21

“She’s one of a kind . . . a monstrous individual, a violent serial killer”

It was only moments after her conviction, as Sante was on her way to the holding cell, that she began screaming that her civil rights had been violated. To lengthen the drama, she “fainted,” and when she was “revived,” she claimed to court officers she was having a heart attack. But when she heard that Cheryl Fiandaca, a reporter with Eyewitness News, and David Rohde of the New York Times were waiting in the wings to interview her, Sante made a miraculous recovery. It was, after all, an opportunity to make a grand appearance to start spinning her story.

With lawyers Michael Hardy and José Muniz at her side, Sante was in rare form. She started off doing a one-on-one exclusive with Cheryl, denying her guilt and Kenny’s. Predictably, she said they were framed; that the police manufactured the case. She called the verdict “a temporary set-back,” said she was “just devastated and praying for justice,” and that everyone in the world should look into the case closely. “I was dying to tell the truth, to let people know the truth. I wanted to help in the closing argument,” she told reporters. Sante claimed her constitutional rights were violated and spoke of how much she really wanted to talk to the jury. She said that when she spoke to Kenny after the verdict, he told her that he still believed in justice and that they would win on appeal. “To me, they turned it into a witch hunt,” she said. She and her wonderful son hadn’t done anything; they didn’t know where Irene was and, like any good mother, she would fight to her dying breath for her son.

Ever since they were arrested, the buzz around the courthouse was that there were some odd goings-on between mother and son. Kenny always gazed lovingly at his mother, with his piercing green eyes fixed on her, as though he was captivated and in awe of her. Judge Herbert Altman initially observed the pair in his courtroom holding hands in an unusual manner and had to admonish them a number of times about their behavior. “Will you stop that?” Altman snapped at one point during a hearing. He ordered court officers to separate them, and when they were made to sit at opposite ends of the defense table, they vigorously protested the seating arrangements.

“When they first came to court, they held hands for a solid hour. I’ve seen them stroking and caressing each other in court,” Christine Cornell, a courtroom artist, observed.

Defense lawyers who met with them noticed the Kimeses sneaking off to a corner of the room where they would kiss and hold hands. “This was not just the peck on the cheek kind of kiss,” Muniz said. Then there was their 60 Minutes appearance on television, in which Kenny described his mother as “physically beautiful,” a remark so out of the ordinary that most young men would never use it in portraying their mother. And when the interview ended abruptly, it was Kenny, not a studio technician, who removed the microphone from his mother’s chest. As he unclipped the device, Kenny could be seen gently running his hand across her breast. Not to be overlooked in the incest-mix was the testimony of José Alvarez, who said he found Sante and Kenny sleeping naked together in the same bed. Roseann Lombardo testified that from the way the Kimeses acted in the bank, she was under the impression that Kenny was Sante’s boy toy. The bond between the Kimeses certainly came up during deliberations by jurors, who felt “it was a sick relationship.” Finally, in letters between Sante and her son, Kenny addresed his mother as “darling,” “you are my soul mate,” and “how the fuck are you?” He spoke often about the two of them looking forward to taking long drives in the desert and sitting under the stars drinking wine and talking for hours. That’s the kind of talk lovers engage in, not mother and son.

During her interview, Cheryl Fiandaca pressed Sante about allegations that she and Kenny had “an unusual relationship.” It was a good question, one that had obviously been on the mind of all those who followed the case.

Sante looked frantic, stunned by the question. Suddenly, she burst into tears. “I slept with him when he was a baby. I held him on my chest in bed with my husband. He was just a baby,” she wept as she explained away the strange attachment she had with her adult son.

Dr. Arthur Weider, the defense forensic psychologist who observed the Kimeses throughout the trial, found that Kenny’s “sexual attraction toward his mother indicates severe psychopathology.” It was his opinion as a trained observer, with 55-years of experience in behavioral science, that there was “evidence of incest-like behavior. It is abnormal for a grown man to share the same bed with his mother in the nude. It exhibits an intense love for his mother,” he said.

Weider believes that because of Sante’s past as a prostitute, she may have unconsciously sexually abused Kenny as a child, knowing that what she was doing was wrong, but, as a psychopath, lacking feelings of guilt. “It is also possible that if Kenny as a little boy saw Sante engaging in sexual activity with a man, he developed a yen for his mother, and it became an unconscious wish for him to want his mother sexually.

“Essentially, Sante Kimes demonstrates psychopathic personality features with no guilt, conscience, remorse, or empathy. She is typically charming socially, arrogant and ‘full of herself,’ egoistic, with a superiority complex. She feels everyone is stupid and will do her bidding, and everyone has their price and can be ‘paid off.’”

Furthermore, Weider believes that “Mrs. Kimes has a multiple personality disorder, and in order to keep these many aliases orderly, she has to assume their personalities and keep copious notes in her books to retain who is saying what to whom and in order to remember what she said to whom.”

In Weider’s opinion, Sante is “an actress, and in assuming so many aliases and their personalities, she has had to control and intimidate her supporting actor, namely her son, and convince him of her invincibility. Consequently, they have had a shared relationship in which she has been the Svengali to his Trilby. She writes the scripts and scenarios, and he performs some of the behaviors and is convinced of her invincibility and optimism.”

Both mother and son demonstrate paranoid ideation, and they are certain there is a conspiracy against them, Weider said. “They are absolutely convinced they are not at fault nor guilty. Both denial and a lack of insight contribute to make them feel conspired against by everyone. Each believes this to be the ‘God’s honest truth.’ It is ironic that they invoke the Constitution when both have trespassed upon the civil rights of their victims and people whom in general they conned.”

Government psychological reports submitted at Sante’s slavery sentencing concede she is the “product of an unhappy childhood that included early experiences of sexual victimization. [But] it appears that Mrs. Kimes manipulates others to her own benefit. It seems Mrs. Kimes has little concern for her actions and the impact they have on others.”

A defense report submitted at the time by Dr. Verdun Trione, a Las Vegas psychologist, indicated “that Mrs. Kimes sometimes finds it difficult to separate fact from fantasy. This is a person who snaps from time to time. The clinical picture, overtly, is one of repressed anger, rage reactions, resulting in conflicting disorganized social adjustments. There is affective disorder, mingled with . .. anxiety attacks. This is manifested by denial . . . repression, immature and manipulative behaviors.” It was Trione’s opinion that Sante suffered from “deranged behaviors.”

Another court-appointed Las Vegas psychiatrist, Dr. William O’Gorman, wrote that he found Sante to have “poor insight and impulsive, not reflective, judgment.”

Sante spent the month after the Silverman conviction working on her appeal. By the time sentencing day rolled around on June 27, she had decided on a bold course of action: She fired her lawyer, José Muniz, whom she had always referred to as “my savior,” and accused him publicly of stealing a million-dollar ring she had entrusted to him the first day they had met in July 1998. She also claimed that he had violated the client-attorney privilege by collaborating with prosecutors and turning over defense evidence to them. What made her charge regarding the jewelry even more preposterous was that when Muniz briefly bowed out of the case in October 1998 for four months, he turned the ring—which was at best a semi-precious stone—and four sets of keys she had given to him over to Mel Sachs and got a signed receipt from Mel for the jewelry and the keys. Her purpose in firing José was to make him the fall guy by accusing the lawyer of not providing adequate counsel during the trial. It later backfired on her when the disciplinary committee of the Bar Association reviewed the charges she filed against him and tossed her complaint out the window.

Muniz received a letter from another lawyer, Irving Anolik, shortly before sentencing day, saying that Sante had discharged him. “It seems strange to me that counsel is sending out letters saying she’s discharging me ... if he hasn’t even been retained,” José told the judge during a bench conference. “That’s where we’re at,” he explained. “There’s no sense in me staying here if I’m not wanted,” José said. “She’s going to go into an outburst,” he warned the judge.

During the sidebar conversation between the judge, Muniz, and the other lawyers present, it was finally agreed that before the sentencing proceeding began, Muniz would state that he’d been discharged and ask permission from Uviller to leave. And that’s exactly what happened. Muniz walked out of the courtroom, but not before Kenny motioned to speak with him briefly, saying, “You know how Mom is,” and thanking him for his services.

It was a standing room only crowd that packed the courtroom on sentencing day. Most of the deliberating jurors who could take the day off from work asked Judge Uviller’s clerk if seats could be set aside for them.

A sense of anticipation filled the room as the crowd waited for the proceeding to start. The main players, Sante and Kenny, were hustled into the courtroom. They were seated at the defense table and were stunned when they looked at the jury box. Seated in the number one jury seat was Joe Reznick, who headed up the Silver Task Force. Filling up the rest of the juror seats were detectives Eugene Wasielewski, Tommy Hackett, Tony Vazquez, Joel Potter, Danny Rodriguez, John Schlagler, Tommy Ryan, and Tommy Hovagim. It must have been unnerving for the Kimeses to see these detectives, who played a key role in their downfall, staring intently at them throughout the proceeding.

Before arraigning the Kimeses for sentencing, it was necessary for Judge Uviller to put on the record that Sante had been convicted by a jury trial of three counts of murder in the second degree, one count each of robbery, burglary, conspiracy, attempted grand larceny, possession of stolen property and a forged instrument, four counts of gun possession, 16 counts of forgery, and 29 counts of eavesdropping, totaling 58 counts. Kenny was convicted of the identical counts, except that he had 17 forgery counts and two counts of possession of a forged instrument, making it 60 counts.

It was then up to John Carter to summarize for the judge the case against Sante before the judge could mete out the sentence. He began by making it absolutely clear that Sante was a sociopath who was motivated “by simple and naked greed” and that she had long planned the “cold-blooded murder of Irene Silverman.” He then spent a few minutes highlighting Sante’s scheme to steal the house, repeating the lies she told, the documents she forged, her use of different names, and listing two loaded guns, the date-rape drug, the empty stun box, scream masks, handcuffs, knives, brass knuckles, ammunition, latex gloves, duct tape, and syringes found in the Kimes’ possession.

Carter then described Irene’s “brutal and heinous” murder and spoke of her many friends. He reiterated that Irene was an “intelligent, vibrant, perceptive, and energetic” woman with a “dynamic personality” who spoke many languages, loved to dance and read, and who led a very active social life.

“There is an image in my mind, Judge, that I have, of the defendants wearing ‘Scream’ [from the movie Scream] masks when they grabbed tiny Irene Silverman, all four-foot-ten,115 pounds, just before they killed her; of Irene Silverman looking at these Scream masks as the last thing she ever saw. What terror she must have felt,” he said.

Carter reminded the judge that just hours after the verdict, Sante was spinning her story on television. She managed to give interviews protesting her innocence and accusing police and prosecutors of a frame-up, saying that Irene’s home was “a haven of prostitution” where “at night all kinds of men were coming there.” She said there was a loud argument the night before she was murdered during a party with three or four “Latin-type” men. John mentioned the federal sentencing after Sante’s slavery conviction, when the U.S. Attorney said, “Overall, she has continued to blame everybody else for her criminal behavior. She’s shown no remorse for her actions.”

“Here we are, fourteen years later, at another sentencing ... and she continues to blame everybody but herself for her predicament. She will never change. She’ll continue to lie. She’ll tell the most shameful, nonsensical lies because that’s who she is; that’s what she does. She’ll continue to cheat, steal, and kill anyone who stands between her and whatever her particular goal is at the time. Throughout her life, she has used deceit, threats, violence, manipulation, and murder to profit herself in some manner.

“Every moment of every day of this woman’s existence is either about lying to someone, scamming someone, planning a crime, or committing a crime, without any sense of regret or remorse, all without taking any responsibility for her actions or acknowledging her action.”

Carter characterized Kenny as “a willing and active participant in the murder” of Irene. “The fact is, Judge, she has such little regard for even him that she has allowed and encouraged her son to participate in murder here and elsewhere. Sante Kimes is a unique individual. She’s one of a kind. Thank God. She’s a monstrous individual, a violent serial killer and career criminal who should be sentenced to the maximum allowed by law . . . so that there won’t be even the slightest possibility that she could ever freely walk our streets and prey on people again.”

Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer was next up, reminding the judge of how Kenny Kimes killed Irene Silverman. “On the morning of Sunday, July 5, 1998, Kenneth Kimes walked in stocking feet past the open door of Irene Silverman’s office, and he saw her sitting there. Then Kenneth Kimes returned to apartment 1B and lay in wait. When Irene Silverman walked down the hall and over to the elevator door, Kenneth Kimes opened the door to 1B, pulled her inside, and killed her. He strangled her; he snuffed the life out of her with his bare hands. It took no more than a minute or two, which perhaps was not a long time to him, but must have been an eternity of horror to Irene Silverman.”

Heimer spoke of how, after killing Irene, Kenny reached into her pocket and took her personal keys and put those in his pocket, then put her lifeless body into heavy-duty garbage bags and bound those bags into a tight package with duct tape, leaving a wad of duct tape in a trash can with his fingerprints all over it. He then stuffed Irene into a large nylon duffle bag, put the bag on a luggage cart, wheeled it out of the apartment to the empty trunk of the car, and drove away.

Heimer told of Kenny retrieving the Lincoln from a parking garage on July fourth and loading the back seat of that car “up to the ceiling with his and his mother’s belongings as they moved out of apartment 1B and emptied whatever was in the trunk into the back seat. ”The trunk had to be empty because that’s where, the next day, he was going to put the body of Irene Silverman,” Heimer said.

As part of the sentencing procedure, victims or a family member of the victim are invited by the Court to offer what is referred to as a “victim’s impact statement.” Irene’s only living relative, her second cousin in Los Angeles, Despy Mallas, sent the judge such a statement, which was read into the record by prosecutor Connie Fernandez. In Mallas’s statement, she spoke about the cold-blooded murder the Kimeses planned. “Your cries of innocence fall on deaf ears. You couldn’t even begin to step into my cousin’s shoes. You took away a beautiful human being to satisfy your insatiable, selfish greed. You left me and others who loved Irene with nothing but contempt, anger, and hatred toward the both of you. Her loss is a loss to all who knew and loved her. Your loss today is your freedom. With your incarceration, we will be assured, as a free and civil society, that you will never, never walk free again to continue in your evil ways.”

It was now up to Michael Hardy to say a few compassionate words about Sante before the defendant herself could take center stage and plead for mercy. Hardy started off by saying that it was “a difficult moment” for himself and “a difficult case, because there was no body,” and as a result it becomes a precedent-setting case. “After listening to some of the statements by the prosecution . . . you wonder, how do you represent someone who is despised by the world, despised by humanity. And who rises to the level that you ask? Is Mrs. Kimes a Hitler? Is she a Mussolini? Is she a Jack the Ripper? Is she this historical criminal that will one day belong side by side in some wax museum with other famous criminals? She is a mother, your honor. Many have said that she has allowed her son to kill. Again, she denies that either she or her son had anything to do with the murder of Irene Silverman,” he said as he went on pleading with the judge to not impose a sentence of over 100 years. The lawyer stressed that given Sante’s age, any sentence was tantamount “to a death sentence . . . unless this case is reversed, she will never see the light of day and will never walk alive outside of a prison,” he said.

Hardy then informed the judge that Sante wanted to make a statement.

“You can stand right there, Mrs. Kimes,” the judge said, as Sante started to walk from the defense table toward the podium behind the prosecutors.

Sante began by saying she was standing “before the American people and God” pleading “to every living mother in this world. I’m here to defend my son. I don’t care about myself. All the lies you’ve heard are not true.” She droned on about her “wonderful marriage” to Kimes, Sr., “the wealthiest man in the world” and how they had everything. “My pleasant, wonderful son would not hurt a fly,” she said. Glaring at the prosecutors, sitting to her right, Sante turned towards them saying, “I hope all of your children will suffer the way you have made this innocent kid suffer.”

At this point Judge Uviller stopped Sante short. “Mrs. Kimes, please address the Court. You are not addressing anyone else in the courtroom.”

Sante pleaded with the judge “not to make it complicated” for her and went on to assail “this court, an out of control system that made a mistake . . . and arrested us on a little check charge that I didn’t write, and they decided to pin a murder on some innocent people.” She then took off about “a dark day for justice,” how their “precious constitutional civil rights had been trampled” ... and that “they planted and planted and planted evidence to fool and mislead a jury. Frankly, I have to be honest. If I were our jury, I would have convicted us,” she said.

She became very emotional at that point, turned again to the prosecutors and inadvertently blurted out, “You didn’t want to win this—I mean, you didn’t want to lose this case,” Sante said, correcting herself. “No one has told the truth in this case. My attorney has literally let me down and sold me out and was intentionally inadequate,” she said referring to José Muniz. “My own attorney . . . induced by the district attorney has lied and violated the attorney-client relationship. He has divulged false information, which undermined our ability to defend ourselves, and he’s virtually precluded our ability to take the stand, which would have proved our innocence.” She also begged the judge “to direct Mr. Muniz to return over a million dollars worth of valuable jewelry which he’s withholding from me. And to advise my other attorney, Alan Russell, to release over two hundred and fifty million dollars . . . which he will not give me, which has rendered me and my son indigent. They promised a strong defense, but at the last minute, after promising forty-five witnesses . . . that would prove our innocence, they produced nothing . . . to an already brainwashed jury [prevented] from hearing the truth.”

Sante next turned her attention to the judge, saying that throughout the trial she was “hostile and prejudiced against me and my son. I begged you to permit me to take the stand and participate in closing arguments.” She accused Uviller of conspiring to “allow these prosecutors to address evidence against me which was . . . very irrelevant. I was stopped from taking the stand and from participating in my own defense.”

Again, Sante faced the audience, her voice cracking as if she were about to cry, and pleaded, “Everyone in this planet, there is no crime. Don’t be fooled like the jury. Don’t be misled by gossip and slander. The record clearly reflects a diabolical frame by one of the most corrupt law enforcement systems in this United States, a frame in which the system, the police, the prosecutors, assisted by my own attorney, manufactured a crime, and produced a B horror movie.

“The only murderers in this case, your honor, are these prosecutors who are murdering our Constitution.”

Sante rattled on, claiming that Irene Silverman “was a friend of mine that I met in 1994” and saying how she, Sante, had gotten ”very interested in longevity, and I met a man named Ralph at—”

Kenny knew where his mother was headed and frantically tried cutting her off. “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, one second please,” he begged, interrupting her four times as she ignored his pleas.

She barreled ahead and began shooting off her mouth about how Ralph had introduced her to Irene, and that she had invited her to New York. “I came for Christmas and met with Irene; liked her, very funny, and we became friends.”

As a result of Kenny’s constant interruptions, Sante became distracted and appeared bewildered, perhaps unsure of how to proceed. She stopped talking long enough to have an off-the-record discussion with Kenny as the rest of the courtroom and the Judge waited for Sante to continue talking.

“Please, Mrs. Kimes, address the Court. Your son will have his time.”

For a moment, Sante seemed undecided as to what to do. “I don’t want to endanger my appeal. I’m only trying to give the truth . . . to speak . . . the truth,” she hesitantly told Uviller.

“It’s all on the record, Mom. Everything you say is on the record,” Kenny pleaded, trying to get her to stop speaking.

“Can you tell me if that is true?” she asked the judge.

“You are here to speak, Mrs. Kimes. No one has interfered with your right to be heard. Please continue.”

“It will not interfere with my appeal?” she asked again.

“I’m not saying that. I will make no assurance.”

“Kenny, I got to talk now,” she told her son.

But no sooner was Sante discussing her “life manager, Alan Russell,” and saying he was interested in Irene’s apartment and went to see her, Kenny was back, imploring her to go on to another subject. “Mom. Mom. Please, I’m asking you, Mom.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Mom, you don’t realize, this is evidence. By giving evidence you impair—”

“My son is concerned I’m giving evidence. I’m sure I don’t want to do anything that would, you know, do that. I wish your Honor could tell me if in telling the truth here if that is hurting . . . can you not tell me?” she asked.

“You have a capable attorney,” the judge informed her. “They are here to advise you. I am not here to advise you.”

Sante still didn’t know when to stop. She persisted, trying to give her version as to why there was a legitimate reason she came to New York. By now, Kenny was obviously frustrated and he cried out, “Jesus Christ . . . please.”

“The truth has got to come out,” she replied, and after another brief off-the-record discussion with Michael Hardy, she went on proclaiming her innocence and attacking the remarks John Carter made to the judge. When she started talking about her government cooperation and why she couldn’t use her name, it was Michael Hardy who was concerned over what Sante was saying in court.

“I just want the record to reflect that I have on several occasions advised my client that I believe her statement is sufficient and I am advising her again now on the record that her statements have been heard by the court. It’s in her interest to terminate her statement at this point,” he said.

“Let me just say, Mr. Hardy, that I completely reject any innuendo with regard to you or to Mr. Muniz and any assertions that she’s cast upon your professionalism or your integrity. So, rest assured that there is no merit to it and I reject it completely,” the judge said.

Again, Sante wanted the last word, insisting that Muniz “withheld valuable jewelry” from her and that she “has proof of that.”

“Just move on to the issue of sentence, Ms. Kimes,” the judge said, sounding annoyed. “We have a long day ahead of us.”

When it appeared she was again talking about “everybody rattling” her, Kenny seemed to have also had it with his mother. “Mom, stop, Mom, oh, Jesus,” he again cried out.

The judge gave Sante another fifteen minutes to finish her remarks, telling her she had given her more time than other speakers. Sante protested she couldn’t do it in that time. “You’ve had two and a half years,” Uviller replied angrily.

“Mom, can I just ask you a question?”

“No, honey, I’ve got to talk now,” she told her son.

With that, Sante was off and running. Once again, she blasted the judge for being prejudiced against her, for allegedly precluding her access to her lawyers, for threatening to handcuff her and throw her into solitary if she used the telephone or wrote a note to her lawyers; then she reverted to her familiar theme that they were framed, sold out by the system and José Muniz. She claimed Irene’s will was a forgery, but the deed conveying the mansion to The Atlantis Group was real; that there is no proof, no crime, and they didn’t rent “that apartment. If you don’t save my son . . . it’s going to be your son next or your daughter.”

Sante would have gone on speaking, but Judge Uviller had heard enough. “All right, Mrs. Kimes, your performance—I mean, your statement is concluded,” the judge said to the thunderous applause of everyone in the courtroom. Her monologue had run 55 minutes.

It was soon to be Kenny’s turn to speak his mind to the judge. First, Mel Sachs had to go through the formality of giving his reasons why the judge should show leniency for his client. For once, Sachs was brief and to the point: Kenny did not choose his parents, Sachs explained, and asked Uviller to show understanding when he is sentenced. “Your honor, the supposed sins of a mother should not be visited on the child,” he pleaded. Sachs reflected that Kenny didn’t have the chance that Kenny’s father did “and having the mother that he had.” He asked the judge to “see him for who he is and know what he had experienced. Anything that he did is a far cry from murder. Maybe he didn’t deserve the way he grew up and not having the love and support and care that others here have been able to receive. At least, he deserves to be treated with fairness.”

Kenny spoke to the judge for 25 minutes. He opened his somewhat disjointed statement by addressing the detectives sitting in the jury box, “My mom is scared. She’s scared of you guys. Of all of you sitting there.” Then looking at the judge, he added, “No offense, but you’re spooky. Your honor, you’re a little scary, too.” Having gotten that out of his system, he blasted Uviller for her “lack of legal professionalism” and “legal manners” because of her earlier remark about Sante’s “performance” at the conclusion of her sentencing comments. He continued Sante’s barrage against the police and the alleged manufacturing of the evidence against them. He mentioned how they had wanted Court TV to televise the trial.

Several times, Kenny turned to speak to the audience and Uviller constantly reminded him to address her. “I’m not trying to give you a cry story. I’m not trying to say that we are angelic. You can’t say that I’m bullshitting you.”

He then got to what was bothering him and he held up what he said was a police document to the court and to the audience saying that the “issue of Shawn Little” destroyed his defense.

“Halfway through the trial, Kenny began focusing his exclusive attention on Shawn Little because he was aware that Little would be one of the main witnesses against him at the Los Angeles murder trial,” Matthew Weissman explained. “Kenny was obsessed with this single NYPD document that contained Shawn Little’s name and the term ‘suspect’ in one of the columns. Kenny’s interpretation of this document was false, in that the document merely reflected the individuals whose fingerprints were compared with those found in the mansion.”

No prints belonging to Shawn Little were ever found in Irene’s home, the Town Car, or in any of the personal belongings of the Kimeses. Silver Task Force detectives confirmed that Little had never been to New York City and was in California the entire time Sante and Kenny were in the city at Irene’s home.

Kenny insisted that the notebooks didn’t prove murder. In continuing, Kenny began to curse, and the judge admonished him, directing him to “control your language.”

“Your honor, I will be soft-spoken, and I won’t use any four-letter words,” he promised. “We’re not dealing with misdemeanors here and, unfortunately, I won’t be able to see that fair side of you, because I know you’re going to throw the book at us, no matter what. So, on a personal level, your Honor, respectfully, it’s been interesting. But I wish it could have been respectfully interesting,” he added as he took his seat.

It was time for the main event. Judge Uviller leaned forward in her chair. She started off recalling Irene Silverman as a lively, irrepressible, generous woman. “It is sad indeed that this spirited and intelligent woman became known to New Yorkers only through the circumstances of her death.

“In many ways Mrs. Silverman embodied the best of this city. She was curious and energetic. She had a wide circle of developed friends. She was interested in the buzz of New York, and had, not withstanding her years, a great appetite for life.”

The judge spoke of Irene as “a woman of substantial wealth,” whose home and heart were open to people from all walks of life. “In her beautiful mansion . . . she entertained together the artists, the butcher, the housekeeper, and the banker.” Judge Uviller highlighted many of those who admired and loved Irene, mentioning Mengi, Ramon, Noel, Valerie, Aracelis, and others. “They were Mrs. Silverman’s family,” she said and made reference to the many letters of tribute she had received about Irene from friends expressing their grief.

Finally, Judge Uviller got down to what everyone in the courtroom was waiting to hear—what she would say about the defendants. She started with “It is galling to speak of Sante Kimes in the same breath as Irene Silverman, [but] I turn now to the matter of sentencing.

“Sante Kimes is surely the most degenerate defendant who has ever appeared in this courtroom, and her degeneracy extends even to the willful corruption of her own son. Her protestations of concern for him, like her protestations of her own innocence, are as false as any bad check she has ever passed. They are the self-serving blather of an intractable con artist.

“Sante Kimes would have sacrificed her own son in an instant in order to further her own perverse ends. It is clear that Ms. Kimes has spent virtually all of her life plotting and scheming, exploiting, manipulating, and preying upon the vulnerable and the gullible at every opportunity.”

Uviller contrasted the characters of Irene and Sante. “Just as Mrs. Silverman reached out to the strong, the talented, and the honest, Sante Kimes targeted the weak, naive, and vulnerable. It really comes as no surprise that she is one of the rare people in this century to have been convicted of slavery.

“Sante Kimes has lived a life of criminal calculation. However, when she came to our city, Sante Kimes made several miscalculations. First, she misread Mrs. Silverman as just another easy mark. What a colossal misjudgment. Next, Sante Kimes . . . sorely underestimated this City’s law enforcement capabilities. However often she may have eluded punishment elsewhere for her sordid crimes, this defendant did not count on the perseverance and professionalism of the New York City police officers who helped bring her to justice. They are commended for the excellence of their work in this case.

“And finally, Sante Kimes has grossly overestimated her own cleverness. The staggering stupidity of a criminal keeping a detailed to-do list added one more extraordinary note to this bizarre case.”

At the start, the judge said she thought Kenny was “just the vacuous dupe of his malevolent mother, deserving of some pity as another of her victims, whose universe has been controlled from birth by a sociopath.

“However, as this trial proceeded and Kenneth Kimes could be observed arrogantly chatting and smirking through the accumulating evidence, it became clear that he has evolved into a criminal as dangerous as Sante Kimes. He, too, has become a remorseless predator, a proverbial chip off the old block. I care not how Sante Kimes became who she is or why Kenneth Kimes was unable to resist her. In the end, evil is indeed banal,” the judge said. “There is no doubt that the jury’s verdict is correct, in every respect.”

Uviller made mention of the fact that Irene’s body has never been recovered, but that it didn’t mean the Kimeses would be rewarded “for their deviousness in being able to conceal and dispose of it.” She also observed that in her many years on the bench, she always found it “difficult” and a “painful obligation” to sentence a defendant, “no matter how grievous the crime. It is sad to say that in this case, it is not painful.

“The sentence I impose now in the case of Sante Kimes is a matter of just desserts, designed to reflect the unremitting malevolence of this woman, even though, because of her age, she will serve only a fraction of it.

“For Kenneth Kimes, the sentence is geared toward his permanent incapacitation. His casual will to violence, together with his youth, require that he never be released from confinement.”

With those parting words, Judge Rena Uviller sentenced Sante to 127⅔ years to life in prison and Kenny to 130 years to life in prison.

After more than three hours it was all over. Sante and Kenny were cuffed and swiftly herded out of the courtroom. The judge went back to chambers, and prosecutors and police milled around inside the well of the courtroom smiling, hugging one another, and relaxing for the first time in two years, before heading over to Forlini’s Restaurant to celebrate.

A few days later, Matthew Weissman met with Kenny one last time, shortly before Kenny was transferred upstate to the Clinton Penitentiary in Danamora, New York. It was a rather solemn visit for both of them. They knew they would not be seeing each other again for a long time. Hanging over Kenny’s head now was the murder trial of David Kazdin in Los Angeles, where prosecutors had yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

“You know, Kenny, there’s another way out of this. There’s still time to tell where Mrs. Silverman is,” Matthew hinted cautiously, choking to get the words out of his mouth.

Kenny merely gazed at Matthew and snapped, “Ask Shawn Little.”