Kerry Kennedy found not guilty of DWI on Ambien.
Kerry Kennedy admitted that she put lives in danger when she got behind the wheel of her Lexus SUV while severely impaired from use of a sleeping pill. Law enforcement has acknowledged that Kennedy’s sleeping drug ingestion was accidental. Still, her Driving While Ability Impaired case went through 20 months of investigation and legal pleadings, causing Kennedy’s attorneys to question the need for it all, and leaving prosecutors defending their decision to take Kennedy’s case to court.
She showed up at Westchester County Criminal Court Friday morning to a situation that had left some people in the courtroom gallery wondering the night before if the jury might rule against Kennedy.
At the end of the court day on Thursday, the jury asked the judge to have testimony from Kennedy’s key witness, Dr. David Benjamin, read back to them. Benjamin is a pharmacology expert who’d said on the stand that it is not unusual for someone to lose all memory of an episode when they’re awake while on Ambien. Jurors had specifically wanted to hear statements made in court that pointed out that Benjamin may have contradicted himself on this issue in past legal cases.
In the case of Kerry Kennedy, who is the president of the foundation named after her father, slain presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, she had left her bottle of a generic version of Ambien next to a bottle of her daily Thyroid medication on the morning of July 13, 2012. She mistakenly took the generic Ambien, called Zolpidem, then drove her Lexus SUV on I-684, where she had a sideswipe crash with a tractor trailer before driving onto a side road and stalling out.
Kerry has maintained ever since that she had no knowledge or memory of any of what happened from just before she got on the interstate until a police officer encountered her after her vehicle stalled out. Prosecutors, however, argued that Kennedy was aware of her impairment as it was happening and should be convicted for not doing anything about it.
In court on Friday, though, the four men and two women on the jury sided with Kennedy’s version of events. After a total of 50 minutes of deliberation, they declared her not guilty.
Kennedy, 54, walked out of court arm in arm with her mother, Ethel Kennedy, who was in turn arm in arm with Cara Kennedy Cuomo, one of the three daughters Kerry Kennedy has with New York governor Andrew Cuomo, from whom Kennedy is divorced.
“I want to say thank you to the jury for returning this verdict,” Kennedy said in front of the courthouse after learning her fate. “I want to really thank my extraordinary lawyers.”
One of those lawyers, Gerald Lefcourt, spoke next. ”You’ve got to wonder why an ill advised prosecution like this was brought,” he said to the dozens of reporters and photographers outside of the courthouse. ”Was it because of who the defendant is? [Prosecutors] concede that this was an accident, and nevertheless, they pursued this case.”
Kennedy herself responded to questions about the fact that she needed to have two of the country’s top lawyers, Lefcourt and William Aronwald, to navigate her case through the legal system.
“We need to take a hard look at the criminal justice system in the United States,” Kennedy said, “to make sure that it really is just and that everyone in our country has true access to justice.”
She acknowledged that she has the money and power to have top flight legal representation.
For their part, prosecutors would only release a written statement:
We prosecute 2,500 impaired driving cases annually in Westchester County. This case was treated no differently from any of the others. The jury heard all the evidence in this case and we respect their verdict.
So does the Kennedy Family, obviously. PIX11 asked them what their plans are now that Kerry Kennedy has avoided a conviction which could have resulted in up to a year in jail and the revocation of her driving privileges.
Ethel Kennedy, 85, matriarch of the Robert F. Kennedy clan, provided the answer in one word. ”Celebrate,” she said.
Kennedy’s lawyer, Gerald Lefcourt, also said that his client’s trial has resulted in his office receiving more than 200 calls from people who “ingested [Ambien] and had similar consequences. Everybody knows that this is a problem,” he said, “and this drug is a problem.”
Before there was an opportunity to ask if his office might pursue a separate case against Sanofi, the manufacturer of Ambien, Kerry Kennedy called an end to the makeshift press conference, and she and her family headed to their cars, presumably on their way to the celebration that Ethel Kennedy had mentioned.
Submit your own Legal Question Today!
Texas Trial Lawyer
24 Hour Emergency
903-593-9100
903-593-9100
