Mrs. America to Retain Crown if She Stays Wed : Pageant: Official backs the troubled titlist despite welfare fraud inquiry. But reign will end if she finalizes divorce.

Mrs. America pageant officials said Friday they will stand by the reigning queen despite a welfare fraud investigation--as long as she stays married.

Jill Scott, the reigning Mrs. America, canceled her monthly welfare payments last week after it was disclosed that she is under investigation for cheating the system--an allegation that her attorney has denied. Scott has also separated from her husband, who is living in Scottsdale, Ariz. She lives in Coronado.

The Mrs. America pageant officials “probably could have gotten someone else to represent them better, considering my own failures,” said Scott, 32, whose one-year reign ends in April.

The San Diego Tribune reported that the San Diego County Department of Social Services is investigating Scott for welfare fraud. Scott violated department rules by failing to report money she received from her husband to the county Department of Revenue and Recovery, according to Scott’s attorney, Matthew M. Kremer.

Scott separated from her husband three months before the Mrs. America pageant, reunited with him briefly before the pageant and filed for divorce in May, 1991, Kremer said. The papers that will finalize the divorce have not been signed, Kremer said.

A divorce, however, would mean an abrupt end to Scott’s reign--stripping her of the crown and title, pageant officials said.

“This is a pageant for married women, and you must be married to enter, compete and hold the crown,” said David Marmel, president and founder of the 15-year-old, Santa Monica-based pageant. “We like to characterize the married woman as America’s greatest natural resource.”

Marmel is holding out hope, however, that the reigning queen’s stormy marriage can be salvaged.

“It’s really too bad what’s happened to the poor lady--I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean that literally,” Marmel said. “But a trial separation . . . offers hope for reconciliation.”

Scott said she has no regrets about entering the pageant. “Winning the title of Mrs. America has been a wonderful opportunity. It’s opened a lot of doors,” she said.

This week, Scott hosted a San Diego cable television talk show interview with a cosmetic surgeon. And a bathing suit-clad Scott also appeared in a liposuction advertisement in this month’s San Diego magazine.

But the appearances and advertisements have mostly been arranged on a trade basis--awarding services but no money, Scott and the doctors’ spokesmen said.

Campaigning for the Mrs. America pageant can be costly, with some candidates paying as much as $15,000 for gowns, interview suits and calisthenic outfits, said last year’s Mrs. America, Jennifer Johnson.

It is not known if Scott’s bid for the crown helped drain her finances. George E. Scott, her husband, failed to deliver the $1,340 a month that a court has ordered him to pay to support his estranged wife and two children, ages 6 and 8, Kremer said.

Jill Scott applied for welfare shortly after filing for divorce and received $800 a month, Kremer said.

Her work experience--housewife-turned-beauty queen--has not helped her in a tight job market.

“I’m not trying to play stupid or dumb, but I have been a housewife for 10 years. I have no job experience and I don’t have a college degree,” Scott told the Coronado Journal.

In recent days, stories about Scott and her troubles have peppered newspapers ranging from USA Today to the International Herald Tribune. The publicity has only added to the sting of her personal troubles, Scott said.

“It’s taking its toll,” she said. “Making my personal life open to the world is difficult. This is not something every public person goes through.”