MARY KENNEDY To be buried today in Hyannisport. (INFphoto.com)
A bitter family feud between Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his dead wife’s family exploded yesterday with Mary’s siblings going to court to block her estranged husband from claiming her body just hours before her scheduled wake.
Sources said the siblings were outraged that Kennedy planned on having the troubled architect — who killed herself on Wednesday — buried in Hyannisport, Mass., the heart of Kennedy Country.
Mary’s family, the Richardsons, hired her divorce lawyer, Patricia Hennessey, to try to convince a judge to let them take control of her body, citing the couple’s years-long separation and hotly contested divorce case, sources said.
A source said the Richardson family also argued they should be entitled to the $4 million mansion where she killed herself.
“Mary’s family wanted the rights to her body, and to the house that she built with Bobby,” the source said.
After a daylong closed-door hearing in Westchester Supreme Court attended by Kennedy, two of his teenaged children and Richardson’s sisters and brother, a judge awarded the house and custody of the body to Kennedy.
“Bobby won the rights to the house, to Mary’s body, to have the wake in the house, and to bury Mary in Hyannisport,” a source said of the sealed proceeding.
Kennedy, the Richardsons and their lawyers all declined comment as they left the courthouse. The hearing ended shortly before 4 p.m., and by 4:30, the hearse with Mary Kennedy’s body was leaving the Valhalla medical examiner’s office en route to a funeral home.
A lawyer for the Richardson family, Kerry Lawrence, said her family planned to hold a separate memorial service in Manhattan. He declined further comment.
Richardson’s lawyer brother, Thomas Richardson, had quietly filed the emergency petition on Thursday to get possession of his sister’s body.
The family was upset about how she’d been treated by Kennedy, both during their 16-year marriage and their divorce proceedings.
Mary, who had battled depression and alcohol abuse, had suspected him of cheating on her during their marriage.
And despite his having filed for divorce two years ago, she’d been mortified to see pictures of him stepping out publicly with “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress Cheryl Hines.
Their divorce case had also gotten nastier in recent months — he’d slapped her with several restraining orders and had her found in contempt of court and had reportedly wrested custody of their four children away from her.
“She has known the Kennedy family for 30 years, yet even she could not believe the lies he said against her in court to take away the children,” said a friend who asked not be identified. “It was so cruel.”
She described Mary as having been “psychologically tortured.”
“She was an exceptional human being only capable of love — and incapable of self-defense,” the friend said. “She was devoted to her children.”
In court yesterday, the remaining power of the Kennedy family was still on display. Justice Joan Lefkowitz closed the proceeding and sealed the court file in the case, even though state Supreme court records and hearings are usually open.
Judges are only allowed to close proceedings if they find there is “good cause” to do so, but in a one-sentence ruling, Lefkowitz said she’d sealed the file “in consideration of the interests of all parties.”
A Richardson family ally said it was “unfair” for Robert to be the one to determine her final resting place.
“He’s the one who abandoned her. It’s insane,” the pal said.
While there was no sign of the Richardsons at the wake, they did give their niece and nephew hugs after the court proceeding.
Before the wake, sister-in-law Kerry Kennedy, remembered the woman she called “my best friend” and the “most beautiful, most brilliant, wisest, most amazing woman I have met my in my life.”
“We met when we were 15 years old in high school and in college, until we were 30 years old,” said Kennedy, the ex-wife of Gov. Cuomo. She also called her a “most loving, caring mother.”
But she said her dear friend had spent a lifetime battling mental illness, and it eventually became too much for Mary to handle.
“She struggled so hard for so long with mental illness, which so many Americans struggle with. And she fought that battle throughout her life, and she fought it with dignity and with love. And in the end the demons won, but she was mighty. She’ll always be an example to all of us.”
Her funeral is scheduled for this morning in Bedford’s St. Patrick’s Church.
Monsignor George Thompson, who will be conducting the service, said Mary had been there just this past Sunday.
“She was a regular. Bobby too,” he said. He said he’d met with the environmental lawyer on Thursday and that he is “profoundly moved” by his wife’s death.
“I’m shocked as well as everyone else and disappointed.”
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli