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by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
Michele Cassone, the ex-waitress who served up a
pantsless Sen. Ted Kennedy to reporters covering his nephew's legal
troubles, is having troubles of her own these days.
The latest blow to her faltering financial status:
Testa's Restaurant, where she worked before achieving fame as
"the other woman" at the Kennedy estate, has cut off her
unemployment checks.
An official with the state's Unemployment
Compensation Appeals Bureau ruled last week that Cassone left Testa's voluntarily.
Cassone "made personal choices to appear on
various television talk shows during April 1991," Linda Miller,
a state appeals referee, wrote in a three- page decision on the case.
"At no time did the general manager or the
assistant manager advise (Cassone) that she was discharged."
Cassone achieved instant fame as the woman who
drank wine with Kennedy and his son at the family's Palm Beach estate
in the wee hours of March 30, the same morning a Jupiter woman says
she was raped by William Kennedy Smith near the estate's swimming pool.
Cassone had no firsthand knowledge of the alleged
attack. She didn' t even know at the time that the Jupiter woman was
at the estate.
But her description of a "very drunk"
Sen. Kennedy, clad only in a knee- length Oxford cloth shirt and
"standing there wobbling" inside his family's mansion made
her one of the most sought-after talk show guests in the country.
Donahue, A Current Affair, Sally Jessy Raphael and
other shows paid Cassone about $6,000 to embarrass Kennedy, and
sometimes herself, on the air. But the financial windfall has long
since disappeared.
"It goes fast, especially when you're eating
at restaurants every day and living in a hotel," Cassone said Friday.
Cassone says she will appeal the decision on her
unemployment benefits.
Meanwhile, she's living with her boyfriend and
scanning the classified ads for job prospects. But prospects are bleak.
"There's nothing to apply for," she said.
"There's just nothing out there."
*Kennedy Smith case
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