KAV’S BOOZY BRAWL
Questioned by cops in ’85 bar fight while at Yale
If his Supreme Court nomination fight is like a barroom brawl, then Brett Kavanaugh is well-prepared.
As a 20-year-old Yale student, Kavanaugh and a pal, future NBA player Chris Dudley, were in the middle of a drunken fracas that left a bloody gash in a victim’s ear — and that witnesses said started when Kavanaugh tossed ice at the man, according to a newly revealed police report.
That’s the tale told in the September 1985 New Haven, Conn., police report unearthed Monday by The New York Times and confirmed by other media outlets. The report states New Haven cops questioned Kavanaugh about whether he threw ice at the victim, Dom Cozzolino, at an off-campus bar.
Kavanaugh didn’t tell the officers “if he threw the ice or not” — despite another witness’ statement to police that he did, the police report says.
After the ice was thrown, Dudley hit Cozzolino in the head with a glass, a witness told police. The blow left Cozzolino “bleeding from the right ear,” according to the report.
Cozzolino was later treated in a New Haven hospital emergency room, the report says.
The White House blasted focus on the police report.
“Democrats desperately attack Judge Kavanaugh for throwing ice during college. What motivated New York Times reporter to write this ridiculous story? Throwing ice 33 years ago, or her opinion of Judge Kavanaugh in July?” tweeted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Dudley, a Yale basketball player who played for both the Knicks and New Jersey Nets, denied the accusation, according to the report, and there’s no indication that charges were filed. The alleged brawl erupted at a bar in New Haven called Demery’s. Connecticut’s drinking age was 21 years old at the time.
The story in outlined in the police report resembles an incident described in a statement issued Sunday by Charles Ludington, one of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates who says the beleaguered Supreme Court nominee lied about the extent of his college alcohol habits while tearfully testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
“On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semihostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail,” Ludington said.
Ludington, who says he has been in touch with the FBI, said the bar brawl he witnessed erupted after he, Kavanaugh, Dudley and another Yale student went to Demery’s to drink after a UB40 concert.
While drinking at the bar, Ludington said they spotted a man who they thought was Ali Campbell, the lead singer of the British pop-reggae band. Noticing they were staring at him, the man aggressively told the quartet to stop, at which point Kavanaugh “threw his beer at the guy,” Ludington said.
“The guy swung at Brett,” Ludington said. Dudley then “took his beer and smashed it into the head of the guy, who by now had Brett in an embrace. I then tried to pull Chris back, and a bunch of other guys tried to pull the other guy back. I don’t know what Brett was doing in the melee, but there was blood, there was glass, there was beer and there was some shouting, and the police
showed up.”
The police report development comes as Kavanaugh already faces accusations he sexually assaulted at least three women. The women say Kavanaugh was drunk during the alleged incidents.
The White House has quietly authorized the FBI to quiz anyone it deems necessary in its probe into sexual misconduct accusations against Kavanaugh, a person familiar with the matter said Monday, as President Trump gave mixed messages about the nature of the probe.
The directive was issued amid widespread Democratic criticism that the administration was trying to limit the investigation into claims that Trump’s Supreme Court pick sexually assaulted at least three women, the source said.
A lawyer for Kavanaugh did not respond to a request for comment. The bar brawl development came on the same day as the Supreme Court began its fall term with only eight justices on the bench.
The order permits the FBI to speak with anyone it wants as long as it wraps up the inquiry by Friday, according to the source. Two people briefed on the matter told The New York Times the directive was issued after the bureau had already interviewed the four witnesses: Kavanaugh pals Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth; Leland Keyser, a friend of Kavanaugh’s main accuser Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, who also alleges she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh.
Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Trump said only that he wants the probe to be “comprehensive.” A source close to Kavanaugh’s confirmation process said the FBI could wrap up the investigation as early as Wednesday.