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Politics

State Clemency Board considers three cases

TALLAHASSEE - The state Clemency Board declined to make a decision Thursday on the cases of three imprisoned women who are seeking clemency because they say domestic violence led them to murder.

Katherine Telemachos of Cooper City, Sandra Patria of Manatee County and Sherry Perry of Seminole County all deserve clemency because they were longtime victims of domestic abuse, according to the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

The group contends that although Patria and Perry endured years of abuse by their husbands, that wasn't given adequate consideration in their trials. It says Telemachos was abused sexually by her father, who was shot and killed by Telemachos' boyfriend as she watched.

The board, consisting of Gov. Jeb Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, took the cases under consideration.

Telemachos was sentenced to life in prison at age 19 for the 1990 murder of her father.

Perry, 50, of Winter Park, was sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for the shotgun murder of David Perry. He had been arrested several times on domestic battery charges, which kept getting dropped. Prosecutors said his wife killed him in anger because he planned to divorce her.

Patria, 50, has served 23 years of a life sentence for killing her husband in 1983. Dia Kuykendall, a spokeswoman for the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said he had beaten and raped her.

[Last modified December 8, 2006, 00:13:42]