Chappaquidick drowning ‘cover-up'

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34152, 13 May 1976, Page 17

Chappaquidick drowning ‘cover-up'

ZN Z Press Assn—Copyright f LANTANA {Florida), May 12. The jurors who probed the drowning of Senator Edward Kennedy’s secretary now contend that their inquiries were stifled by the district attorney and the presiding judge of the grand jury, the weekly “National Enquirer” reported yesterday. “It was a cover-up from beginning to end,” the foreman of the jury, Mr Leslie Leland, was quoted as saying. He and eight other jurors were interviewed by the mass-circulation national weekly, which is published in Lantana, Florida. It was the first time they had divulged their opinion of the conduct of the grand jury investigation, which lasted nearly a year. Members of juries are sworn to silence in the United States. Some of them told the "National Enquirer” that they were denied access to essential pieces of evidence, and not allowed to question key witnesses, including Senator Kennedy. The Senator’s car fell off a bridge into the Chappaquidick River while he was driving his voung secretary, Mary-Jo Kopechne, home from a

night-time party at the Kennedy family’s summer home on the Massachusetts coast. The Senator said he had attempted to save her. He failed to report the incident to police for several hours. “Money and power had a lot to do with the outcome,’’ a former juror, Mr Arthur Doane, told the “Enquirer.” On April 7, 1970. the grand jury deliberated for three hours, and finally announced it had no conclusion to submit. A few moments later. District Attorney Edmund Dinis told reporters: “The case is closed.”