Metro

Kerry Kennedy hires new lawyers for drugged driving case

Kerry Kennedy looks like she’s itching for a fight in her driving while drugged criminal case.

The ex-wife of Gov. Cuomo appeared in a Westchester County court today and told a judge she had hired two new top-notch lawyers — Gerald Lefcourt and William Aronwold — to defend the charge stemming from a wild, July 13 highway crash.

The daughter of Robert F. Kennedy did not say during the brief hearing in North Castle Town Court why she is no longer represented by lawyers Robert Gottlieb and John Pappalardo.

She also pleaded not guilty for the second time, a technicality.

Prosecutors presented the judge with copies of a lab report that shows Kennedy, 52, had traces of the sleeping aid Ambien in her bloodstream when she slammed her Lexus into a big-rig truck after careening through traffic.

Afterward, without speaking to reporters, Kennedy, a female friend and her new legal team hopped into a white Lexus and drove off.

She is due back in court Nov. 20.

Kennedy, who failed three sobriety tests following the crash, initially told cops that she may have mistakenly taken an Ambien instead of her daily thyroid medication that morning. She later denied Ambien was involved, and said her doctors believed the crash was the result of a partial seizure.

Kennedy then backtracked from that explanation after toxicology tests confirmed she had taken Ambien, and she apologized “to all those I endangered that day.”

But her retention of new lawyers — especially of the caliber of Lefcourt and Aronwald — suggests that she has no intention of going down without a fight.

Lefcourt is the former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers, and is currently representing Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez in a criminal and state ethics panel probe related to his alleged sexual harassment of four female office staffers. Lefcourt’s past clients include ‘60s-era radical and fugitive Abbie Hoffman and Murder Inc. Records found Irv Gotti.

Aronwold is a former Manhattan prosecutor whose cases included the prosecutions of late Gambino crime family underboss Anniello Dellacroce. He also has represented former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi in a corruption trial that ended in her conviction.