http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2006/05/06/kennedys_behavior_driving_is_questioned_by_eyewitness/
RHODE ISLAND ACCIDENT
Kennedy's behavior, driving is questioned by eyewitness
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | May 6, 2006
NEWPORT, R.I. -- A woman who witnessed a two-car collision involving Representative Patrick J. Kennedy outside a Portsmouth, R.I., drugstore last month said he had been weaving and driving aggressively beforehand and was impaired when she confronted him outside his car afterward.
''He was swaying, and his eyes were glazed," said Sheila Lash, 75, of Newport, who alleges that Kennedy briefly drove against traffic on April 15 before he turned his car into the CVS parking lot and collided with another car turning in from the opposite direction. ''Then he said the most unlikely thing: 'I'm so sorry for the fuss.' "
Portsmouth police provided copies of the accident report yesterday but declined to comment.
Lash, who said Kennedy almost struck her car before the 10:09 a.m. accident, added that she could not tell whether he had alcohol on his breath because she has a poor sense of smell from having broken her nose years ago.
But the part-time antiques saleswoman was so appalled by Kennedy's appearance and driving, she said, that she gave her phone numbers to the other driver and told him to give them to police because she had to leave for Providence. The responding officer called her later that day, she said, and she described what she saw.
But Portsmouth police cited no one in the accident between Kennedy and Thomas J. Guthlein, 46, of Bristol. Given that no one was injured, Lash said, she dropped it.
''They are the Kennedys," Lash said with a sigh at Newport China Trade Company, one day after Kennedy was involved in another car accident near the US Capitol that he blamed on medication but that Capitol Police union officials said might have been alcohol-related. ''I don't need that [aggravation] in my life."
Kennedy's press secretary, Robin J. Costello, vehemently denied yesterday that the six-term congressman was impaired in the Portsmouth accident.
''This is the first I'm hearing about it," she said of the allegation. ''It was a routine fender-bender, and as far as what caused it, you have to talk to police."
The report by Sergeant Anthony Cambrola identifies Lash as a witness but makes no reference to her allegation that Kennedy looked impaired. It says only that she told police that Kennedy closely followed another northbound car turning into the lot in his Crown Victoria without waiting to see whether a southbound Nissan Maxima driven by Guthlein was going to turn in first.
Guthlein could not stop in time, and his car slammed into Kennedy's right rear passenger door, the report said. Both drivers ''appeared normal," the report said. Guthlein, a chief warrant officer for the US Coast Guard at the Castle Hill station in Newport, did not return phone calls yesterday.
In a detailed handwritten report filed with police, Guthlein said he was making a right-hand turn into the parking lot on Turnpike Avenue when Kennedy suddenly turned left in front of him. Kennedy also submitted a handwritten report but it was only two sentences and nearly illegible, stating the accident occurred when he turned into the CVS lot.
Lash, the aunt of Richard Licht, a former Democratic Rhode Island lieutenant governor, said she was driving north on East Main Road before the accident when Kennedy's Crown Victoria made a sudden right-hand turn in front of her from a side street, narrowly missing her. She said he then veered into the southbound lane, prompting Lash to blast her horn.
The Crown Victoria, which was weaving, swung back into the northbound lane before turning left onto Turnpike Avenue, she said. Lash was passing the CVS, she said, when she saw Kennedy's car follow another car into the lot and collide with Guthlein's vehicle.
''I heard the crunch and looked in my rearview mirror," she said.
She was so upset, she said, she turned her car around and drove into the lot. She told Guthlein that the accident had not been his fault and gave him her phone numbers. Kennedy, who had gotten out of his car unsteadily, stood swaying for a few moments, then approached Lash looking glassy-eyed, she said.
''I said, 'Excuse me, do you realize what you did up on East Main Road? You could have hit me,' " she recalled.
It was only when he apologized, she said, that she realized who he was.
''I went, 'Oh, my goodness, you're Patrick Kennedy,' " she said. ''He kind of nodded his head."