Ex-Banker Pleads Guilty in Whitewater Probe

The former head of a bank used for President Clinton’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign funds pleaded guilty Tuesday to reduced charges in exchange for his cooperation in the Whitewater investigation.

Neal T. Ainley, former president of Perry County Bank, entered his plea to two misdemeanor counts of willfully delivering a false document to the government. Each count carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $100,000 fine. He originally faced five felony charges.

Sources said Monday that Ainley would cooperate with prosecutors in an investigation of Clinton’s gubernatorial campaign of five years ago.

David Kendall, the Clintons’ personal attorney, said: “The campaign had no involvement whatsoever in the alleged wrongful conduct which is the subject of this plea and would have had absolutely no reason to be involved.”

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s office is investigating the Whitewater land development in northern Arkansas, the failure of James B. McDougal’s Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan and the possibility that money from either Madison or Whitewater might have ended up in Clinton’s gubernatorial campaign coffers.

Ainley was indicted March 1, accused of hiding cash withdrawals made by two Clinton campaign aides, including Bruce Lindsey, now deputy White House counsel.

The cash financed get-out-the-vote activities in minority areas. A few days before the primary campaign in May, 1990, Lindsey drove to the Perry County Bank and withdrew $30,000 in cash from the Clinton campaign account.

Ainley was accused of conspiring to hide that withdrawal from the Internal Revenue Service. Ainley also was accused of conspiring to hide a $22,500 cash withdrawal by another Clinton campaign aide in November, 1990, a few days before the general election. Lindsey was the campaign’s treasurer.

Lindsey’s lawyer, Allen Snyder, has said the issue of reporting the transactions to the IRS “simply never entered Mr. Lindsey’s mind.”