Leo Damore

“sure what happened after the accident was client-protected,” he told Mazzone. By their silence, “Markham and Gargan were taking the big fall to protect Ted Kennedy.” Paul Redmond doubted the lawyer-client issue would even arise at the inquest. “People were walking around Boston whaling the bee-jesus out of Paul Markham and Joe Gargan for not reporting the accident—that was so unfair. Here were two guys, good lawyers and fine men, made to look like stooges or worse by the press.” Gargan had told him he could not have reported an accident in which a driver faced a possible manslaughter charge, Redmond said. “It’s no secret Joe was a dear friend. When I left the U.S. Attorney’s office, Paul Markham took my spot.” A week before the inquest, Redmond bumped into Gargan in the elevator of the building in which both had law offices. The Boiler Room girls were “upstairs,” Redmond said. “They haven’t seen you in a long time. I think they’d like to say hello.” Gargan went straight to Redmond’s office for “a nice reunion, a pleasant chat. Very friendly.” There was no discussion about the inquest. Gargan did not want to become involved in the preparation of anybody else’s testimony. As one of two persons at the party who wasn’t “a bit bombed,” Gargan’s memory of the occasion was “clear as a bell.” So it was Gargan’s description of the party that, along with the Senator’s two public versions of the accident, would provide the scenario for inquest testimony. If Gargan testified to the Senator’s attempt to cover up his involvement in the accident as the reason he had failed to report it until the next day, he could blow the entire lid off the case. But that prospect became moot when a writ of certiorari was filed on Tuesday, September 2, asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to determine whether “errors of law” had been made in Judge Boyle’s ruling on the conduct of the scheduled inquest in re: Mary Jo Kopechne. Justice Paul Reardon scheduled a hearing for three o’clock. Notified an appeal had been filed,”
― Leo Damore, Chappaquiddick: Power, Privilege, and the Ted Kennedy Cover-Up