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Kerry Kennedy Is Found Not Guilty of Driving While Impaired

WHITE PLAINS — After nearly 20 months of buildup, the misdemeanor trial of Kerry Kennedy ended on Friday in a breakneck blur, as jurors took one hour to find her not guilty of driving under the influence of a drug.

The four-day trial, which featured a riveting turn on the witness stand by Ms. Kennedy, 54, was centered on an act that neither she nor prosecutors dispute: On July 13, 2012, she drove her Lexus S.U.V. erratically after swallowing Zolpidem, a generic form of the sleep medication Ambien. She sideswiped a tractor-trailer on a highway in Westchester County before she was found, slumped over her steering wheel, her car stalled on a local road.

Ms. Kennedy has maintained that she took the pill accidentally, mistaking it for medication she took for a thyroid condition. She testified on Wednesday that she did not realize her mistake until well after the accident.

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When the verdict was announced, some of her friends and family members seated behind her, which included her 85-year-old mother, Ethel Kennedy, cheered and clapped. Ms. Kennedy hugged one of her lawyers, William I. Aronwald, and patted the back of the other, Gerald B. Lefcourt. And as people filed out of the courtroom, Ms. Kennedy said she bore no ill will to the prosecutors who brought the case.

PhotoLaunch media viewerKerry Kennedy leaving the Westchester County Courthouse after testifying on Wednesday. She was found not guilty on Friday. CreditFrank Franklin II/Associated Press

“To tell you the truth, anger is the last feeling I have right now,” she said. “I’m full of gratitude.”

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The issue at trial was whether Ms. Kennedy, the former wife of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, should have been aware that she was feeling the drug’s soporific effects, as she was swerving and driving erratically, and stopped the car.

The case which was given to the jury late Thursday afternoon, attracted so much attention that the county had to shift locations to one of its largest courtrooms in Westchester County Courthouse, from its original venue, the North Castle Town Court. Yet all this fuss and stir was over a misdemeanor,for a crime with scarcely a victim.

Mr. Lefcourt, in his closing argument on Thursday, contended that the jury had “not heard any evidence from the prosecutor, who has the burden of proof that Kerry Kennedy did realize she accidentally took the sleeping pill Zolpidem and continued to drive.”

“This is a case with not a reasonable doubt — there is overwhelming doubt,” Mr. Lefcourt said.

To convict Ms. Kennedy, he concluded, the jury would have to believe that “she’s a callous person and knowing she was under the influence of Zolpidem and continued to drive.”

Jurors deliberated for about a half-hour on Thursday, then reached their verdict Friday about a half-hour after resuming deliberations.

The fact that Ms. Kennedy was tried before a jury was unusual. Although there are 2,500 cases brought every year in Westchester County for driving under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, they are typically bargained down to a noncriminal violation requiring a guilty plea and a fine. Ms. Kennedy’s lawyers believe a misdemeanor charge would not have been brought at all were she not a Kennedy. Prosecutors with the district attorney’s office believe they should show Ms. Kennedy no favor just because she comes from a prominent family.

She had faced up to a year in jail if convicted.

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