Kerry Kennedy, the former wife of Gov Andrew M. Cuomo, has blamed a possible partial seizure for her car crash on a Westchester County highway in New York state, telling reporters outside a courthouse yesterday that neither drugs nor alcohol had been in her system.
Appearing confident yesterday, she said: "I remember getting on the highway, and then I have no memory until I was stopped at a traffic light and a police officer was at my car door," she said of the crash on Friday, when the police said she collided with a tractor-trailer.
"I have never had any history of drugs or alcohol abuse." Ms Kennedy (52), a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, made her statement just after she pleaded not guilty when appearing in court on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs. She was released on her own bond, on the condition that she be fingerprinted and undergo a substance-abuse evaluation.
Reading from her statement, Ms Kennedy said a battery of blood and urine tests at a Westchester hospital and a breathalyser test administered by the police after the incident revealed no recreational or prescription drugs or alcohol in her system.
She said she later underwent neurological testing at Mount Sinai Medical Center, including an MRI, which she said showed an area of "hyper density" that appeared to be a result of a head injury she sustained "some time ago." The test revealed an injury on the right side of her brain and she had an abnormal EEG reading, she said.
The tests at Mount Sinai on Monday, she said, "led my doctors to believe that this accident was caused not by a sleeping aid," she said, "but by a complex partial seizure".
Ms Kennedy (52) was driving to a gym through the town of North Castle, which includes the hamlet of Armonk, on Interstate 684 at around 8.25am last Friday when her 2008 Lexus hit the tractor-trailer, according to the police report.
Despite damage to her car that including a flat tyre, she kept driving and left the highway, the police said. The police, responding to 911 calls about a car driving erratically, found the vehicle with Ms Kennedy behind the wheel, stopped one exit away from the crash site.
In her statement to reporters, Ms Kennedy said she had felt "confused and erratic" when an officer approached her car and began talking to her. In response to his question about whether she had taken any medications, she told him that she regularly took a prescription for a thyroid condition, and that about once a month she took Ambien to help her sleep.
"I told the officer that it was theoretically possible that I had mistakenly taken an Ambien rather than a thyroid pill earlier that morning," she said yesterday. She added, however, medical tests had shown no evidence of a sleep aid in her system.
In her four-minute speech to reporters, Ms Kennedy said she had not broken the law but appeared contrite."I want to apologize to the driver of the truck who I apparently hit and to all those I endangered while driving my car last Friday morning," she said. "Northern Westchester is my home, and I care deeply about my neighbors and about my community."
During the court hearing, which lasted less than five minutes, Judge Elyse Lazansky, said there was no need for bail, citing Ms Kennedy's absence of a criminal record. The judge ordered her to undergo an evaluation for substance abuse and scheduled a hearing for August 14th.
Ms Kenney was accompanied by two of her eight siblings - her sister Rory Kennedy, and her brother Chris Kennedy, along with his wife, Sheila.
The New York Times