Police to Seek Rape Charge Against Kennedy Nephew : Crime: They are ‘confident’ sexual battery occurred at Florida mansion and say they know ‘what happened.’

Palm Beach police said Tuesday they will recommend that William Kennedy Smith be charged with raping a 29-year-old woman March 30 at the family mansion of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Smith’s uncle.

“We are confident that a sexual battery did occur,” said Craig Gunkel, the police department’s spokesman. He added that police are equally certain they know “what happened at the Kennedy compound.”

A source close to the investigation said police are expected to recommend that Smith be charged with second-degree sexual battery, a crime that carries punishment up to four years in prison.

Second-degree sexual battery is a rape in which force was used but was not life threatening, Gunkel said.

The recommendation is expected to be formally made by Friday to State Atty. David H. Bludworth, who then must decide whether to file charges, turn the case over to a grand jury for further investigation or drop the matter.

Separately, Smith’s lawyers complained to Bludworth on Tuesday that the alleged victim and two of her friends have called potential defense witnesses to challenge their stories.

A source close to the investigation said Smith’s lawyers were upset that prospective defense witnesses were contacted by the woman and her two supporters after their names were given to police and Bludworth’s office by Smith’s private investigators.

Smith, 30, has declined to be questioned by police but has denied the woman’s allegation that he forced himself upon her as “a damnable lie.”

The rape allegedly took place around 4 a.m. near the swimming pool on the Kennedy family’s oceanfront estate here. Smith met the woman at a chic bar where he had gone with Kennedy and Kennedy’s son Patrick, 24, a Rhode Island legislator.

The Kennedys, Smith and his mother, Jean, and other family members and friends were spending the Easter weekend at the mansion, which served as the winter White House when President John F. Kennedy was in office.

According to reports by the police and sheriff, the woman agreed to drive Smith home after the two Kennedys had left the bar, and accepted an invitation by him to tour the grounds and walk on the beach.

The woman, whose name is not being published by The Times, said Smith attacked her after he disrobed to go swimming. She alleges that he tackled and raped her in the vicinity of the swimming pool as she struggled to fight him off. The police report said she suffered bruises and abrasions and a possible fractured rib.

Sen. Kennedy’s spokesman, Paul Donovan, said the senator “is confident that when all the facts come out, Willie will be vindicated.”

The decision by State Atty. Bludworth, who is up for election next year, is especially sensitive because he has been criticized for withholding investigative reports in the 1984 drug overdose death here of David Kennedy, a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.). A local judge questioned whether he was working for the Kennedys.

Such pressures have led to speculation here that Bludworth will take the relatively rare step of referring the case to a grand jury, a process under Florida law that is usually reserved for capital cases and other heinous crimes.

Smith’s lawyer, Herbert J. Miller Jr., in a letter to Bludworth, said he had been “informed” the alleged victim had tried to call a woman who could help Smith’s case.

The woman, Ashley Murphy, had told investigators hired by Smith that Anne Mercer, who drove the alleged victim home from the Kennedy estate, told Murphy that she did not believe the rape story.

Murphy declined to return the alleged victim’s call. Mercer also called Murphy to say she was upset over what Murphy had told investigators. Mercer’s boyfriend, Chuck Desiderio, also complained to a witness to the Murphy-Mercer conversation about Murphy’s recollection, according to Miller’s complaint.