I can get some sleep. And I understand that and I agree to that.”

Boelter said he has “never been suicidal, and I’m not suicidal now.”

The judge said “extraordinary circumstances exist” to continue the hearings and set the new date for July 3.

Sheriff responds

In response to Boelter’s claims, Sherburne County Sheriff Joel Brott issued a statement calling them “absurd.”

Brott said security cameras capturing the activity of Boelter in his cell on suicide precaution show he was “resting peacefully with his eyes closed” for seven straight hours, appearing to be asleep, from approximately 10:40 p.m. Thursday until 5:45 a.m. Friday. Correctional officers doing routine welfare checks during the same time period believed he was asleep.

After he returned from his Friday court appearance, Brott said, jail personnel checked live security camera footage of the alleged assassin’s cell and he again appeared to be asleep.

“He is not in a hotel. He’s in jail, where a person belongs when they commit the heinous crimes he is accused of committing,” Brott said.

Brott said Boelter’s cell is “spotless clean” and so is his mattress, which has a pillow sewn into it. Every day he is offered access to a phone and the shower, and he has not missed any meals since his arrival, the sheriff added.

“He’s being treated like every other inmate in the same circumstance,” he said. “It’s too late now to complain about the conditions in which he has put himself.”

Two-day manhunt

To carry out the attacks, federal prosecutors say, Boelter dressed as a police officer with a black tactical vest and body armor, wearing a “hyper-realistic silicone mask,” and outfitting his black sport-utility vehicle with emergency lights and putting “Police” on the license plate.

Following a two-day manhunt described as the largest in Minnesota history, Boelter was found in a field in Green Isle, close to a mile from his Sibley County home, about 9:10 p.m. June 15 and taken into custody.

Boelter is federally charged with stalking both Hortman and Hoffman, with the murders of the Hortmans and with firearms offenses for the shootings of both couples. The murder charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, though Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson has said it is too early to tell if prosecutors would seek the death penalty.

Boelter is also charged by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office with two counts of second-degree murder-not premeditated and two counts of attempted murder. The office said it would seek an indictment on first-degree murder charges as well.