Kennedy Plans to Wed Lawyer Later This Year

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) on Saturday announced plans to marry Washington lawyer Victoria Reggie, 38, a divorced mother of two and a family friend.

In a statement released by his office, Kennedy, 60, said: “I’ve known her for many years. We began dating last June, and she has brought enormous happiness into my life. I look forward to our marriage and our life together.”

The wedding will take place at an unspecified date later this year.

Kennedy’s surprise marriage plans come two years before what could be a difficult reelection campaign against popular Republican Gov. William F. Weld.

Kennedy’s public standing in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, has not fully recovered from his featured role in last year’s rape trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, which put a spotlight on the senator’s social habits. Smith was acquitted.

In a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government last year before the Palm Beach, Fla., trial began, Kennedy asked his constituents for forgiveness.

Kennedy has three children by his marriage to Joan Kennedy, which ended in divorce in 1982. Reggie has two children, ages 9 and 6, from her previous marriage, which ended in divorce two years ago.

“I love Vicky and her children very much,” Kennedy said in Saturday’s statement.

A graduate of Sophie Newcomb College and Tulane University Law School, Reggie is a partner in the Washington office of New York’s Keck, Mahin & Cate. Her entry in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory says she specializes in banking and savings and loan matters.

Her father, Edmund M. Reggie, is a lawyer and retired city judge in Crowley, La. He is under federal indictment on 11 counts of alleged bank fraud for $4 million worth of questionable transactions involving a Crowley savings and loan. He has denied the charges.

As late as Friday, Edmund Reggie said he knew of no plans for his daughter to marry Kennedy, whom he described as “a very old friend of the family, a very dear friend. I knew his brothers.” As recently as a week ago, the senator denied that he had plans to wed.