RFK Jr. may have faced $250 fine for dumping dead bear cub in Central Park, but statute of limitations has expired, NY says

By Aaron Pellish and Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2014 disposal of a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park may have violated state law, punishable by a fine of up to $250, but the statute of limitations for the law in question expired after one year, the state agency that led the investigation said in a statement to CNN.

Kennedy has made light of a decade-old incident in which he drove a dead bear cub carcass from upstate New York to New York City and placed it in Central Park, joking, “maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” referring to a past medical abnormality he has said was caused by a parasitic worm in his brain.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation led the 2014 investigation into how a bear cub carcass had made into the famous Manhattan public park.

The New Yorker published a profile of Kennedy on Monday morning that included the anecdote and a photo of Kennedy with the dead bear cub, which he had picked up from the side of the road while on a trip upstate. When Kennedy returned to Manhattan later that day, he left the carcass in the park in a way to make it look like it had been hit by a cyclist, the New Yorker reported, and the discovery of the bear carcass attracted news coverage and prompted an investigation by local authorities. Kennedy revealed the incident on social media on Sunday as part of an effort to get ahead of the magazine’s story.

In a statement Monday afternoon, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said that it “led the 2014 investigation and forensic analysis into the Central Park bear cub and concluded the bear died from blunt-force trauma consistent with a high-speed collision.”

The investigation closed later that year due to “a lack of sufficient evidence to determine if violations occurred,” the statement said. It noted that state law “includes offenses such as illegal possession of a bear without a tag or permit and illegal disposal of a bear,” carrying fines of up to $250 for first-time offenders.

The Kennedy campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the statement.

The bear incident is the latest in a series of bizarre episodes from Kennedy’s life that have been revealed over the course of his 2024 presidential campaign.

The New Yorker article includes an image of Kennedy sticking his hand in the dead bear’s mouth, pantomiming as if the bear is biting his hand. The image echoes a photo published by Vanity Fair last month of Kennedy pretending to eat a cooked animal carcass. Vanity Fair reported Kennedy sent the photo to a friend while suggesting they try eating dog. The publication consulted with a veterinarian who said the carcass in the photo appeared to be a dog.

When asked about the bear incident, he told the magazine, “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” referencing a 2010 incident in which Kennedy experienced short-term memory loss and “brain fog” he said was caused by a parasitic worm that entered his brain and died.

Kennedy has often referenced the brain worm episode for comedic effect at campaign events and in interviews since it was first reported by The New York Times in May. He has previously said he believes he contracted the parasite from eating undercooked meat.

‘Everybody thought, ‘That’s a great idea”

In the video Kennedy published on his X account Sunday, Kennedy tells actress Roseanne Barr about traveling through New York’s Hudson Valley to go hawking and coming across a “young bear” that had been hit and killed by another driver. He says in the video he decided to put the dead bear in his car.

“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was gonna skin the bear,” he said on the video. “It was in very good condition and I was gonna put the meat in my refrigerator.”

Kennedy referenced the process New York has for someone to lawfully possess a bear carcass, if they obtain a permit known as a “tag.”

Kennedy then tells Barr he spent the day hawking before driving to New York City for a dinner — with the bear still in his car. At the end of the dinner, Kennedy said, he had to go to the airport and couldn’t take the bear back to his home. He said he broached to friends the idea of taking the bear to Central Park and making it appear as if a biker had hit it.

“I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of and I said, ‘Let’s go put the bear in Central Park and we’ll make it look like he got hit by a bike,’” Kennedy says in the video, prompting laughs from Barr and others in the room not visible in the video. “Everybody thought, ‘That’s a great idea.’ So we did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something.”

Kennedy said the media coverage “worried” him because he’d left behind fingerprints and suggested he was not blamed for the incident at the time.

“Luckily, the story died down after a while and it stayed dead for a decade. The New Yorker somehow found out about it, and they just — they’re gonna do a big article on me. … So they asked me, the fact-checkers,” he said.

New Yorker article comes as RFK campaign falters

The magazine also spoke to Kennedy’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, who shared details of his meeting with former President Donald Trump during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month. Fox Kennedy told the magazine Trump suggested to Kennedy he drop out of the race in exchange for a position in his administration if he wins.

“They said, ‘You know, we know that you take more from us than you take from Biden,’ she told the magazine, and said Trump and his team asked Kennedy, ‘Is there something that you would want to do?’” Fox Kennedy reiterated that Kennedy is open to serving in a future Trump administration, and called the idea of Kennedy potentially being nominated as secretary of Health and Human Services “an incredibly interesting one.”

Fox Kennedy also told the magazine she believes Kennedy has clear paths to victory in November and said the campaign will focus on Democrats in traditionally Republican states and Republicans in traditionally Democratic states. She also told the New Yorker she believes Kennedy can become president by way of a contingent election if no candidate receives 270 electoral votes.

The wide-ranging article – which also details Kennedy’s history with drug addiction, his previous marriages and infidelity, and his relationship to his family – comes at a moment in which the Kennedy campaign is struggling to find its footing as Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris appear to be solidifying their support in the final months before November’s election. In a Quinnipiac national poll of registered voters released last month, Kennedy received 8% support, trailing Trump’s 44% and President Joe Biden, who was still running at the time of the poll, at 39%.

Kennedy’s campaign also continues to struggle with fundraising after pulling in $5.3 million in June and spending more than $6.2 million, according to federal campaign finance records. Last month, the campaign established a joint fundraising committee with the Libertarian Party to help boost fundraising.

Kennedy has scaled back his campaign events in recent weeks as his campaign says it’s focused on meeting ballot access deadlines in states around the country. He hasn’t hosted an in-person campaign event in over a month. Kennedy is expected to appear in court this week in New York, where he’ll testify in defense of his campaign’s ballot petition in the state.

This story and headline have been updated with new developments.

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