NEW YORK (AP) - The police commissioner’s son, cleared of the prospect of criminal charges of raping a woman he met for a drink, will return to his job as host of a popular local morning TV talk show this week, his station said.
Greg Kelly took a leave of absence from his job at “Good Day New York” after the allegations surfaced late last month. The station, local Fox affiliate WNYW-TV, confirmed Wednesday he would return Friday.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that they hadn’t found cause to charge Kelly with a crime. Kelly said then that he was looking forward to getting back to work but didn’t say when.
The woman told authorities that Kelly raped her in her lower Manhattan office after they went out for drinks on Oct. 8, assaulting her while she wasn’t capable of consenting to sex, a person familiar with the investigation said. She told authorities she became pregnant from the encounter and had an abortion, according to a law enforcement official. Neither the person nor the law official was authorized to speak publicly, and they spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
The New York Police Department turned the matter over to the district attorney’s office when the woman walked into a police station Jan. 24, citing the potential conflict of interest in investigating a son of the commissioner, Raymond Kelly.
Prosecutors interviewed “numerous relevant fact and expert witnesses,” analyzed receipts, security logs, text messages and telephone records and interviewed the woman and Kelly, the chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s office sex crimes unit, Martha Bashford, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Kelly’s lawyer, Andrew M. Lankler.
“After reviewing all of the evidence, we have determined that the facts established during our investigation do not fit the definitions of sexual assault crimes under New York criminal law,” Bashford wrote. “Therefore, no criminal charges are appropriate.”
Kelly had vehemently denied doing anything wrong, and he portrayed the prosecutors’ conclusions as vindication.
“I am thankful that the investigation established what I’ve known all along, that I am innocent of the allegations that were waged against me,” Kelly, 43, said in his statement.
The woman, who works at a downtown Manhattan law firm, told police she met Kelly on the street; they then arranged to meet for drinks three days later at a bar at the nearby South Street Seaport, a second person familiar with the investigation has said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not made public. The woman and Kelly stayed in contact afterward, the first person said.
The woman’s boyfriend learned the story and became enraged, that person said.
Before the woman went to police, her boyfriend confronted the commissioner in person at a public event, saying Greg Kelly had ruined his girlfriend’s life but declining to elaborate on the spot when asked what he meant, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The commissioner suggested the boyfriend send him a letter, but the man apparently never did, Browne said.
Prosecutors do not plan to charge Kelly’s accuser with any crime, DA’s office spokeswoman Joan Vollero said.
The AP does not name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or come forward publicly.
Kelly, a former Marine turned TV journalist, appeared on local stations in New York and Binghamton before joining Fox News in 2002. He covered the Iraq war, including four assignments in Baghdad, and was the White House correspondent from 2005-07, according to his biography on WNYW’s website.
He has appeared on “Good Day New York” since 2008.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
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