I’LL DEAL: KENNEDY
Will cop to leaving scene for dropping drugged driving
KERRY KENNEDY, afraid a drugged driving conviction could hamper her human rights work, is willing to plead guilty to leaving the scene of a July 2012 accident, sources said.
Defense attorneys for the 54-year-old daughter of slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy resurrected a previously discussed plea bargain with a Monday morning trial looming, the sources told the Daily News.
Kennedy’s lawyers argued that Gov. Cuomo’s ex-wife could be barred from traveling to nations including Canada, Australia and New Zealand if found guilty of driving while on prescription medication.
Kennedy’s travels have taken her to more than 60 nations over the last three decades — but it was a crash in suburban North Castle near her Westchester County home that caused her legal woes.
Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore, declined to discuss any possible plea deal.
“We will be presenting our case on Monday morning in court,” he said Friday.
Kennedy, charged with a misdemeanor count of driving while impaired by drugs, could also lose her license for six months if found guilty.
Kennedy is ready for trial and likely to testify if a weekend agreement can’t be reached in the case, said defense lawyer William Aronwald.
“Our defense in this case is that Kerry Kennedy did not knowingly and intentionally ingest those sleeping pills,” Aron- wald said Friday.
The defense contends Kennedy ennedy mistakenly popped an Ambien sleeping pill instead of her thyroid medication ation on the morning of the July 13, 2012, 2, collision with a tractor-trailer on Interstate rstate 684.
“The pills are very similar,” lar,” said Aronwald. “She took what she thought was her thyroid medication.”
Kennedy continued driving ng after the 8 a.m. crash, and was found und by police behind the wheel of f her white 2008 Lexus SUV. No one was injured in the two-vehicle cle accident.
Blood testing showed tracces of Ambien in Kennedy’s sysstem about five hours after the e accident. The dazed driver r had no recollection of the e crash, which left her vehicle with a flat tire.
Kennedy was missing g from last week’s jury selection while she was on the road in Brussels and the Western Sahara.