Michael Skakel — Kennedy’s cousin who spent more than a decade in prison for the 1975 murder of a Connecticut teenage neighbor before he was charged on procedural grounds — is suing the town of Greenwich and its chief police investigator over what he claims was behind bars. targeted attack.
The lawsuit alleges investigators pinned the murder on Skakel for their own personal and financial gain.
Skakel, the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, was convicted of the 2002 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, but was freed in 2013 when a judge overturned his conviction.
Although the 63-year-old’s conviction was overturned in 2018 when the state Supreme Court found his trial attorney failed to adequately represent him and it was announced in 2020 that he would not be tried again for the murder, Skakel’s lawyers argued. damage has already occurred.
“Michael spent over 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Time and relationships — his life as he knew it — cannot be returned to him,” Stephan Seeger told The Post in a text.
“The ‘Kennedy Cousin’ sensationalized Michael’s case. Taken together with procedural and evidentiary limitations, and including different standards on Appeals, Michael’s case has been misunderstood for years.”
Michael Skakel is suing the city of Greenwich and the former chief police investigator in the murder case alleging malicious prosecution, civil rights violations and other alleged wrongdoing. AP
According to Seeger, the lawsuit – which he called a “civil rights case” – revealed new details that had not been revealed before because of the sensational nature of the case.
“There’s a different story underlying the lawsuit — and now the court in a civil proceeding with a different standard of proof is being called upon to right the injustice that unfairly took Michael’s freedom and family away from him,” Seeger said.
The new lawsuit alleges that investigator Frank Garr intended to get Skakel convicted for his personal gain and withhold important evidence about other potential suspects from Skakel’s trial defense.
The defendant in the lawsuit “knew that there were other more likely suspects and that there was no probable cause to arrest and/or maintain prosecution against [Skakel]but continued to do so willfully and maliciously, to convict ‘Cousin Kennedy,’” the suit alleges.
Martha Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club owned by the Skakel family on Oct. 29. 1975. AP
Skakel, who was 15 at the time, had kept his distance miles away watching the TV show “Monty Python” with others around the time Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club owned by the Skakel family on Oct. 29. 1975.
He was found the next morning at his family’s farm across the street from the Skakel residence.
At Skakel’s trial, prosecutors suggested she was angry with Moxley because he refused her requests — while being sexually involved with her brother, Tommy, moments before he was killed.
Skakel’s appellate attorneys later argued that Skakel’s trial counsel made poor decisions, including not focusing on Tommy as a possible suspect and failing to attempt to contact an alibi witness.
Skakel, here with cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has claimed he was watching television with others when the assassination took place. Douglas Healey
The latest lawsuit alleges Greenwich police, prosecutors and Garr, who worked for Greenwich police before becoming an inspector with the state attorney’s office, withheld key information that would prove Skakel’s innocence, including witness statements that said two other men were in Moxley’s neighborhood.
The lawsuit also alleges Garr had a “deep antipathy” toward Skakel and his family and threatened witnesses who could poke holes in his narrative that the Kennedy brothers were the killers.
Garr, according to the lawsuit, hoped to cash in on the case by collaborating on a book about Skakel killing Moxley.
Messages left at numbers for Garr and his attorney were not returned.
Skakel spent more than a decade in prison before his conviction was overturned. AP
An attorney for Greenwich did not immediately respond to an email message.
In addition, Skakel suffered violations of his constitutional rights, loss of liberty from his time in prison, humiliation, embarrassment, “severe emotional distress, fear and terror,” financial loss and injury and “destruction of reputation and family relationships,” the lawsuit said. .
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Stamford in November, seeks unspecified damages in excess of $15,000.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
