The son of slain Sen. Robert Kennedy invoked his dad’s 1968 assassination yesterday as he explained why he tried to snatch his newborn son from a Westchester County hospital.
Douglas Kennedy was arrested in February after grappling with nurses who tried to stop him from taking the 2-day-old infant from the maternity ward at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco.
“It is OK for a father to hold his son in his arms . . . my father was taken away from me when I was a baby,” Kennedy said after an appearance in Mount Kisco Town Court. “The only thing I wanted to do that night was to be with my son and hold him in my arms.”
Kennedy, a Fox News reporter, is the second-youngest of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s 11 children.
He was charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child after his Jan. 7 run-in with nurses. The hospital also reported Kennedy to the state’s Child Protective Services.
“Our lives have been turned upside down simply because my husband wanted to take a walk with our son,” said his wife, Molly Kennedy.
Kennedy’s lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, blasted the prosecution as a “disgrace” and claimed two nurses have retained lawyers in a cash grab.