STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) – Prosecutors opposed to Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel’s bid for a new trial played up inconsistencies and uncorroborated details Thursday in a former classmate’s claim implicating two other people in the murder that sent Skakel to prison.
Skakel, 46, is trying to win a new trial based on former classmate Gitano “Tony” Bryant’s claim implicating two other men in the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in the exclusive Belle Haven section of Greenwich.
Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the killing and is serving 20 years to life in prison. Bryant’s account surfaced in 2003.
Bryant has said he was with the two men he implicated, Adolph Hasbrouck and Burt Tinsley, in Moxley’s neighborhood the night she was killed. He said he went home to New York while they stayed at the home of a neighborhood youth.
Bryant said that one of the men had met Moxley and “wanted to go caveman on her,” and that the two later told him: “We did what we had to do” and “We got her caveman style.”
To win a new trial, Skakel’s attorneys must show that Bryant’s statement is evidence not available at the time of his trial and that it likely would have changed the verdict.
Prosecutors on Thursday grilled investigator Vito Colucci Jr., who videotaped Bryant’s statement. Bryant has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and will not testify.
Colucci and an associate also talked with Hasbrouck and Tinsley, both of whom have taken the Fifth.
Among the inconsistencies prosecutors pointed to Thursday:
• Bryant claimed that Hasbrouck talked to classmates about what wanting to have sex with Moxley. But Colucci acknowledged that at least one of those classmates, Neal Walker, said he never heard Hasbrouck say anything like that.
• Bryant said another classmate, Crawford Mills, heard Hasbrouck make the comments about wanting to “go caveman” on Moxley, but Colucci said Thursday that Mills never heard Hasbrouck say that.
• Bryant said that he saw Skakel and his brother, Tommy, the night Moxley was killed, but Colucci said he never asked the Skakels if they saw Bryant.
• Bryant told Skakel’s cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that he left Greenwich before the murder and came back sometime afterward, but he never mentioned that in his interview with Colucci. Kennedy is trying to help Skakel win a new trial.
• Prosecutors also questioned Colucci about whether Bryant’s accounts were consistent with the crime. Moxley was bludgeoned and also stabbed with a broken golf club, but Colucci said Bryant never said the men he implicated had boasted about stabbing Moxley.
Under cross-examination, Colucci said Bryant’s account was consistent with the crime because he said he and several other people had touched the golf clubs used to kill Moxley.
• Bryant claimed that he hitchhiked to New York from Greenwich the night of the murder with a family he knew, but he could not name them.
• Prosecutors say Bryant implied that the men he implicated had some type of sexual fantasy involving Moxley, but there was no evidence that she was sexually assaulted.
“I’m not really sure if they were talking about having sexual intercourse,” Colucci said.
Also on the stand Thursday was Helen Ix Fitzpatrick, a Skakel family friend who was in the neighborhood the night Moxley was killed.
Prosecutors have objected to much of the testimony in the first three days of the hearing. A judge is expected to rule later on whether it is admissible.
The non-jury hearing before Superior Court Judge Edward R. Karazin Jr. could last as long as two weeks.
AP-ES-04-19-07 1233EDT
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