Rick Dean
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http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2...03180-6166.html
Life isn't satisfactory, any negro who kills a white should be put to death immediately.
Pennington gets life sentence for murder
Man who killed teller is silent at question from victim's daughter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ANDREW WOLFSON
awolfson@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Tiffany Dominique Pennington was sentenced to life plus 10 years in prison yesterday for murdering teller Mary Dell Kaelin-Brandenburg d
ring a bank robbery on Feb. 13, 2001.
Imposing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson III called Pennington's crime a "despicable and meaningless act of violence."
P
enni
ngton, 32, who pleaded guilty to bank robbery and murder, was not
eligible for the death penalty under a ruling issued in February 2003 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell, who found that federal prosecutors failed to specify in Pennington's indictment the aggravating circumstances that could trigger a capital prosecution.
Russell sentenced Pennington last July to 15 years and 11 months in federal prison for four counts of bank robbery and using a firearm in the shooting at the National City Bank branch at 3800 Brownsboro Road.
Simpson ordered 10 years of that sentence to be served consecutively and also ordered Pennington to pay $105,000 in restitution, including $3,760 he took from the bank --money that hasn't been recovered.
Pennington declined to ad
dress the court before he was sentenced. He also declined to answer questions posed to him by one of Kaelin-Brandenburg's daughters, Mary Lee Johnson, who was one of five people who read stateme
nts
in court. <b
r>
"My main question for you is have you changed in the three years
since you murdered my mother?" Johnson asked. "Would you change places with her? It might make it easier for me to pray for you if I knew the answers."
Another daughter, Kaelin Jansen, told Pennington and the court that she had come to accept his life sentence, although she said it isn't fair that taxpayers would have to pay to clothe and feed him.
"But you are not the only one in prison," Jansen said. "We are also imprisoned by our memory of how our mother was murdered."
Two former bank employees also addressed the court, including manager Cindy Laws, who cried as she told how she was so traumatized by the crime that she couldn't return to work. "Yo
u robbed me of my close friend and a job that I loved," she said.
Another former employee who was working at the bank that day, Melissa Bindner, looked at Pennington and said: &q
uot;Wha
t you did was not an
accident. I watched from my desk as your raised your arm and shot her without saying a word. Maybe God can forgive you for that,
but I can't."
Pennington testified in a trial of a co-defendant that his Taurus 9mm semiautomatic "went off" when he climbed over the counter during the robbery. Pennington's lawyer, chief federal public defender Scott Wendelsdorf, told reporters that Pennington may become eligible for geriatric parole after he turns 70, but that it's likely he will die in prison. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Allentown, Pa.
Wendelsdorf and prosecutor Larry Fentress, an assistant U.S. attorney, both told Simpson that the sentence of life without parole was automatic.
The sentencing is likely the last chapter in
the bank robbery, which was the first in 20 years in Jefferson County in which an employee was slain.
Derrick Djuan Moore, 31, was sentenced to life in prison for helping to
plan and ex
ecute the holdup. He provide
d money to buy the gun that killed Kaelin-Brandenburg, and he stole and drove the getaway car.
Pennington's girlfriend, Jessica "Little Boy" Lawrence,
was sentenced to 36 months in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact, by helping Pennington flee after the robbery. Lawrence and Pennington fled Louisville and were arrested in Atlanta after they were spotted in a homeless shelter.
Kaelin-Brandenburg, who was 52 and lived in Jeffersonville, Ind., was extremely well liked by colleagues and customers. Bank officials said she baked cookies for clients and helped balance their checkbooks, visited them in hospitals and took them groceries when they were shut in.
Although banks usually shun publicity about robberies, a year aft
er the crime National City erected a plaque at the branch honoring Kaelin-Brandenburg.
It says: "In loving memory of our friend and co-worker who served her c
ustomers with j
oy, represented her community with p
ride and showered her family and friends with love."
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2...03180-6166.html
Life isn't satisfactory, any negro who kills a white should be put to death immediately.
Pennington gets life sentence for murder
Man who killed teller is silent at question from victim's daughter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ANDREW WOLFSON
awolfson@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Tiffany Dominique Pennington was sentenced to life plus 10 years in prison yesterday for murdering teller Mary Dell Kaelin-Brandenburg d
ring a bank robbery on Feb. 13, 2001.
Imposing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson III called Pennington's crime a "despicable and meaningless act of violence."
P
enni
ngton, 32, who pleaded guilty to bank robbery and murder, was not
eligible for the death penalty under a ruling issued in February 2003 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell, who found that federal prosecutors failed to specify in Pennington's indictment the aggravating circumstances that could trigger a capital prosecution.
Russell sentenced Pennington last July to 15 years and 11 months in federal prison for four counts of bank robbery and using a firearm in the shooting at the National City Bank branch at 3800 Brownsboro Road.
Simpson ordered 10 years of that sentence to be served consecutively and also ordered Pennington to pay $105,000 in restitution, including $3,760 he took from the bank --money that hasn't been recovered.
Pennington declined to ad
dress the court before he was sentenced. He also declined to answer questions posed to him by one of Kaelin-Brandenburg's daughters, Mary Lee Johnson, who was one of five people who read stateme
nts
in court. <b
r>
"My main question for you is have you changed in the three years
since you murdered my mother?" Johnson asked. "Would you change places with her? It might make it easier for me to pray for you if I knew the answers."
Another daughter, Kaelin Jansen, told Pennington and the court that she had come to accept his life sentence, although she said it isn't fair that taxpayers would have to pay to clothe and feed him.
"But you are not the only one in prison," Jansen said. "We are also imprisoned by our memory of how our mother was murdered."
Two former bank employees also addressed the court, including manager Cindy Laws, who cried as she told how she was so traumatized by the crime that she couldn't return to work. "Yo
u robbed me of my close friend and a job that I loved," she said.
Another former employee who was working at the bank that day, Melissa Bindner, looked at Pennington and said: &q
uot;Wha
t you did was not an
accident. I watched from my desk as your raised your arm and shot her without saying a word. Maybe God can forgive you for that,
but I can't."
Pennington testified in a trial of a co-defendant that his Taurus 9mm semiautomatic "went off" when he climbed over the counter during the robbery. Pennington's lawyer, chief federal public defender Scott Wendelsdorf, told reporters that Pennington may become eligible for geriatric parole after he turns 70, but that it's likely he will die in prison. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Allentown, Pa.
Wendelsdorf and prosecutor Larry Fentress, an assistant U.S. attorney, both told Simpson that the sentence of life without parole was automatic.
The sentencing is likely the last chapter in
the bank robbery, which was the first in 20 years in Jefferson County in which an employee was slain.
Derrick Djuan Moore, 31, was sentenced to life in prison for helping to
plan and ex
ecute the holdup. He provide
d money to buy the gun that killed Kaelin-Brandenburg, and he stole and drove the getaway car.
Pennington's girlfriend, Jessica "Little Boy" Lawrence,
was sentenced to 36 months in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact, by helping Pennington flee after the robbery. Lawrence and Pennington fled Louisville and were arrested in Atlanta after they were spotted in a homeless shelter.
Kaelin-Brandenburg, who was 52 and lived in Jeffersonville, Ind., was extremely well liked by colleagues and customers. Bank officials said she baked cookies for clients and helped balance their checkbooks, visited them in hospitals and took them groceries when they were shut in.
Although banks usually shun publicity about robberies, a year aft
er the crime National City erected a plaque at the branch honoring Kaelin-Brandenburg.
It says: "In loving memory of our friend and co-worker who served her c
ustomers with j
oy, represented her community with p
ride and showered her family and friends with love."
