AP Photo/Stephen J. Carrera
In a statement from the Center for International Rehabilitation, which Kennedy Smith leads, the nephew of Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts called the allegations false, labeling them "outrageous, untrue and without merit." The statement also said that the woman had demanded $3 million.
"Unfortunately, my family and my personal history have made me unusually vulnerable to these kinds of allegations," the statement went on to say.
In 1991, a jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., acquitted Kennedy Smith, now 43, of sexual assault and battery on a then 30-year-old woman. He had testified that the sex was consensual.
The new accusation is made in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in Chicago. In it, Audra Soulias, 28, alleges that after a night of drinking in January 1999, Kennedy Smith forced her out of a cab and into his Chicago home where he sexually assaulted her. She is seeking more than $50,000 in damages, according to the filing.
"He dragged me into his house, dragged me upstairs in his bedroom where he raped me," Soulias told Chicago CBS News Station WBBM-TV. Soulias further alleges that after the assault, Kennedy Smith left her voicemail messages apologizing for his behavior.
Private investigator Paul Ciolino told the Chicago Sun-Times that he gave Soulias a polygraph test, which she passed.
