Rape Reported at the Kennedy Compound
National Media Circled the Wagons to Defend the Alleged Perpetrator
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.
Initially, the Palm Beach Police were tight-lipped about the alleged sexual assault. Local reporters noted that the police routinely informed the press of rape reports, but the police were withholding all information regarding this incident because the Kennedys were involved. It was not uncommon for local authorities to behave as if they were the personal security of the Kennedys. Public notification of the alleged assault did not occur until the following Monday, after the Easter weekend and after the three Kennedys hurriedly left Florida.
After about a week, Palm Beach Police confirmed to the press that Ted Kennedy’s nephew had been accused of rape. The police also admitted they had not yet interviewed any of the Kennedy family regarding the allegations. William Kennedy Smith released a statement denying he was involved in any incident. When Bowman reported to the police that she had been raped, she also turned over to them an antique urn she took from the Kennedy mansion after the alleged attack. Fearing the Kennedy family would deny she was on the property, Bowman wisely took the urn to prove she was at the home if the police doubted her rape allegations.
Once the Kennedy name had been released, this created a media frenzy not previously seen. The incident became the subject of tabloid newspapers and tabloid TV shows. The alleged rape was a staple of CNN programming, the only twenty-four-hour national news channel at the time. It would be another five years before MSNBC and Fox News Channel would launch.
Overwhelmed by the resulting media circus that brought 300 journalists to the Palm Beach area, Bowman’s family hired local attorney David Roth to protect her interests and to navigate her way through the investigation. Roth confirmed that his client had declined several lucrative financial offers to tell her story because she was only interested in seeking justice.
Roth was invited to make media appearances on behalf of his client. Among the first programs he visited was CNN’s Larry King Live on April 9, 1991. Roth immediately found himself in the crosshairs of a very hostile interview. “Why does the victim of a crime need a lawyer?” was the first question King asked. He continued, “Victims usually testify and either the accused is found guilty or not guilty.”
King then explained to the viewers that the Kennedy family had experienced so much tragedy over the years, and that Ted “has carried the heavy mantle his brothers left behind.” King then welcomed to his program a Democratic consultant and a Palm Beach socialite to balance the rape accusations. It was clear that CNN, as with many of the major media outlets, was playing defense on behalf of the Kennedy clan. It was going to be a rough ride for Bowman.
Reputable media organizations typically observe the industry protocol of shielding the identity of an alleged victim of a sexual assault until after the criminal proceedings have ended. However, such media restraint didn’t last very long when it came to the Kennedy accuser. Two weeks after the alleged attack, the checkout stand tabloid The Globe published Bowman’s name and photograph. NBC News quickly followed suit and identified Bowman on April 16.
The following day, the New York Times not only named Patricia Bowman, but it also published a nearly 1,800-word, extremely critical profile of her that no doubt made Smith’s criminal defense team smile. The Times performed a cruel tactic known as “slut-shaming.” It informed readers that Bowman was a poor student and an unwed mother who “had a little wild streak,” that she frequented nightspots where the rich would hang out, and that she had racked up seventeen traffic tickets. The article also implied Bowman’s mother was a gold digger.[i] The New York Times was making the case on behalf of William Kennedy Smith that Patricia Bowman was not to be believed.
The same day as the critical article profiling Bowman, the New York Times published a 1,000-word article that portrayed Ted Kennedy as the victim in the affair. The Times reported Kennedy was not going to be distracted from his senatorial duties by the rape case. It quoted one unnamed Democratic Senator as saying, “The guy just can’t seem to get out from under a black cloud.”
Bowman claimed that after they walked along the beach, Smith stripped off his clothes to go swimming. This made her uncomfortable. When she attempted to leave the premises, Smith tackled her, threw her to the ground, and raped her. Afterwards, she claimed to have been too distraught to have driven her own car and had run into the Kennedy mansion. There she called a friend, announced she had been raped, and pleaded with her friend to pick her up. Bowman’s friend confirmed this account to the police and said she picked up a hysterical Bowman at the Kennedy mansion.
The police report identified bruises near Bowman’s ankle where she claimed Kennedy grabbed her. According to a medical report made available about a week after the incident, Bowman suffered bruises, abrasions, and a possible broken rib. These injuries appeared consistent with Bowman’s version of events. DNA evidence confirmed the presence of Smith’s semen inside Bowman.
Bowman’s attorney, Roth, told the press that investigators hired by the Kennedys were attempting to intimidate witnesses. According to Roth, the woman who picked up Bowman from the Kennedy mansion was warned that unflattering information about her would be leaked if she testified on behalf of Bowman.
It took nearly six weeks before State Attorney David Bludworth eventually filed second-degree sexual assault charges against William Kennedy Smith. Seven years earlier, Bludworth was criticized for improperly withholding investigative reports in the drug overdose death of another Kennedy. David Kennedy, the son of the late Robert Kennedy, suffered the fatal drug overdose. A local judge questioned if Bludworth was working for the Kennedys rather than the public.
According to details included in the criminal charges, Smith allegedly said, “Stop it, bitch,” when Bowman was attempting to fight off his attack. The Palm Beach Police reported Bowman showed no signs of deception on polygraph and computer voice-stress analysis tests. Bowman’s admission during her polygraph examination that she had been sexually intimate with seven men over the previous five years was quickly released to the public.
There was a smear campaign being orchestrated against Bowman by local authorities and the national press. A reporter for the tabloid TV program A Current Affair told police in a sworn statement that he was pursuing damaging information about Bowman’s past sexual history that was passed to him by a Kennedy lawyer.[ii]
The criminal trial that one news outlet dubbed “The Trial of the Century” began on December 2, 1991. Much of it was broadcast on CNN with the face of Patricia Bowman obscured by a large blue dot. The prosecution had experienced a major setback before the trial got underway. Judge Mary Lupo denied the introduction of testimony from three women who had come forward alleging William Kennedy Smith had raped them between 1983 and 1988. Prosecutor Moira Lasch had requested Lupo recuse herself for her propensity of making “negative facial expressions” during jury selection.[iii] Lupo refused.
In describing the upcoming trial, Newsweek explained that Bowman would possibly have to answer questions about “what she was wearing, what she was doing at the bar, [and] how she spoke to Smith.”[iv]During the cross-examination of Bowman, Smith’s defense lawyer, Roy Black, admonished her for memory lapses of that night. Bowman testified, “The only thing I can remember about that week is Mr. Smith raped me.” Black shot back, “I know you’ve been prepared to say that.”
In his testimony, Smith described Bowman as mentally unstable, a woman who twice engaged in consensual sex and then devolved into kind of a Fatal Attraction-obsessed woman. He testified that after the second sexual encounter, he swam several laps in the swimming pool while she watched.
During Lasch’s cross-examination of Smith, she asked him about contradictory testimony from other witnesses. Lupo ordered the jury from the courtroom, then admonished Lasch, “If you ask one more question along these lines, you will not get away with it.”
On December 11, the jury deliberated for a mere hour and nineteen minutes before delivering a verdict of not guilty. At a Kennedy victory party that night at a local bar, a juror joined in the hugging and kissing.[v]
Years later, Dr. William Kennedy Smith was working for the Center for International Rehabilitation. The Chicago-based organization provided assistance to landmine victims. In 2004, Smith’s office assistant, Audra Soulias, filed a lawsuit against the doctor, alleging he engaged in a pattern of workplace sexual harassment. She also claimed that in January 1999, Smith sexually assaulted her but stopped short of rape. An Illinois judge dismissed her lawsuit.
Another work colleague, Laura Hamilton, reportedly reached a six-figure settlement with Smith after she was prepared to file a lawsuit alleging that she was the victim of several years of unwanted physical touching and sexual advances by Smith. This culminated, Hamilton claimed, with Smith raping her during a business trip to Croatia in 2002.
In 1994, just three years after the alleged rape, Patrick Kennedy was easily elected to Congress representing Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District. At about 3 am one night in May 2006, an obviously drunken Kennedy crashed his car into a barricade. He told Capitol Hill police he was rushing to a vote. Voting had ended several hours earlier the day before.
Also in 1994, Ted Kennedy was overwhelmingly reelected to the Senate representing Massachusetts.
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, Post, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[i] Fox Butterfield and Mary B. W. Tabor, “Woman in Florida Rape Inquiry Fought Adversity and South Acceptance,” New York Times, April 17, 1991.
[ii] Val Ellicott, “TV Reporter: Smith Lawyer Hinted About the Woman’s Past,” Palm Beach Post, June 28, 1991.
[iii] David A. Kaplan, “Case No. 91-5482 Comes to Trial,” Newsweek, December 8, 1991.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Val Ellicott, “Juror Becomes Part of Defense Victory Party,” Palm Beach Post, December 12, 1991.