WHITE PLAINS, New York (AP) ― The recent troubles of the Kennedy clan played out in two courts in New York on Wednesday in cases involving sisters-in-law who were close friends.
A test of blood taken from Kerry Kennedy after a drugged-driving arrest showed traces of a sleeping drug, contradicting her own doctors’ findings. And the oldest son of Robert Kennedy Jr. and estranged wife Mary Kennedy stepped forward to take over the estate Mary Kennedy left behind when she hanged herself in May in the midst of a divorce.
Kerry Kennedy’s blood test, filed in North Castle Town Court and first reported by Newsday Westchester, showed that a toxicologist detected zolpidem, the sleep aid found in Ambien, in a sample taken the day her Lexus swerved across Interstate 684 and swiped a tractor-trailer.
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Conor Kennedy enters the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains, New York, for a hearing on becoming administrator of his mother Mary Kennedy’s estate on Wednesday. (AP-Yonhap News) |
That amount is low, typical of someone who would have just taken a pill or taken one several hours before, said Dr. Michael Thorpy, director of the sleep disorder center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
A urine sample was negative for alcohol, the toxicologist wrote.
Kerry Kennedy, ex-wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a daughter of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, asserted a week ago that her doctors thought the July 11 accident was caused by a seizure. She said their tests found no alcohol, recreational drugs or prescription medication in her system.
She acknowledged, however, that she told a police officer she might have taken an Ambien pill by accident instead of her daily thyroid medication.
Police said Kennedy failed several sobriety tests and was swaying and slurring her speech.
