On December 2, 1991, opening testimony takes place in the highly publicized
rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Smith,
then a 30-year-old medical student at Georgetown University, was accused of
sexually assaulting a 29-year-old Florida woman in the early hours of March 30,
1991, at the Kennedy family’s Palm Beach compound. On the night of March 29,
Smith went out in Palm Beach with his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, and cousin,
Patrick Kennedy. They ended up at a night spot called Au Bar, where Smith met
the accuser, who later accompanied him back to the Kennedy estate. Smith and
the woman went for a walk on the beach, during which time Smith allegedly
tackled and raped her. Taking the stand in his own defense in court, Smith
testified he had sex with the woman but that it was consensual. At the trial,
Judge Mary E. Lupo barred prosecutors from presenting testimony from three
other women who claimed Smith had assaulted them. As a member of one of
America’s most famous families, Smith became the subject of intense public
scrutiny and his trial turned into a media circus. Millions of viewers watched
the nationally televised event and reporters from around the globe converged on
the West Palm Beach courthouse. On December 11, after deliberating for 77
minutes, the six-member jury acquitted Smith on all charges. (In an interesting
side note, Smith’s lead defense attorney, Roy Black, later married Lisa Haller,
one of the jurors, in 1995.) During the live television coverage of the trial,
the accuser’s identity was electronically obscured with a large dot to protect
her privacy. However, following the trial, the woman, Patricia Bowman, chose to
identify herself publicly. William Kennedy Smith became a doctor after the
trial, specializing in working with victims of land mines, and remained largely
out of the national spotlight. In 2004, a Chicago woman who was Smith’s assistant
at the nonprofit Center for International Rehabilitation filed a lawsuit
accusing him of sexual assault. A judge subsequently dismissed the suit.
Michael
Thomas Barry is the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early
California 1849-1949, it can be purchased from Amazon or Barnes & Noble through the following links –
No comments:
Post a Comment