When Media Circled the Wagons to Defend the Alleged Perpetrator of a Rape at the Kennedy Compound

[Geee]

SubStack

An alleged rape more than 30 years illustrated what happens when local authorities and the national press work overtime to defend the accused. Back then there was only one cable news channel: CNN. There were no competing news outlets to provide balanced reporting. There was no internet. There was no opposing point-of-view.

It was boys’ night out on Good Friday, March 29, 1991, in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Kennedys. Thirty-year-old William Kennedy Smith was out drinking, carousing, and meeting women with his twenty-four year-old cousin, Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island state legislator, and his fifty-nine-year-old uncle, US Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy.

The three were at a local nightclub drinking and chatting up the girls. Smith met twenty-nine-year-old Patricia Bowman, and the two talked and danced until the nightclub closed. Smith asked Bowman if she would drive him home, as his uncle and cousin had left without him. Once they arrived at the guarded Kennedy compound, Smith offered to give her a tour of the mansion. After the tour, the pair talked and walked along the beach. On these points, Smith and Bowman were in agreement. Where they differ is in what happened next.

Smith claimed that in the early hours of Saturday, March 30, the pair engaged in consensual sex. Bowman claims she was attacked and savagely raped. She reported the sexual assault to the Palm Beach Police hours later.

[Valin]

@Geee

Quote

After about a week, Palm Beach Police confirmed to the press that Ted Kennedy’s nephew had been accused of rape.

On a positive note he didn't kill her like Uncle Ted.

 

BTW by the time you hit 59 your carousing should be long  in the past!

[Valin]

You don't suppose someone was paying attention?