William Kennedy Smith, Sleazeball
JUNE 20 — Trouble just seems to follow this William Kennedy Smith guy.
The Kennedy clan member, who was acquitted of rape in 1991, has recently faced civil claims for sexually harassing female co-workers at the Chicago not-for-profit organization he chairs. While a judge this year tossed a lawsuit filed by his former personal assistant, Smith reportedly paid six figures in an out-of-court settlement to a second woman who worked for his Center for International Rehabilitation (CIR).
While Laura Hamilton did not file a lawsuit against Smith, her lawyers last year prepared a 40-page federal complaint that, absent a settlement, would have landed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.. Since a TSG source was kind enough to provide us with a copy of Hamilton’s draft complaint, her account of Smith’s remarkably sleazy and scary behavior will not be permanently cloaked by a subsequent confidentiality agreement.
In this excerpt, Hamilton describes Smith, a medical doctor, as a creepy predator who targeted many women who worked for CIR, which describes itself as a “humanitarian network of individuals and organizations that promotes the full potential of people with disabilities through education, innovation, and advocacy.”
Smith, Hamilton charged, referred to a handicapped man she dated as “that amputee” and often improperly touched her. When she became pregnant, Hamilton, who worked at CIR for nearly seven years, said that Smith frequently entered her office and gave unwanted massages, explaining that pregnant women “glowed” and he found them “irresistible.”
She also recounted attending a 2001 UNICEF conference in New York and bunking in the “guest apartment” of Smith’s mother, Jean Kennedy Smith. On the second night of Hamilton’s stay, Smith showed up unannounced at the apartment and began massaging her neck and back and stroking her belly. Hamilton, seven months pregnant at the time, rebuffed Smith when he tried to kiss her.
“Instead of allowing her to leave the room, Dr. Smith continued to rub Ms. Hamilton’s belly, inched his hand below her waist, and stuck his tongue in her ear. Ms. Hamilton abruptly stood up and rushed out of the room,” the draft states. Hamilton claimed that she barricaded her door that evening, adding that Smith told her the following morning that “it was all [he] could do not to come in [her room] last night.”
During an October 2002 conference in Croatia, Smith “maneuvered himself” into her hotel room and quickly “produced and unwrapped a condom, making it clear that he had intended to have sexual intercourse with her,” according to Hamilton’s complaint. Fearing for her job and believing that she “had no choice,” Hamilton “submitted to Dr. Smith’s unwelcome sexual advances and felt degraded and humiliated afterward.”
Rashida Adams, one of Hamilton’s lawyers, declined to discuss the complaint, saying only that Smith and Hamilton “have resolved their dispute.” Attorney Barbara Brown, who defended Smith in several sexual harassment matters, told TSG, “I’m not authorized to speak to you.” (23 pages)
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