Douglas Kennedy: Scuffle with nurses ruined career

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Douglas Kennedy said he has no future as a politician or as a television reporter after he was charged in a 2012 scuffle with nurses at Northern Westchester Hospital as he tried to take his newborn son outside for fresh air.

"You ask any political consultant if I, at this point, could get elected dog catcher, and they will tell you there is no way in this world that would ever happen," Kennedy testified during his deposition in a personal-injury lawsuit the nurses filed against him.

Kennedy, the second-youngest child of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was acquitted in 2012 of misdemeanor charges of endangering his 2-day-old son Bo and harassing the nurses. He didn't testify during the non-jury trial.

During his deposition, held over three days in April, July and December, Kennedy explained that he wanted to take his son out on an unseasonably warm night Jan. 7, 2012, to bond with him. His wife, Molly, and Dr. Timothy Haydock, a longtime Kennedy family friend who worked part-time as an emergency department doctor at the hospital, were on board with the plan. Kennedy said there appeared to be a full moon that night.

"When I was little, I remember watching the miniseries Roots on television," Kennedy said. "And every son that was born over the generations, the fathers would hold their newborns, bring their newborns outside and hold them up to — usually it was a full moon."

The nurses, Cari Luciano and Anna Lane, are forging ahead with their lawsuit in state Supreme Court in White Plains, N.Y., claiming Kennedy assaulted them as they tried to stop him after Lane called a hospital alert for an infant abduction. A lawsuit Kennedy filed in the same court against the hospital and nurses alleging assault and unauthorized disclosure of federally protected health information was "resolved satisfactorily," at the end of last year, said Kennedy's lawyer, Gary Douglas.

The nurses initially blocked Kennedy from leaving the third floor of the maternity unit in an elevator that night, so he walked to a stairwell, where Lane claims he twisted her wrist. Luciano alleges Kennedy then kicked her and knocked her to the floor. Kennedy recalled falling and striking his head on the stairwell as he held Bo against his chest. He denied twisting Lane's wrist and said it was only natural to raise his leg at Luciano.

"I defensively and instinctually raised my leg and pushed whoever it was away" to ensure they didn't have "success in ripping" Bo from my arms, he said, according to more than 1,600 pages of deposition testimony of witnesses filed last month and reviewed by The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News.

Kennedy also pointed out that, prior to being approached by Lane and Luciano, he told nurses at the nurses' station he was taking the baby outside, grabbed a bassinet from his wife's hospital room at their suggestion and took off Bo's security tag in front of them. Haydock, who was dressed in scrubs because he was to be on duty that night, was accompanying him, he said. Kennedy said he had "burritoed" Bo in blankets, which is one of his specialties.

He testified that running for office, which had always been an option for him, "has been taken off the table," given how widely the case was publicized in the national media. You can "have an affair," or "get caught maybe even drunk driving," but if you do something perceived as wrong to a nurse, "then you are done," he testified. Asked by the nurses' lawyer, Elliot Taub, whether anyone told him he's finished politically, Kennedy said no one had to tell him.

"Does anybody need to tell Andrew Cuomo that he's, you know, finished with national politics right now?" he asked. "He knows it. I mean — it's just something that you know." Cuomo is the ex-husband of Kennedy's sister, 55-year-old Kerry Kennedy of Bedford, who was acquitted last February of drugged driving.

Douglas Kennedy, 47, a father of five, said everyday life in Chappaqua, N.Y., has been difficult.

"I walk around my town, and the people that don't know me are hesitant and completely standoffish," he said. "When I go to the ball field, when I am picking up the kids from school."

The incident also hurt his contract negotiations at Fox News, he said, noting that an executive denied his request for a $75,000 raise, which would have brought his salary to $700,000. With the exception of Fox, he said, "I am completely finished in any world that has anything to do with the media" or "me being the public face of anything." He added, "I cannot get another job anywhere. My life is fricking over."

Taub pointed out that Kennedy's cousin, 47-year-old Patrick Kennedy, the former congressman from Rhode Island, bounced back from a drug problem, but Douglas Kennedy said that's different.

"Nurses are considered saints, as they should be," he said, adding that Luciano and Lane were taking advantage of "the esteem that they are held in to pursue lies against me and have a district attorney arrest me for nothing."

Kennedy's lawyer, Douglas, said Friday that the case against Kennedy is "as phony as a three-dollar bill."

"This is an attempt to extort a public figure," he said. "We will vigorously defend it in court."

No trial date has been set.

Luciano, 57, who is staying with a relative in Florida, admitted during her deposition that she violated federal patient privacy laws by researching Kennedy's address on a computer in the nursery under the name, "Baby Kennedy." She needed to know where Kennedy lived, she said, to understand why Mount Kisco police told her they couldn't arrest Kennedy the night of the scuffle because he was out of their jurisdiction. Luciano, who claims she has left shoulder problems as a result of the fall, said she reached for Bo that night out of concern for his safety.

"I reached out to go steady the baby, and then Mr. Kennedy picked up his leg and kicked me in the pelvis, and I flew back onto the floor," she testified.

Lane, 45, of Brookfield, Conn., testified during her deposition that she was concerned Kennedy was potentially stealing the baby, but acknowledged telling a judge during Kennedy's five-day criminal trial that she wasn't concerned he was stealing the baby. She said she still has numbness in her ring and pinkie finger on her left hand, which she attributes to the scuffle. Both nurses say they are suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Taub, the nurses' lawyer, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Haydock, 65, testified that after the scuffle he examined Bo and determined he wasn't harmed. He then recalls telling Kennedy "it's probably good to take the baby back to the room."