The New York Times

June 22, 2000, B-6

Eight at Riverkeeper Resign Over Kennedy's Hiring of a Rare-Egg Smuggler

By Robert Worth

At least eight members of the board of Riverkeeper, an environmental group known for its work on Hudson River and New York City watershed issues, have quit in protest over a difference with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the group's lead lawyer.

Robert Boyle, who was Riverkeeper's president until he resigned yesterday, said the dispute arose over a man Mr. Kennedy had hired late last year to help the organization monitor the city's compliance with environmental laws in the New York City watershed.

Mr. Boyle said the man, William Wegner, pleaded guilty in March 1995 to illegally smuggling rare bird eggs into the United States from Australia and was also convicted of tax evasion that year.

"I am just appalled," said Mr. Boyle, who founded Riverkeeper as the Hudson River Fishermen's Association in 1966. "It was imprudent, reckless and irresponsible of Bobby to hire him. And he didn't have the right. I do the hiring and firing."

Mr. Kennedy said of Mr. Wegner: "He's done terrific work for Riverkeeper. There's nobody who contests that. We all make mistakes in our lives. Where would any of us be if we didn't get a second chance?"

Mr. Boyle fired Mr. Wegner as soon as he learned he had been hired last December. However, Mr. Wegner continued to work separately for Mr. Kennedy, and at a board meeting Tuesday evening, Mr. Kennedy insisted that Mr. Wegner be allowed to work for Riverkeeper. That led at least eight members of the 22-member board, including Mr. Boyle, to walk out of the meeting in protest and resign their positions.

John Fry, Riverkeeper's treasurer, said hiring Mr. Wegner was particularly inappropriate because his crime was an environmental one. Mr. Fry also quit the board.

"As treasurer, I felt hiring him might endanger our development work," Mr. Fry said.

Mr. Boyle said that at the meeting, Mr. Kennedy equated Mr. Wegner's crime with his own conviction for drug abuse in the 1980's.

Mr. Boyle says he was appalled, and asked Mr. Kennedy what he supposed Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani would think if he knew that the man gathering evidence for him on the city's possible misconduct in the watershed was himself guilty of crimes.

"I walked out of the meeting because I thought what was going on was a disaster for the organization," said Patrick Crow, a board member.

Mr. Kennedy appears to be unshakable, Mr. Fry said. The directors who have sided with him include the actress Lorraine Bracco and Anne Hearst, a granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst.

Riverkeeper is a party to the Watershed Memorandum of Agreement, a plan to maintain the purity of New York City drinking water and avert a federal mandate to filter the city's water. Its annual budget is $2 million.