Extradition of Duo Sought in 1998 Slaying

Immediately after mother and son grifters Sante and Kenneth Kimes were sentenced Tuesday to more than 120 years in prison for killing a wealthy New Yorker, prosecutors in Los Angeles drew up extradition papers to bring them to trial in California for capital murder.

The Kimeses were awaiting trial in New York when authorities in Los Angeles issued a warrant last summer charging them with the murder of San Fernando Valley businessman David Kazdin.

The warrant, issued in mid-August, alleges three special circumstances that make the mother and son eligible for the death penalty: murder for financial gain, murder of a witness to a crime and lying in wait.

“We’ve been waiting for them to be sentenced, and as soon as they were, we sprung into action,” said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. She added that prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.

The Kimeses (she is 65 and he is 25) maintained their innocence as they were sentenced Tuesday in Manhattan.

A month ago, it took the jury foreman 20 minutes to read the verdict slips after the panel convicted the duo of 118 crimes related to the killing of 82-year-old former ballerina Irene Silverman in a scheme to gain control of her opulently furnished, $10-million Upper East Side townhouse. Prosecutors in New York told jurors during a 15-week trial that Sante Kimes was targeting Silverman as her next mark even as she was carrying out Kazdin’s demise.

The extradition process should take two to six weeks, Gibbons said.

Prosecutors this week will send a stack of documents--crime reports, other information about the Kimeses and copies of the arrest warrant--to the office of Gov. Gray Davis, who will then ask New York Gov. George Pataki to issue an extradition order.

Kenneth Kimes and his mother rented a room for $6,000 a month from Silverman for about two weeks in June 1998. Prosecutors in New York said she was hit with a stun gun and strangled in July 1998 when she took steps to evict them.

The body never has been found.

Silverman’s killers were linked to the crime by their handwriting, found in 14 spiral notebooks spelling out the minute details of the scheme.

Kazdin’s name also allegedly was found in the notebooks, which police found in a luxury car the Kimeses were suspected of renting with a bad check.

It was a warrant from Utah, issued in connection with the car rental, that led New York City police to the Kimeses, who were living at a Hilton hotel in Manhattan during the July 4 weekend two years ago.

Silverman’s passport, checks and payroll stubs from her days as a dancer at Radio City Music Hall were found on Sante Kimes.

The Kimeses may fight extradition, but prosecutors are confident that New York authorities will release them, Gibbons said.

Once in Los Angeles, the mother and son would stand trial in Superior Court for the 1998 slaying of Kazdin, 63, who authorities said had been acquainted with Sante Kimes for 20 years.

Kazdin’s corpse, shot several times with a .22-caliber handgun, was discovered in a trash bin near Los Angeles International Airport. Authorities say they found similar .22-caliber ammunition in the rental car.

Court papers indicate that prosecutors believe Kenneth Kimes pulled the trigger. And, the court documents reveal, Los Angeles prosecutors believe the mother and son ambushed and killed Kazdin when he began to suspect they had forged his signature to take out a $280,000 loan.

Other mysterious circumstances involved an arson fire at Kazdin’s Las Vegas house shortly after the Kimeses had stayed there.