Judge tosses RFK Jr.’s Katonah residency

The house at 84 Croton Lake Road, Katonah. Photo courtesy The Recorder.

By JEFF MORRIS

 “A house is not a home” goes the old song, and that’s what a New York State Supreme Court judge told Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his Katonah address on Monday. In her decision, Justice Christina L. Ryba said the address Kennedy used on his nominating petitions to appear on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate, 84 Croton Lake Road, was invalid and only used as a ploy to maintain a New York residency.

The ruling, to which Kennedy’s campaign filed an appeal on Wednesday, means that his name cannot appear on the November ballot in New York. It may also jeopardize his appearance on the ballot in other states where he claimed the same address as his legal residence on nominating petitions.

Questions about Kennedy’s claim that he lives at the house, which he also uses as his voting address, were raised in May in a New York Post story, which quoted several neighbors and local police as saying they had never seen him around.

Tax maps show the property as a one-family residence with Parcel Number 49.17-1-14 and the owner as Barbara Ragonese Moss, with a mailing address of P.O. Box 434 in Katonah.

According to the Post, Moss is the wife of longtime Kennedy friend Timothy Haydock, a Westchester doctor; Haydock and Kennedy served as the best man at each other’s first wedding, and Kennedy is the godfather of Haydock’s daughter.

The Post also noted that U.S. Bank & Trust Company filed a foreclosure action against Moss, an interior and landscape designer, in state Supreme Court in March, claiming she owed $46,106 plus interest. A settlement conference was scheduled for June 7.

Information available on the town of Bedford website shows all school and town taxes on the property, which is assessed at $73,495, have been paid, going back to 2009.

A legal challenge to Kennedy’s residency claim had been filed by four voters, backed by the political action committee Clear Choice Action. In a trial that began Aug. 5 in Albany, they called Moss, who testified that Kennedy stayed in a spare bedroom when he came to New York. He regularly lives in California with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

In her ruling, Ryba said, “The court finds Kennedy’s testimony that he may return to that bedroom to reside with his wife, family members, multiple pets and all of his personal belongings to be highly improbable, if not preposterous.”

Ryba called it a “sham” address “that he assumed for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration and furthering his own political aspirations in this state.”

In a statement on his campaign website, Kennedy said, “Judge Ryba’s ruling is an assault on New York voters who signed in record numbers to place me on their ballot.” He accused the Democratic Party of being “a party that uses lawfare in place of the democratic election process.”

The campaign’s senior counsel, Paul A. Rossi, said that on Tuesday, the Democratic Party in Maine withdrew their challenge to Kennedy’s Maine petitions that used the same 84 Croton Lake Road address.