Federal authorities have dropped an investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over claims that he cut off and collected the head of a dead whale decades ago, according to Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by Bloomberg.
Todd Smith, a special agent with the National Marine Fisheries Service, notified Kennedy on Oct. 15 that the agency was ending its inquiry after he denied the allegation in a five-page letter earlier in the month.
The investigation stemmed from a 2012 Town & Country magazine interview in which Kennedy’s daughter Kathleen recalled an episode from her childhood. She claimed that in 1994 her father cut off the head of a dead whale that had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, strapped it on the family minivan and drove it back to their home in New York.
The story, which had faded from public memory, went viral over the summer when Kennedy was running for president. It came on the heels of another bizarre admission from Kennedy, who told The New Yorker that he had once retrieved a bear killed by a motorist and left its body in Central Park as a prank.
The investigation into the whale carcass was triggered by a complaint in August from the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, which accused Kennedy of violating the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Kennedy denied the claims in an Oct. 8 letter to the Fisheries Service, writing that he had never collected a whale specimen from Massachusetts or transported marine mammal remains across state lines, according to the FOIA documents.
“I have no such specimen in my collection,” Kennedy wrote.
He didn’t respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg by email and text message.
In August, Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race and threw his support behind former President Donald Trump.
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