One of the most bizarre cases to come out of Florida.
By Raif Karerat
In a bizarre case out of Florida, the families of three high school students who died after being hypnotized by their former principal will each receive $200,000 apiece in settlement from the Sarasota County School District.
The school district became involved after former North Port High School Principal Kenney admitted he hypnotized 16-year-old Wesley McKinley a day before the teenager committed suicide in April 2011.
A subsequent investigation found that Kenney hypnotized as many as 75 students, staff members and others from 2006 until McKinley’s death. One basketball player at the school said Kenney hypnotized him 30 to 40 times to improve his concentration, reported the Herald-Tribune.
Among those who were hypnotized were 17-year-old Brittany Palumbo and 16-year-old Marcus Freeman. Palumbo killed herself in 2011, while Freeman was involved in a fatal car crash the same year after apparently self-hypnotizing, a technique Kenney taught the teenager.
Damian Mallard, an attorney representing the families of McKinley, Palumbo and Freeman, said the parents did not sue for money but to hold the school district accountable and to ensure something similar does not happen again, according to the Associated Press.
Before McKinley, Palumbo and Freeman were ever hypnotized by Kenney, Sarasota County School District Executive Director of High Schools Steve Cantees warned Kenney at least three times not to practice hypnosis unless it was a demonstration in a psychology class and he had written parent permission from each student.
However, even those demonstrations may have been illegal because Kenney did not have a license to practice hypnosis.
Kenney was placed on administrative leave in May 2011; he resigned in June 2012. He was charged with two misdemeanors in 2012, including practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license. He entered a plea of no contest as part of a deal that saw him serve one year of probation, during which he was not allowed to practice unlicensed hypnosis.
Kenney gave up his teaching license in 2013 under pressure from the Florida Department of Education and cannot reapply for another.
“They’re not happy about” Kenney’s lack of punishment, Mallard said of the students’ families, per The Herald-Tribune. “The thing that is the most disappointing to them is he never apologized, never admitted wrongdoing and is now living comfortably in retirement in North Carolina with his pension.”