Will RFK Jr. Face Charges For Dumping A Dead Bear Cub In Central Park

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RFK Jr. - Dead Bear Cub
Photo Credit: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr." by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. shocked the country when he admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park a decade ago, but will he be charged with a crime?

RFK Jr. confesses to leaving dead bear in NYC park

The event dates back to October 2014 when a dog walker came across a dead bear in New York City’s famous park and told a Central Park Conservancy worker, who then called the police.

A Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) investigation determined that a vehicle had hit the six-month-old bear and caused its death.

The mystery of how the bear ended up in the park remained unsolved for nearly a decade, until RFK Jr. made his strange confession on Sunday.

Kennedy made the admission in a video he made with former ABC star Roseanne Barr, in a location  seems to be one of their kitchens.

Kennedy, 70, admitted to Barr that he witnessed the bear’s demise and admitted to leaving it’s carcass in Central Park.

He said that he was driving to Southern New York to take friends out falconing, when he saw the bear get struck by another vehicle.

“A woman in the van in front of me hit a bear and killed it, a young bear,” he recounted. “I pulled over, picked up the bear, and put it in the back of my van.”

Kennedy said that he planned to skin the bear, which was “in excellent condition,” and put the meat in his refrigerator.

“You can do that in New York state,” he pointed out. “You can get a bear tag for roadkill bear.”

After hauling the bear to his vehicle, Kennedy went on his falconing trip with the animal’s body in the back.

He said that his friends had been catching a lot of game and kept on hunting late into the day.

Kennedy’s day took a turn when he skipped going home

Afterwards, he drove straight to New York City for his dinner reservation at Peter Luger Steakhouse, instead of heading home to Westchester, NY.

After a drawn out dinner, Kennedy realized that he had to go directly to the airport instead of going back home, but realized he had a bear-shaped problem.

“The bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave it there because that would have been bad,” Kennedy said likely referring to the smell of the rotting animal.

He confessed to having a “little bit of the redneck” in him, which led to the insane scheme of dumping the bear cub in the park.

Kennedy told Barr that at the time, a series of bicycle accidents in the city were in the headlines, after resulting in multiple fatalities and serious injuries.

He also noted that he had an old bike in his car that someone had asked him to get rid of.

“I said let’s go put the bear in Central Park, and we’ll make it look like it got hit by a bike,” Kennedy said, laughing with Barr. “Everyone thought that was a great idea.”

While he stated that he had not been drinking when he came up with the plan, others who helped out were inebriated.

The dead bear makes the news and RFK Jr. panics

Kennedy said that he woke up the next day to see that news outlets in the city was reporting about the dead bear in Central Park.

“I turned on the TV and it was like, mile of yellow tape, and there were 20 cop cars. Helicopters were flying over,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, what did I do?'”

Kennedy was afraid that he would be identified from the fingerprints on the bike he left at the scene, but was releived when the news cycle moved on and the story “stayed dead for a decade.”

He decided to speak about his involvement because The New Yorker is about to release a story detailing that he was behind the bear cub being left in the park.

Kennedy scooped the outlet by posting the video on social media himself and tagging The New Yorker with the caption, “Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one.”

“It’s going to be a bad article,” Kennedy noted in the footage.

A photo of Kennedy posing with the bear’s carcass and making it look like it was biting him was released by the New Yorker on Monday.

In response to the image, he simply commented: “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” in reference to the parasite he contracted decades ago.

Will RFK Jr. face charges for dumping the dead bear in Central Park?

According to the the DEC, the answer is no, as the statute of limitations on the crime has long expired.

“The statute of limitations for these offenses is one year; charges cannot be brought for incidents that occurred more than one year ago,” the DEC said in a statement.

If Kennedy had been caught nine years sooner, he would have faced charges of illegally possessing bear without a tag and illegally disposing of a bear, but would have likely only had to pay up to $250 in fines per charge.

“That’s absolutely bonkers and he’s guilty of being crazy but apparently under the New York Agricultural and Markets Law dumping a dead bear carcass in Central Park and planting a bike to stage a fake cause of death is not a crime,” former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Bederow complained to The New York Post.

“If it was a domestic animal, you’re obligated to bury it underground several feet within 72 hours. But bears that you find dead, prefer to eat and then stage fake accidents in Central Park, apparently is not covered by the law.”

Jack Crane

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