Mother-son grifters Sante and Kenneth Kimes – holding hands and trading loving looks until a judge told them to knock it off – pleaded not guilty yesterday to the murder of a missing millionairess.
“Would you please stop doing that?” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Herbert Altman scolded the hand-holding homicide defendants.
The Kimeses were taken to court from jail to enter their not-guilty pleas in the swindling and murder of 82-year-old Irene Silverman.
Prosecutors say the Kimeses wormed their way into Silverman’s East 65th Street mansion as $2,000-a-month tenants, then killed her to seize her fortune. Silverman disappeared last June.
The pair – also under investigation for a cross-country string of murders and swindles – has often created a stir during numerous courtroom appearances since their arrest in June.
They dress as if they are paired wedding guests – yesterday wearing suits of a matching charcoal gray, Sante’s outfit topped by a black brimmed hat.
They often break the courtroom rules by trying to speak to journalists, either to profess their innocence or chat up the sketch artists. Yesterday, Sante offered a monologue for the judge.
“Your honor, I would like to plead not guilty, and pray to be treated equally and fairly as any other prisoner,” she announced, her voice quavering dramatically, before she was again cut off by Altman, who simply needed a “not guilty.”
Also typically, the mother and son reach for each other’s hands as soon as court officers remove their handcuffs. The two stroke each others’ backs and hold hands routinely – until yesterday’s chewing out by Altman.
“I don’t understand that,” their lawyer, Mel Sachs, said of Altman’s admonition.
“This is a mother and son – a mother and child!” Sachs said. “I don’t think that the holding of hands shows anything other than a deep and abiding love that they have for one another.”
Altman also warned the pair again against sharing a lawyer. Because suspects in serious crimes often turn on each other, sharing a lawyer is as unusual among co-defendants as is holding hands.
But the two maintained they would stay with Sachs.
“I obviously want to stick with Mr. Sachs because of the weakness of the charges, sir,” Kenneth told the judge.
The mother and son – called “grifters and drifters” by one city judge – remain in separate city jails. Kenneth, 23, is at the Manhattan Detention Complex and Sante, 64, is at the women’s jail on Rikers Island.