Kennedy Nephew Surrenders, Denies Charges : Crime: Smith calls an accuser’s allegations of rape and battery at the family Palm Beach estate ‘an outrageous lie.’ He is freed on $10,000 bail.

William Kennedy Smith surrendered to police here Saturday on charges of rape and battery and then denounced the allegations of his accuser as “an outrageous lie.”

Smith, 30, the nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), was charged Thursday with assaulting a 29-year-old woman he had met in a Palm Beach bar during a late-night, Easter weekend outing with his uncle and the senator’s son, Patrick.

In a detailed affidavit released last week, the woman told police that Smith asked her to drive him to the beach-front Kennedy compound, walked with her along the shore and then tackled her and raped her.

Smith was accompanied here from Washington by his mother, Jean Kennedy Smith. “Anyone who knows him knows he didn’t do this,” she said in front of the Palm Beach police station. “It seems unbelievable that anyone could make these accusations. I have absolute faith he’ll be exonerated.” And, she added later, “this is very upsetting to me.”

Mrs. Smith seemed eager to defend her son. A slight woman, she smiled wanly but appeared to stand up bravely to the crush of television cameras and reporters’ questions.

Her son, who was released on $10,000 cash bond, was fingerprinted and photographed both at the Palm Beach police station and at the county jail, about five miles away in West Palm Beach. He was handcuffed and driven to the county jail in an unmarked police vehicle.

After he had posted bond and was released, he told reporters: “I have read the report about the events and the version of events in that report is an outrageous lie.” The allegations of assault, Smith said, “represent an attack on me and my family, and I am looking forward to the trial where the truth will come out. I didn’t commit an offense of any kind and I have confidence that that’s going to come out.”

Smith, who appeared composed, said that he had been advised not to comment further until after the trial. He ignored reporters’ shouted questions as he and his mother walked to their car.

No trial date has been set, but arraignment was tentatively scheduled for June 14. Smith does not have to be present then.

A fourth-year medical student at Georgetown University in Washington, Smith flew to Palm Beach Saturday morning, two days after he was charged by a county prosecutor with one felony count of second-degree sexual battery and a second-degree misdemeanor count of battery. The first charge is the Florida equivalent of rape.

Dressed in a gray suit, Smith pulled up to the police station a few blocks from the Kennedy family compound shortly before noon. Besides his mother, he was accompanied by his defense attorney, Mark Schnapp of Miami, and Mark Mirkin, a local attorney who is his former roommate at Duke University.

The appearance of Smith here to formally face charges ends one phase of the sensational case and may serve to thin out the pack of news reporters that has been dogging his trail since the story broke March 30. But related investigations are likely to keep this well-manicured, and usually quiet, town abuzz.

Police have said that they are continuing to investigate whether charges of obstruction of justice should be filed against a Kennedy family friend, retired FBI agent William Barry, who told detectives on the morning of the alleged rape that Smith and Sen. Kennedy had left the family compound when they had not.

Kennedy acknowledged Friday that he had twice failed to respond to police inquiries. He explained by saying that he did not know police were investigating a possible rape charge against his nephew.

The charge of felony sexual battery carries a 15-year maximum sentence, while the misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum one-year jail term.

“He’s doing very well, he’s very strong,” said Jean Smith of her son.