MOM, SON LINKED TO CRIME TRAIL.

Byline: Chelsea J. Carter Associated Press 

A mother and son - accused of being grifters responsible for a bizarre trail of deceit and death - lived a life of luxury that was financed by sometimes deadly cons, according to police and those who knew them.

The duo have left a trail of fake names and false documents that authorities are trying to link to theft, murder, arson and fraud stretching from Granada Hills to New York to the Bahamas to Florida.

On Saturday, Sante Kimes, 63, and her son Kenneth Kimes Jr., 23, were being held in a New York jail for questioning in the disappearance or deaths of at least three people, and investigators were piecing together the odyssey of a once well-to-do family turned criminal suspects.

The strange tale began to unfold last week, after the Kimeses were arrested outside a Manhattan hotel on a bad-check charge. Within hours, they were possible suspects in the disappearance of New York socialite Irene Silverman.

In a car the Kimeses used, authorities found a ledger containing the names of Silverman, slain Granada Hills businessman David Kazdin and a banker missing in the Bahamas, along with fake documents, according to a police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Kimeses' lawyers, Jose A. Muniz and Matthew Weissman, would not comment on the allegations.

At one time, the Kimeses were the portrait of success.

Sante Kimes shared a beachfront home in Hawaii with her husband, Kenneth K. Kimes Sr., a wealthy real estate businessman who died in 1994.

The Kimeses made their money in construction in the late 1950s, building motels next to Disneyland in Anaheim.

They spent their vacations among the rich in resort areas like the Bahamas, said John Boettner, a former family friend in California.

But the family lived beyond their means and was inundated with legal problems, according to court documents.

As early as the late 1970s, the Kimeses were sued in Hawaii for faking insurance claims and stealing a car from an auto dealership.

Charles F. Catterlin, their lawyer in the matter, eventually sued the couple to collect more than $12,000 in unpaid fees. He never got the money.

``I'd call the house and ask to speak to Mr. Kimes about the case, and she would tell me he was ill and unable to come to the telephone,'' said Catterlin, now retired and living in Harlingen, Texas.

Sante Kimes also showed a propensity for embellishing the truth, name dropping and passing off a glass ring as a diamond, he said.

``She wanted people to think they had more money than they did. She would walk into a restaurant and start loudly ordering people around. It was all show,'' Catterlin said.

In 1985, Sante Kimes was convicted of grand larceny for stealing a $6,500 mink coat from the piano bar of a Washington hotel.

That same year, she was convicted in California of enslaving her Mexican maids. One was not allowed to make phone calls or write to anyone, another was burned with an iron. Kimes served three years of a five-year sentence.

In the late 1980s, the couple moved to Santa Barbara after befriending Boettner in the casino of a Las Vegas hotel. Later, they asked to use his Santa Barbara address to receive mail, while they settled into a new house.

Court and business records now show Sante Kimes used Boettner's address on checks, and that he was listed on state documents as the legal contact for the Kimes' construction company.

``All I ever did was help them find a tutor for their son, Kenneth,'' he said.

By 1992, the Kimeses were sued by numerous insurance companies and banks for defaulting on loans or faking claims. Court records from New Jersey, Nevada and California show at least six civil judgments totaling more than $1 million against them.

Now, investigators are trying to determine why Kimes' activities allegedly took on an even darker tone after her husband died, and how she eventually included her son.

While authorities are questioning them about various crimes, they have only been charged so far on a Utah warrant for writing a $14,900 bad check to buy the Lincoln Town Car in which the ledger was found.

On Saturday, New York police continued to search for Silverman, the 82-year-old landlady who rented Kenneth Kimes a $6,000-a-month apartment.

Los Angeles detectives also want to question the Kimeses about the death of Kazdin, a 63-year-old businessman whose body was found in a trash bin near Los Angeles International Airport on March 14.

Kazdin's Las Vegas house was burned to the ground shortly after the Kimeses used it. And his motor home was used in the Kimeses' scam to bilk a Louisiana company out of a new $89,000 motor home, said police Detective Tom Clark in Manalapan, Fla.

In the Bahamas, police want to talk to the couple about their ties to Syed Bilal Ahmed, who vanished in 1996 while he was an executive for the Gulf Union Bank. The banker had spent a day with Kimes before his disappearance.

Kimes and his mother were being held without bail Saturday at New York's Rikers Island jail.

CAPTION(S):

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Map: Kimeses captured

Bradford Mar/Daily News