Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes to the defense of his cousin, Michael Skakel, in an extensive article in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Skakel was convicted last year of murdering Martha Moxley in 1975.

The article is sure to stir controversy. Among other things, it is highly critical of Mickey Sherman, Skakel's defense lawyer.

Kennedy's article appears in the January/February issue

"Michael's problems were aggravated by an over-confident and less than zealous defense lawyer who seemed more interested in courting the press," Kennedy writes. "... Sherman promoted himself as a public-relations expert who could undo the damage to the family's reputation."

Asked for comment Friday, Sherman said, "I have been in the business a long time and I'm well aware that when you win you are a hero, when you lose you are Satan. It just comes with the territory." Sherman said.

Kennedy is a former New York City prosecutor who now works as an environmental lawyer.

"I'm not going blow for blow with Bobby or anyone," Sherman added. "It's his relative in the can and he's upset. I feel for him. I feel for Michael. But I have no regrets about anything I did, and if someone thinks I did something improper, that's what we have appeals courts for."

Skakel's appeal is expected to include the allegation that he had an unfair trial due to Sherman's ineffective assistance. Hope Seeley, one of Skakel's appellate lawyers, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Martha Moxley

Skakel, now 41, is serving a life sentence in a Connecticut prison. He emerged as the prime suspect in Moxley's slaying in 1998 - nearly 23 years after the fifteen-year-old was murdered. Moxley's body was found lying face down on her family's property in the exclusive onclave of Belle Haven, in Greenwich, Conn.

Greenwich police first tried to build a circumstantial case against Skakel's older brother, Thomas, and the family's live-in tutor, Kenneth Littleton. Thomas Skakel was the last person seen with Moxley before she was beaten to death by a golf club.

Kennedy recounts Littleton's long battle with alcoholism and his brushes with the law to make the case that there was more evidence against Littleton than Michael Skakel. He also says that Littleton flunked five polygraph tests about his involvement in the murder.

"I do not know that Ken Littleton killed Martha Moxley. I do know - and as a former prosecutor, I understand the laws of evidence - that the state's case against Littleton was much stronger than any case against Michael Skakel," Kennedy writes.

Kennedy only attended two days of the five-week trial. Many of the allegations against Littleton were raised during the proceedings.

Reached on the West Coast Friday night, Kennedy told Courttv.com that Skakel was "railroaded" and the press stood by and watched. Instead of gathering "sound bites," investigative journalists should have asked more questions about why Littleton was dropped as a suspect. Inspectors in the prosecutors office believed strongly for a period of time that Skakel was the killer.

Michael Skakel

"The press really was the culprit here. I waited for years for some journalist to look for the truth," he said. "No one knows who killed this girl...The prosecutor doesn't know and the press doesn't know. I know that Michael Skakel didn't do it. It's a mystery."

Kennedy said he did not want to engage in a drawn-out discussion of the evidence. That's why he wrote the story, Kennedy said. "I guess I would just let the article speak for itself."

He added that he has not publicly advocated for Skakel before because anything he said in a forum other than a lengthy arcticle would be chopped into soundbites and dismissed as the sentiment of a relative.

Christopher Morano, one of the prosecutors, said he read a leaked early draft of the story.

Defense lawyer Mickey Sherman

"What I saw appeared to rehash many of things we spent many days and days litigating. They were reviewed not only by the court but by the jury, and the jury verdict speaks," Morano said. "I think what is disturbing are the claims against Mr. Littleton. There is nothing in [the article] that was not said or dealt with at trial. Mr. Littleton came to court, subjected himself to a very rigorous cross-examination by Mr. Sherman. Yet we are still faced with those same allegations against him. A jury didn't buy it and I don't think those allegations are more valid now."

Interviews with jurors after the verdict showed that what swayed them most were what Michael Skakel said to his reform school classmates about the murder and tape recorded statements he made for a book proposal.

Kennedy also asserts that celebrity crime writer Dominick Dunne was "a driving force behind the prosecution."

Dunne, who hosts his own Court TV series, Power, Privilege and Justice, declined to comment for Courttv.com.

Kennedy charges Dunne stood to benefit professionally if the killer were a member of the extended Kennedy clan. Dunne covered the trial for Vanity Fair.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Dunne said he would respond to Kennedy in an upcoming article in Vanity Fair. Dunne said he was simply an observer, and that prosecutors and the jury were responsible for Skakel's conviction.

"Dunne, who has transformed a lifelong fascination with celebrity and wealth into a career as a gossip and a novelist, had personal reasons for his attraction to this case," Kennedy writes.

Once the trial was underway, Skakel's siblings began to lose confidence in defense lawyer Sherman, Kennedy writes. They believed that Sherman was more interested in his own publicity than defending his client. But it was too late change lawyers. Sherman's fee was more than $1 million.

Sherman confirmed Friday that he no longer has any contact with Michael Skakel.

"This doesn't change my feelings about Michael Skakel. I love Michael Skakel," Sherman said. "I stand 100 percent by what I did in court and of court. I have no regrets, other than having lost."

One of the first people to buy the magazine off the newstand was Dorthy Moxley, Martha's mother. Although she bought three copies and was eager to read Kennedy's story, she did not expect to learn anything new. Dorthy Moxley attended the trial every day.

"He was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, and Mr. Kennedy did not spend a lot of time at the trial," Moxley said Friday from her home in Chatham, N.J. "If he was all that concerned about his cousin, maybe if he had come to the trial and listened like the jury did, he wouldn't feel compelled now to bring this up again. It's hard for everyone -- for the Skakels, for us, and it probably isn't doing any good for Michael Skakel."