Kennedy Smith

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Florida prosecutors charged William Kennedy Smith yesterday with raping a young woman at the Kennedy estate Easter weekend, setting the stage for a celebrity trial in a case that already has made headlines around the world.Also yesterday, State Attorney David H. Bludworth said his office would charge a national supermarket tabloid with unlawfully revealing the identity of the alleged rape victim.Palm Beach police said that an arrest warrant had been issued for the 30-year-old Mr. Smith, nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Washington -- So private and little-known was William Kennedy Smith until recently that captions under newspaper photos of him and a more famous cousin had been known to read, "John F. Kennedy Jr. and friend."All that changed, of course, early last month when a 29-year-old Florida woman claimed she was raped by Mr. Smith, 30, over Easter weekend at the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach.And yesterday, Palm Beach police said they will recommend that a sexual assault charge be filed against Mr. Smith, a fourth-year medical student at Georgetown University and one of the 28 Kennedy cousins.

Boston. -- In the days after the cry of rape turned the Kennedy compound into a media campground, we read much about the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith.She is 29 years old, 5 feet 7 inches tall, blonde. She has a 2-year-old daughter. She is the only child of an Ohio auto-maintenance worker and a secretary who got divorced. She was a C student in an Akron high school. Her stepfather is a retired well-to-do industrialist who divorced his wife and married her mother after a long affair.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Nearly a week after a woman said she was raped at the Kennedy family compound, police have made no arrests and the woman's family complained that the investigation was going nowhere.The stepfather of the alleged victim said yesterday he was growing impatient with the progress of the case and might soon hire an attorney to represent his family."I'm thinking of getting a lawyer," the man said in a telephone interview, as the media laid siege to his stepdaughter's home.Meanwhile, Capt.

JUPITER, Fla. -- A Jupiter woman secluded herself in her home yesterday while nearly two dozen reporters stood vigil outside, believing her to be the person who told police she was raped at the Kennedy family's seaside mansion in Palm Beach, Fla.The woman, who has not been publicly identified, would not answer her door and appeared outside only briefly.Members of the Kennedy clan, meanwhile, continued to distance themselves from the alleged Easter weekend sexual assault."I think all the members of the Kennedy family are obviously distressed by the reports that have come out of Florida over a period of the past few days," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and his son Patrick issued statements yesterday saying they were not involved in a sexual assault that allegedly took place at the Kennedy compound here over the weekend.A 30-year-old woman says she was raped at the Kennedy family's beachfront estate early Saturday, after encountering Senator Kennedy, one of his sons and one of his nephews at a luxurious nightclub here.The woman, whose name has not been released, has identified an assailant by name, but investigators have yet to confirm her accusations, said Joseph L. Terlizzese, the chief of the Palm Beach Police Department.