Word: palmed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Bludworth may deny it, the fact that a Kennedy family member was involved may have played a role in his decision to prosecute. Seven years ago, he was accused of kowtowing to the family by not thoroughly investigating the drug-overdose death of Robert Kennedy's son David in Palm Beach. Bludworth, who faces re-election next year, risked renewed accusations of a cover-up had he declined to move against another Kennedy...
...suspicions were further aroused when the Kennedys gave police investigators what seemed to be a runaround. William Barry, a former FBI agent who was staying at the compound, incorrectly told detectives that Senator Edward Kennedy had left for Washington when in fact he was having lunch at the Palm Beach estate. For two weeks the family rebuffed police attempts to survey the grounds where the alleged assault took place. That was sufficient time for the wind and sea to obliterate any evidence that might have corroborated the woman's story. A grand jury may decide this week whether to indict...
...seem to have been swept away last summer when three women came forward to claim that they too had been sexually attacked by Smith. Each described how an initially charming Smith had turned violent once they were alone with him -- eerily mirroring the account of the woman in the Palm Beach case...
Defense attorney Black mounted a devastating counterattack on the women's stories. He argued that the three cases did not represent a "signature style," and that the only real question in the Palm Beach case was whether the woman consented or not. When Judge Mary Lupo ruled that the women could not testify because Lasch had failed to establish enough parallels between their stories and the one from Smith's accuser, the prosecution's case, for all practical purposes, was over...
...cause was not helped by Lasch's plodding courtroom performance. She was clearly despondent after Smith's boy-next-door performance on the witness stand. He calmly described accepting the woman's offer of a ride home from Au Bar, a popular Palm Beach night spot, and then walking with her along the beach. After exchanging kisses, he testified, the couple had two sexual encounters -- though the romantic mood was broken when he mistakenly called her "Cathie." Unable to shake Smith's story, Lasch resorted to expressions of incredulity that two people who had met in a notorious pickup joint...