Chicago ? A woman who sued William Kennedy Smith said Thursday that the member of the prominent political family sexually assaulted her five years ago “in a manner that will haunt me to the day I die.”

The Kennedy cousin denies attacking Audra Soulias and claims she filed her civil lawsuit only after he refused to pay $3 million, but she said the power and money held by Smith’s family was what kept her silent for so long.

“Today I am putting William Kennedy Smith on notice. You will not victimize another woman and be able to keep it silent if I can help it,” Soulias said at a news conference. She did not take questions.

Smith, 43, who was cleared of rape charges in 1991, said in a statement from the center for land-mine victims that he heads that his “family and personal history have made me unusually vulnerable to these kinds of charges.”

In 1991, a jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., acquitted Smith of sexual assault and battery on a then 30-year-old woman he met in a nightclub. He said the sex between him and the accuser, Patricia Bowman, had been consensual.

Soulias, 28, who formerly worked for Smith, said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court that he assaulted her in his bedroom in 1999.

“On Jan. 16, 1999, my innocence was involuntarily taken from me by someone I trusted and respected,” Soulias said in a quavering voice Thursday. “It was taken from me in a manner that will haunt me to the day I die.”

She said Smith, a rehabilitation medicine specialist, had bought her a number of drinks during a night on the town with friends to celebrate her birthday and after she was drunk he took her by cab to his home.

She said he dragged her into the house, took her upstairs to his bedroom and raped her.

She continued to work for Smith afterward and had even had consensual sex with him on a number of occasions, her attorney said.

Soulias attorney Kevin O’Reilly said the alleged assault consisted of “digital penetration” against his client’s will. He said the continued contact between the two was typical behavior in cases of “acquaintance rape.”

The Center for International Rehabilitation, which helps land mine victims, issued a joint statement with Smith, its president, Wednesday calling the allegations “outrageous, untrue and without merit.”

“Ms. Soulias has demanded payment of $3 million,” the statement said. O’Reilly denied she sought the money.

“Despite the time, energy and resources that will be needlessly wasted fighting these allegations, the organization cannot in any way endorse her claims or agree to her unwarranted demands,” Smith said in the statement.

Soulias is seeking at least $50,000 as compensation. The lawsuit alleges she has suffered “great physical and emotional pain and discomfort” and “a permanently impaired earning capacity.”