Kerry Kennedy’s 11th-hour bid to avoid a trial on drugged driving charges failed after a judge denied her motion to have the charges dropped because she supposedly took a sleeping pill by accident.
Even if Kennedy – the ex-wife of Gov. Cuomo – accidentally drugged herself with a sleeping pill, she broke the law if she kept driving after feeling the effects, prosecutors had argued.
Acting Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary agreed in a ruling earlier this month, and jury selection in the trial was scheduled to start Thursday in a Westchester courtroom. The trial itself is set to begin Monday.
Kennedy’s defense team had argued that since prosecutors admit they have no evidence that she intentionally took the sleeping pill Zolpidem instead of thyroid medicine that the charges should be dropped.
Kennedy, 54, daughter of the late-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was charged with drugged driving in 2012 after her car hit a tractor trailer on a highway in Westchester.
It was the second time a judge ruled against defense motions to drop the case.