Tuesday, March 21, 2000 | 9:21 a.m.
NEW YORK - A Las Vegas hotel-casino employee said Monday that as a notary public she had signed and stamped blank documents that prosecutors say Sante and Kenneth Kimes used as part of a fraud and murder scheme.
Nanette Wetkowski, a reservations supervisor at Circus worked part time as a bookkeeper for the Kimeses for almost five years.
Testifying at the Kimeses' murder trial, Wetkowski said she signed blank affidavits, which attest to a person's citizenship, because Sante Kimes used them instead of a passport for travel to the Caribbean.
One of those affidavits, bearing Wetkowski's genuine notarization, was introduced at the Kimeses' trial. It had the purported signature of Irene Silverman, an 82-year-old woman the Kimeses are accused of killing.
Silverman vanished July 5, 1998, and her body has never been found. Sante Kimes, 65, and her son Kenneth, 24, are on trial in Manhattan's State Supreme Court, charged with murder and other crimes related to the disappearance of Silverman and their alleged attempt to steal her multimillion-dollar home.
When the Kimeses were arrested just hours after Silverman was last seen, they had many of the missing woman's personal papers, and a bogus deed which purported to sell her mansion to them for a fraction of its value.
Wetkowski said she became a notary at Sante Kimes' behest. She said Sante Kimes told her she was tired of having to look for a notary every time she needed one.
Wetkowski acknowledged that it was illegal for her, as a notary, to sign and stamp a piece of blank paper. Another blank document she signed for the Kimeses that they allegedly used illegally was a check.
Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer introduced the check as evidence, saying the Kimeses used it to buy a Lincoln Town Car from a Cedar City, Utah dealer, even though Wetkowski had told them the check was no good.
It was because of a Utah warrant related to the bad check - in the amount of $14,973.50 - for the Lincoln that the Kimeses were caught on July 5. They were not linked to Silverman's disappearance until two days later.
Heimer showed the jury one of the documents he says Sante Kimes filled out to buy the car. The form contained Wetkowski's driver's license number, her Social Security number, and an approximation of her signature.
Wetkowski also identified a passport that she got in Miami in 1997 at Sante Kimes' suggestion. She said the signature on it is not hers, either.
The passport had entry and exit visa stamps, dated August 1997, for the Cayman Islands.
"Have you ever taken a trip to the Cayman Islands?" Heimer asked.
"No," Wetkowski replied.
archive
