NYPost

NEIGHBOR ATTACKS HILL'S BRO IN PA. HOME: COPS

By DAN KADISON and TRACY CONNOR

August 20, 2001 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother was attacked at the family's summer home in Pennsylvania - and his other brother and a local woman held the assailant for cops.

The violence happened early yesterday morning at the waterfront cottage in Lake Winola, 30 miles from Scranton, where the Rodhams have summered for years.

Local resident Daniel Coyne, 45, barged into the Rodham home sometime after 3 a.m. and went after 47-year-old Tony Rodham, kicking him in the face and body, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Tony's brother, Hugh Rodham, 49, told Coyne to leave, and he did - but he returned a short time later and assaulted him again, the cops said.

That's when Hugh and the woman, Kelly Ann Quick, 36, restrained Coyne, who was arrested a short time later, authorities said.

Cops would not say what the dispute was about or how the parties knew each other.

Coyne was arraigned on charges of burglary, criminal trespass and assault in district court and remanded to the Wyoming County Jail because he could not come up with $25,000 bail.

The Rodham brothers could not be reached last night. A woman who answered the phone at the Quick home refused comment on the episode.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton said she had no information about the fracas.

Both of the Rodham men have been embroiled in the presidential pardons-for-sale scandal.

Tony Rodham helped a Nashville couple, Ed and Vonna Jo Gregory, win a pardon from brother-in-law Bill Clinton for their 1982 bank-fraud convictions.

Hugh Rodham, meanwhile, collected $400,000 to lobby for pardons for convicted drug trafficker Carlos Vignali and con man Glenn Braswell.

The brothers are being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York probing the influence-peddling.

The pardons flap wasn't the Rodhams' first brush with controversy.

In 1999, the pair caved into pressure and reluctantly pulled out of a proposed $118 million hazelnut-export venture in the Soviet republic of Georgia.

The siblings tried to cut a deal with Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze's arch rival, who used the relationship to imply that Bill Clinton would endorse him in the upcoming elections.

The White House ordered the brothers to back off.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001

Answers

Lucianne's comment:

Oh, You Kids: The Rodham boys, Hillary's feckless brothers, got into some kind of a punch-up this weekend at their summer home near Scranton. (Huh? Did you know they had a summer home near Scranton? For years, this item says.) Anyway, there isn't much news on it yet but conceivably this neighbor wants his money back for some relative's pardon Hugh dropped the ball on. They are so cute, these two.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001

And Lucianne's note on Roger:

More News From Brotherland: It was recently reported that Roger "He's Not Heavy He's My Dealer" Clinton had entered drug rehab at Cottonwood de Tucson in that sun baked city. We now learn - don't look for a link, this hasn't been reported - that he told doctors during his intake interviews that he has been a coke addict since his mother died 7 years ago and that he had been doing a line or two "every other day" since then. Guess he's one of those odd ball addicts who skips a day. Now, if you do the math, that would put Roger in the White House scoring and doing coke as he stayed there for days and weeks whenever he was in D.C. Clearly, the then Prez was far too busy to notice his own baby brother bouncing off the walls.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001