She punted on the question of whether she or any member of her family has ever been a crime victim.
And she didn’t mention her campaign appearances on behalf of Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance.
Still, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg was selected as a juror in a felony crack cocaine sale trial today, turning heads in Manhattan Supreme Court in a way no other unassuming-looking, Upper East Side gal with a backpack and tote bag could do.
“My name is Caroline Kennedy; I live on the Upper East Side; I’ve lived at my present address for twenty five years,” Kennedy said, sitting in the jury box of a 13th floor courtroom for jury selection.
A small murmur of recognition spread through the courtroom, and Kennedy continued — speaking into a small microphone as she recited her answers to a written jury questionnaire.
“I live with my husband and two grown children,” she said. “I have a law degree.”
Then came the question, about halfway down the questionnaire, of whether she or any member of her family has ever been a victim of a crime.
That’s when the daughter of an assassinated president and niece of an assassinated attorney general skipped the question. Instead, she answered the next question, which inquired if she or anyone close to her has ties to a law enforcement.
“My brother, years ago, worked as an assistant district attorney,” she said of her brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. “John-John, as he was affectionately known, a prosecutor for the Manhattan DA’s office for four years in the early ’90s, and died in a plane crash off of Martha’s Vineyard in 1999.
The lawyer and philanthropist did not mention, at least in open court, her 2009 campaign efforts on behalf of the current DA, Cyrus Vance Jr.
Kennedy was similarly tight-lipped when a defense lawyer asked if she and her fellow prospective jurors know anyone with a drug problem.
“I know … a few people,” she mumbled. The list of Kennedy’s with admitted histories of drug issues is a long one, and includes her cousins Robert F., Jr. (heroin), David, (heroin), and Rep. Patrick J., (cocaine).
“Absolutely,” the defense lawyer for accused drug dealer Nelson Chatman said, when a reporter asked after court if he believed all of the selected jurors could be fair, including those who had headlined at fundraising dinners for the DA.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t pick them,” said the court-appointed lawyer, Mark Jankowitz.
It could not be immediately determined whether — during a closed door jury selection session — Kennedy did give a fuller accounting of her law enforcement ties, family history of drug use and tragic connection to two of the biggest political crimes in the twentieth century.
Either way, Kennedy was chosen as a trier of fact in the third degree cocaine possession case, which should keep her at the courthouse for a week or more.
Jurors must return to court tomorrow at 11 a.m. for possible openings in the case, which charges Chatman, 31, sold crack cocaine to an undercover at Lexington Ave. and East 129th Street last December.