SEBASTIAN — A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.
Circuit Judge Michael Linn imposed the sentence after a jury in May recommended death by an 11-1 vote. The same jury had convicted Lenke, 66, of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson in the death of Richard Benson.
“Since the jury recommended a sentence of death by an 11-1 vote … the court’s independent evaluation of this case herein leads to the conclusion that the death sentence is appropriate and a just sentence for the murder of Richard Benson,” Linn said. “Therefore, Otto Lenke, I hereby sentence you to death for the first-degree murder of Richard Benson.”
Linn ordered Lenke transferred to Florida State Prison.
Benson, 57, owned Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts on South Third Street in Fort Pierce, just north of the city’s main police station. Firefighters found his burned body inside the shop shortly after 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, 2021.
Surveillance video shown at trial captured a man entering the shop, shooting Benson three times — including once at close range — then pouring denatured alcohol over his body and setting him on fire while he was still alive. Prosecutors said the video showed the attack was deliberate.
Assistant State Attorneys Brandon White and Justin Cormier argued the killing stemmed from jealousy. Lisa Diggs, Benson’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, had previously dated Lenke for about a decade. Roughly a month before the killing, she asked to borrow a wooden boat Lenke had built for her but said she would not use it with him because she was seeing someone else. Prosecutors told jurors that request set Lenke’s plan in motion.
Diggs told investigators, and later testified, that she recognized Lenke in the shop surveillance video by his walk and body shape. She noted his bowed legs and said he had undergone a knee replacement. She also recognized the black helmet he was wearing, which she said he often used, and recalled that he regularly carried a gun.
Other evidence tied Lenke to the killing as well. His cellphone records placed him in the area, and cameras captured a gray Pontiac Bonneville matching his car along U.S. 1 between Sebastian and Fort Pierce. Divers later recovered a .40-caliber Glock from the Indian River Lagoon near the Wabasso Bridge. The weapon had been cut into pieces.
Lenke told detectives he was not in Fort Pierce the day of the killing and did not know Benson. He did not testify at trial or during the penalty phase.
The jury found three aggravating factors: the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; it was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner; and it occurred during the commission of another felony, arson.
Lenke served as a Melbourne police officer from December 1980 until December 1995, when he medically retired. He joined Indian River County Fire Rescue in 1999 and resigned as a firefighter-paramedic in May 2016 after 16 years.
Under Florida law, a death recommendation requires a supermajority of at least 8-4. Judges must give the jury’s recommendation great weight but can still impose a life sentence. Linn accepted the 11-1 recommendation.