Jac VerSteegThe city of West Palm Beach provides an example of the astonishing power of politics to make people mimic sociopaths.
The Palm Beach Post and WPTV Channel 5 conducted a joint investigation that found that top elected officials in West Palm Beach wrote letters seeking the parole of a murderer in New York state.
What is their interest in an old New York murder? The convicted killer is the adopted daughter of a political power broker in the city.
Mayor Jeri Muoio and Commissioners Kimberly Mitchell, Shanon Materio and Keith James all suggested in letters that the New York parole board allow Michelle Lennon to leave prison after serving 20 years. Follow-up reporting revealed that County Commissioner Paulette Burdick and even Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, who is from Palm Beach County, also had written letters on behalf of Michelle Lennon.
Lennon is the daughter of Leonard Fintzy.
The reporting, by Eliot Kleinberg and Niels Heimeriks, is captivating. And it should embarrass the bejesus out of the elected officials.
Lennon, whose release they sought, was a 23-year-old former topless dancer who married a 55-year-old millionaire and then, conspiring with a boyfriend to obtain his money and insurance, killed him by beating him with a baseball bat, putting a plastic bag over his bloody head, stomping on his testicles and strangling him with a phone cord.
Nice.
She was sentenced to 20 years to life. Despite the letters from West Palm bigwigs, the New York parole board declined to let Lennon out.
Now, it is clear to everyone that the West Palm officials don’t really care about Lennon. They really have no idea whether she should be released or stay locked up forever. They wrote the letters for the sole purpose of obtaining whatever political advantage they could garner by supporting Fintzy’s bid to get his daughter out of prison.
Political quid pro quo is nothing new. Politicians do all kinds of favors for powerful supporters.
But folks, in this case we have a set of politicians willing to overlook brutal murder if it can get them some votes in West Palm’s crucial western districts.
We’re talking about actual, real, honest-to-goodness murder here. We’re talking real blood and real pain and real death. Think for a minute about Lennon’s husband being beaten to death with a baseball bat. Really get that into your head. That was OK with these politicians.
Commissioner Mitchell, by the way, is challenging Mayor Muoio in the March elections. Mitchell, perhaps one-upping her opponent, offered to find Lennon a job in town if she were released.
To cap things off, Fintzy is running against Commissioner James.
Politics can be brutal. So brutal in Palm Beach County, apparently, that brutal murder is just an event to be exploited, if possible, for votes.
Most of these are politicians vying for city council jobs in a medium-sized city. If murder is no big deal for them, imagine what politicians seeking high and powerful office would be willing to countenance.
Jac Wilder VerSteeg is editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
