Michael Skakel Files Lawsuit Against Greenwich, Police Officer: Report

GREENWICH, CT — In an attempt to recover a set of audiotapes that were used in the trial that convicted him, Michael Skakel recently filed a lawsuit against the town of Greenwich and Frank Garr, a Greenwich police officer who investigated him in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, according to Greenwich Time.

The Time reported that Garr acquired the tapes in 1999 in preparation for a memoir with a ghostwriter, but the book was never published.

On the tapes, Skakel describes how he was drinking heavily and watching Moxley on the night she was murdered, the Time said.

Last year, Skakel tried to have a Superior Court judge issue an order for the return of the tapes, but since his case was dismissed, the judge cited a lack of jurisdiction, the Time reported.

Skakel is seeking the return of seven audiotapes, other items, and unspecified monetary damages, the Time said.

The mystery surrounding Moxley's death has attracted national and worldwide attention over the years, especially since Moxley spent her last night alive with young members of the Skakel family, cousins of the Kennedys.

Moxley, who was 15 at the time, was beaten to death with a golf club on Oct. 30, 1975, in the Belle Haven neighborhood of Greenwich. Her body was discovered the next day.

Skakel was a neighbor of Moxley at the time of her death and also 15. He was charged with Moxley's murder in 2000, convicted in 2002, and later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

Skakel was locked up for more than a decade, but in 2013, a judge granted him a new trial, saying his first attorney didn't adequately represent him.

In 2018, the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated Skakel's murder conviction.

In 2020, prosecutors said they would not retry him.

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