Mark Herman today
In my last newsletter (http://bobbrinkwriter.com/all-categories/9645/), I broke the news that the main character in my roman à clef MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died had been declared innocent of the crime by the six adult children of the victim, and they had petitioned Florida’s governor for a full pardon.
Mark Herman, the man wrongly convicted of the crime has opened a GoFundMe account to raise funds for publication of a book showing women how to prevent predatory sexual attacks.
Murder in Palm Beach, in the thin guise of fiction, portrays the 1976 assassination of prominent Palm Beach resident Richard Kreusler. Herman, a karate expert, Herman was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. The book reveals that he had nothing to do with it, and the prosecutor framed him. In 1992, Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Florida Cabinet commuted his sentence, determining that, while they didn’t know who was guilty of the murder, there was no evidence that Herman was the perpetrator, or was involved in any way with it.
Jack Scarola
All of these years, five of Kreusler’s six children have insisted Herman was guilty. One of the six doubted it, and has been working diligently to get to the bottom of her father’s death. The other five now agree with her that Herman is innocent, and the six have petitioned Gov. Ron DeSantis for a full pardon. In the petition, attorney Sharon Stedman of Orlando excoriates the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office for its skullduggery at the time, and calls for disbarment of the prosecutor, Jack Scarola, who had political ambitions. Scarola, who has been a leading private attorney in West Palm Beach in the decades since then, is trying to prevent the pardon.
Mark Herman, Christmas
Meanwhile, Herman, who has lived near his family in Phoenix since his release from prison, is working to get a book that arose out of his prison experience published. Based on conversations he had with rapists who were fellow inmates in the same Florida prison, he has compiled a book on how women can protect themselves from sexual predators. But he lacks the funds, and has opened a GoFundMe account to raise the money needed to accomplish his goal.
Mark asked me to help publicize his fund-raising efforts, and I am providing the link to the GoFundMe account for anyone interested in helping out.
Will the governor do the right thing and grant the pardon, or will politics prevail?
As they say in radio and TV land, stay tuned for further developments.