In 1991, William Kennedy Smith was tried and acquitted on a charge of rape, represented by Miami-based criminal defense attorney Roy Black in a trial that attracted extensive media coverage. The incident began on the evening of Good Friday, March 29, 1991, when Smith, then 30 years old, was in a bar (named Au Bar) in Palm Beach, Florida, with his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, and his cousin Patrick J. Kennedy. Smith met Patricia Bowman, a 29-year-old woman and another young woman at the bar. The five then went to a nearby house owned by the Kennedy family. Smith and the 29-year-old woman walked along the beach. The woman alleged that Smith raped her; Smith testified that they had consensual sex. Although three women were willing to testify that Smith had sexually assaulted them in incidents in the 1980s that were not reported to the police, their testimony was excluded.
