Greg Kelly, Co-Host of Fox’ Good Day New York, and Son of Legendary Current NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, Accused of Rape!

 

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Greg Kelly at the 32nd Annual New York City Police Foundation Gala at The Waldorf-Astoria on March 16, 2010.
 

By Nicholas Stix

Call it the curse of Jodi Applegate! Back in 2008, Fox5NY dumped Jodi Applegate, the beautiful, brilliant, magnetic host of Good Day NY, and replaced her with the team of the station’s 20-year-reporting and news reading veteran Rosanna Scotto, and Greg Kelly, who was a non-entity to me. It soon became clear to me that he is the son of NYPD Commish Ray Kelly—Greg looks like a younger, larger version of Ray. (Applegate had a co-host, but he was forgettable, and so I ... forgot him.)

I liked Greg Kelly from the start, always liked Rosanna Scotto, and the two have good chemistry, in the Regis-Kathie Lee/Kelly mold. He never talked about women in his life, which had me wondering whether he liked girls.

With that said, I have never had any dealings, professional or personal with any of the aforementioned personalities.

This is a classic “he said, she said,” with the exception of the three months the accuser waited to press charges.

Ray Kelly is a New York City legend: The milkman’s son who made good. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the War in Vietnam, joined the New York City Police Department almost 50 years ago (he was permitted to put off joining the Police Academy to serve in the Marines), graduated first in his class, work days as a cop, while going to law school at night, and piled up impressive degrees. He was appointed Commish in 1992 by black socialist Mayor David Dinkins. When the incompetent, racist Dinkins was defeated after one disastrous term in 1993 by Rudy Giuliani, Kelly was hired to run the U.S. Customs Service. Mayor Michael Bloomberg then brought him back, in 2002, making him the first New York City police commissioner ever to do two separate hitches.

In his second hitch, Kelly has been New York City’s top cop for 10 years. He has been rumored to be considering running for mayor, to succeed Bloomberg, who is in his third and last term, and his name has also been bandied about as a possible successor to Robert Mueller as FBI director. The rape accusation could cost Ray Kelly the mayoralty.

Greg Kelly followed in his dad’s footsteps into the Marine Corps, where he was a fighter pilot for nine years, between the War in Kuwait and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He then went into journalism.

The anonymous accuser claims that she and Greg Kelly met on the street on Saturday, October 8, went out to the swanky South Street Seaport for drinks, and she brought him back to the closed law office where she works, where she worked, and where he raped her.

According to her boyfriend, she has been a wreck ever since, and the boyfriend reportedly confronted the elder Kelly at a police function at some point. The alleged victim only went to the authorities a week ago; the investigation is being handled by the Manhattan DA’s Office, due to the NYPD’s conflict of interest.

At the New York Post, readers support Greg Kelly at a rate of at least 20-1, with almost all of them—men and women alike—believing that the accuser got caught cheating by her boyfriend, and concocted the story, in order to look good in his eyes, and/or that this is a shakedown.

The fishiest part of the accuser’s story is the part where she invites Kelly up to her locked office on a Saturday night. For what possible reason would a woman invite a strange man she’d just met and been drinking with to her locked office? I’ve been out of circulation for a long time, but I wasn’t always married.

But as one poster observed, Kelly’s toast. If he manages to beat the rap, he’ll still have to leave town, and maybe find a new profession. Unless…

Another New York City morning host, ABC’s Steve Bartelstein (who co-hosted with Lori Stokes), was accused nine years ago by two separate men of stalking them, but he just kept coming to work, as if everything were copacetic, and his lawyer made the charges “go away.” But Bartelstein had an incalculable advantage over Kelly: He was gay. And so, Bartelstein wasn’t fired until he slept through a scheduled newsbreak in his office one day.

* * *

NYPD Commissioner's son being investigated for allegedly raping woman
By Jamie Schram Police Bureau Chief
Last Updated: 9:02 a.m., January 26, 2012
Posted: 12:54 a.m., January 26, 2012
New York Post

[N.S.: Greg Kelly’s employer, Fox 5 New York, and the New York Post both belong to NewsCorp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.]

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s newsman son, Greg, is being investigated for allegedly raping a woman, law-enforcement sources told The Post early today.

The woman filed an official complaint Tuesday against the younger Kelly, claiming the co-host of Fox 5’s “Good Day New York” attacked her last October, the sources said.

The allegation is being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office because of the inherent conflict of interest in an NYPD probe, according to the sources.

Greg Kelly’s lawyer, Andrew Lankler, said his client “strenuously denied” the allegation.

“Mr. Kelly is aware that the New York County District Attorney’s Office is conducting an investigation,” Lankler told The Post.

“Mr. Kelly strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind, and is cooperating fully with the district attorney’s investigation. We know the district attorney’s investigation will prove Mr. Kelly’s innocence.”

A police spokesman referred all questions to the Manhattan DA. A spokeswoman for DA Cyrus Vance Jr. declined comment.

Rosanna Scotto, Kelly's "Good Day New York" co-host, said "I love Greg, that's all I can say."

Kelly was absent from this morning's program.

The woman, in her late 20s or early 30s, went to the 13th Precinct station house with her sister sometime after 8 p.m. Tuesday to file the complaint, sources said.
She told police she met Greg Kelly, 43, on a street Oct. 8 and they went for drinks at the South Street Seaport, the sources said.

Then, she claimed, they went to the lower Manhattan law firm where she works — it was not clear if she’s a lawyer— and the alleged assault took place there.

Greg Kelly and the woman continued to communicate after the alleged incident, according to the sources.

She told police her boyfriend got furious when she related her story to him, and he approached the police commissioner at a public event.

It wasn’t immediately clear when that was.

The boyfriend told Ray Kelly that Greg had sexually assaulted the woman and that the alleged attack had “ruined my girlfriend’s life,” according to The Post’s sources.

The commissioner, hoping to prevent a scene at a public event, told the man to write him a letter, the sources said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if that letter was ever written.

It’s also not clear why the accuser waited three months to make an official report.

A close friend of the alleged victim told ABC News that the woman has been “an emotional cripple” since the incident.

The friend added that the boyfriend picked the accuser up at her office after the alleged attack and, “she was distraught.”

A spokeswoman for Fox 5 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Greg Kelly began as co-anchor of “Good Day” in July 2008.

Prior to his stint on the morning program, he worked at Fox News Channel, where he was a White House reporter from 2005 to 2007.

He also served as a war correspondent during the Iraq invasion in 2003.

He earlier worked as a reporter for the NY1 cable news network, where he covered politics and the attacks on 9/11.

Before entering journalism, he served as a fighter pilot in the Marines for nine years.

During his service, he flew over Iraq, enforcing the United Nations-imposed “No-Fly Zone.”

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Fordham University.

Additional reporting by Tim Perone and Laura Italiano