Pages

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Matzav.com Tries to Smear Crist as Anti-Semitic

Matzav.com running a nice story written by Noam Amdurski called "On Dec. 15, Gov. Crist Commuted Sentence of Non-Jewish Killer Named Martin, referencing Martin Grossman, who was executed yesterday for murder.

The 'killer' in question is described as follows: "Martin, 30, was sentenced in 2000 to 16 years in prison for her role in the Interstate 4 crash that killed Josh Nicola, 23, and severely injured Scott Schutt, 23"

The clear implication here is that Crist is anti-Semitic since he commuted the non-Jewish Jennifer Martin's sentence but not the Jewish Martin Grossman's.

Now, while I may not like to say something nice about a Republican, Crist is hardly anti-Semitic. He's the guy who freakin' has a note put in the Kotel every year to protect Florida from hurricanes, after he put a note there in 2007 saying "Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie," and Florida has not had a terrible hurricane since then, and he has generally been affable to the Florida Jewish community.


But that's not the only reason why this is silly. Grossman, of course, beat an officer of the law with a flashlight and then shot her in the back of the head.

However, even more revealing is what Matzav left out about Ms. Martin.

St. Petersburg Times describes Jennifer Martin's case:

Martin was convicted of manslaughter by culpable negligence after a crash in April 1998. She was speeding on Interstate 4 near Ybor City and lost control of the car. Passenger Josh Nicola, 23, was killed. Another, Scott Schutt, 23, was severely injured. Martin, 18 at the time, had no alcohol in her system.
...
At the hearing Thursday in Tallahassee, prosecutor Johnson said that Martin had not been drinking but that her two passengers were "inebriated" and "chose not to wear their seat belt."

To win release, three of the four clemency board members — Crist, Sink, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and State Attorney General Bill McCollum — had to vote to release Martin. The vote was unanimous.

Basically, she did break the law by speeding, and presumably drove poorly given that she lost control, and reasonably deserved a penalty of some sort (lifetime loss of driving privileges, for instance). However, she was sober, unlike her passengers, and nobody would have died or probably even been severely injured had they just Buckled Up, so I'd say her sentence was way too harsh.

The point being, that is completely wrong of Matzav.com to stir things up like this with their intentionally misleading article.