Robert F. Kennedy in NY court as he fights ballot-access suit claiming he doesn’t live in the state

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to be on New York’s ballot Monday as a trial began over whether he falsely claimed to live in the state.

The lawsuit alleges that Kennedy’s nominating petition listed a residence in New York City’s northern suburbs while he actually has lived in Los Angeles since 2014, when he married “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines.

Kennedy sat at his attorneys’ table in a court in the state capital of Albany, occasionally jotting down notes and conferring with his lawyers, as a cousin said he believed that the candidate lives in L.A. and two old friends disputed that they’d previously been his landlords in New York’s Westchester County.

“Candidate Kennedy does not reside in the state of New York,” attorney Keith Corbett said during opening arguments.

Kennedy, who is expected to testify this week, declined to speak after court Monday.

The suit seeks to invalidate his New York nominating petition. The case on behalf of several New York voters was brought by Clear Choice PAC, a super PAC led by supporters of Democratic President Joe Biden. Under state election law, a judge is set to decide the case without a jury.

Kennedy, a longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, has the potential to do better than any independent presidential candidate in decades, having gained traction with a famous name and a loyal base. His campaign has said he has enough signatures to qualify in 42 states so far. His ballot drive has faced challenges and lawsuits in various states, including North Carolina and New Jersey.

One of Kennedy’s cousins, Stephen Smith Jr., testified remotely that he grew up with Kennedy and once had dinner in a California home the candidate shares with Hines.

“From everything I know, Bobby lives in Los Angeles,” Smith said.

Earlier, longtime friend David Michaelis testified that he used to host Kennedy regularly as an overnight guest from 2014 through 2017 at his Westchester home about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of midtown Manhattan. Michaelis was handed a court document in which Kennedy said his “friend and landlord” Michaelis requested that he move out of that house in March 2023 since Michaelis was a supporter of President Joe Biden.

Michaelis called that statement “a fiction” and said Kennedy was never his house tenant. He said he last saw Kennedy in Los Angeles around 2019.

Michaelis’ wife, Nancy Steiner, told the court she was upset at being described as a landlord by a once-dear friend from whom she grew “sadly distant” because of his public stances and comments.

Both spouses said Kennedy had sought to contact them in recent days, but they did not call back.

Kennedy’s New York ballot petition lists his residence as a home that a different friend owns in Katonah, a tony suburb in Westchester County, where Kennedy has said he moved after leaving Michaelis’ home. But the lawsuit claims that the candidate “has no meaningful or continuous connections to the property” and has spent “vanishingly little time, if any.”

He doesn’t have a written lease, and neighbors haven’t seen him around, says the lawsuit, filed in June.

“Moreover, the evidence will show that Kennedy’s wife and children live in California, along with his three dogs, two ravens, an emu and his personal belongings,” the lawsuit adds.

Kennedy’s lawyers maintain that the 70-year-old candidate — who led a New York-based environmental group for decades and whose namesake father was a New York senator — has lived in the state since he was 10.

“While Mr. Kennedy may have purchased a home in California and temporarily moved his family there while his wife pursues her acting career, Mr. Kennedy is and always has been a New Yorker,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing.

In legal arguments ahead of the trial, Kennedy attorney F. Michael Ostrander said his client has a “continuing connection” to the Katonah area.

According to the court filing, Kennedy visits the Katonah house as often as possible while campaigning, pays New York state income taxes and pays rent to the owner of the house in Katonah. There he gets mail, is registered to vote, is licensed to practice law, keeps clothes and family photos, has a car registered and has it as his address on his driver’s license and various others.

“He even keeps his beloved falcons in New York state,” attorney William F. Savino said in a press release Monday. He said Kennedy intends to move back to New York as soon as his wife retires from acting.

The court date came a day after a video posted on social media showed Kennedy explaining a New York episode in his life: how a decade ago he retrieved a bear that was killed by a motorist and left it in New York’s Central Park with a bicycle on top.

How the bear had wound up in the park had long been a local mystery. The video came ahead of a New Yorker article that included details of Kennedy’s role in the incident, as well as a photo of him sitting in the trunk of a car posing with his hand in the lifeless bear’s mouth. Kennedy said he left the bear there as a prank, to make it look like it was hit by a bicycle, as bike accidents were getting media attention at the time.

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This story has been updated to show that Steiner did not testify to jurors in this non-jury trial.

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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.

Michael Hill, The Associated Press