RFK Jr. could have faced a fine for dumping dead bear cub in Central Park

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could have been hit with a fine for dumping a dead bear cub in New York's Central Park, but the state agency that investigated the bizarre incident said the statute of limitations for the decade-old offense has long since expired.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation "led the 2014 investigation and forensic analysis into the Central Park bear cub," the agency said in a statement Monday.

The discovery of the dead cub in the middle of Manhattan made headlines in October of 2014, but investigators at the time were not able to determine how it got there.

Kennedy acknowledged in a video he posted on social media Sunday that he was the culprit, in an effort to get ahead of a story in the New Yorker that mentioned he was responsible. Kennedy told Roseanne Barr in the video that he'd picked up the dead cub outside of the city after someone had hit it with their car. He said he had plans to skin it and eat it, but time got away from him and he wound up leaving it near a bike path in the park as a joke. He was 60 at the time.

The DEC statement said its probe had indeed "concluded the bear died from blunt-force trauma consistent with a high-speed collision."

"The investigation was closed later that year due to a lack of sufficient evidence to determine if violations occurred," the statement said.

The agency said it's against the law to dispose of a dead bear the way Kennedy said he did.

"The State’s Environmental Conservation Law includes offenses such as illegal possession of a bear without a tag or permit and illegal disposal of a bear, both of which are violation-level offenses typically subject to fines of up to $250 for the first offense," the