Jury acquits Kerrigan brother in father’s death
WOBURN, Massachusetts (AP) — The brother of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was acquitted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of their 70-year-old father by a jury that apparently agreed with his defense that his father died of heart disease.
Mark Kerrigan, 46, was convicted, though, of assault and battery in a January 2010 conflict with his father, Daniel Kerrigan, at the family’s home in Stoneham, just north of Boston.
Nancy Kerrigan and her mother, Brenda, embraced and cried after the verdict was read; the skater had supported her brother and attended every day of the weeklong trial in Woburn Superior Court.
Mark Kerrigan is to be sentenced Thursday; the maximum is 2 1/2 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Mark Kerrigan caused his father’s death after he grabbed him around the neck with such force that he broke cartilage in his father’s larynx and triggered heart failure.
Kerrigan’s defense lawyers, however, cited medical experts who testified that Daniel Kerrigan had 85 percent to 100 percent blockage of three main coronary arteries and that the cardiac dysrhythmia that killed him likely began before he had any physical interaction with his son.