Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991                   TAG: 9104030272
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: PALM BEACH, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium

RAPE REPORTED AT KENNEDY ESTATE

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. The chief would not say who the police had questioned or were seeking to question.

Both Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, and his son Patrick, a 23-year-old senior at Providence College in Providence, R.I., who is also a member of the state Legislature there, issued statements Tuesday saying they were at the estate during Easter weekend but were not involved in the reported attack.

The senator's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, who is in his last term at Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, could not be reached, either through the school or through his mother, Jean Kennedy Smith, the senator's sister.

His father, Stephen E. Smith, a businessman who managed many of the Kennedy family political campaigns, including John F. Kennedy's successful run for the presidency in 1960, died last August.

According to a statement issued by the Palm Beach police, the woman said she was raped about 4 a.m. Saturday on the grounds of the Kennedys' Mediterranean-style mansion and was treated at a local hospital Saturday afternoon for minor injuries.

Her complaint was filed at 2:32 p.m., about 10 1/2 hours after she said the attack occurred, said Officer Craig Gunkel, the Police Department spokesman.

Shortly after the woman got in touch with the police Saturday afternoon, investigators were sent to the Kennedy compound, but by that time the man identified by the woman as her assailant had left Palm Beach, Terlizzese said.