Tucker Gets Probation for Role in Whitewater

Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was fined and sentenced to four years of probation for his role in a Whitewater-related conspiracy after his lawyer argued that he would surely die as a result of a life-threatening liver condition if he were sent to prison.

The sentencing of co-defendant James B. McDougal, a former investment partner of President Clinton, however, is being delayed until Nov. 18, Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr disclosed Monday. Sources said the delay is a result of McDougal’s recent decision to cooperate with Starr in exchange for leniency. A third defendant, McDougal’s former wife, Susan, is to be sentenced today.

U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr., who presided over the 12-week fraud and conspiracy trial of Tucker and the McDougals, said he was convinced that a prison sentence would be tantamount to a death penalty for Tucker, 53. As he put it, “a sanction requiring imprisonment would be as cruel as a grave.”

However, Howard fined Tucker more than $300,000, most of which will be in the form of restitution to the Small Business Administration, which was defrauded by his actions. With interest, his $150,000 debt to the SBA is expected to be $293,951.78, officials said. He also must pay additional fines of $25,000.

The case grew out of Starr’s investigation of a joint investment by Clinton and the McDougals in an Ozarks real estate development known as Whitewater. Tucker and the McDougals were convicted on May 28 of conspiring to defraud two federally backed financial institutions by borrowing money under false pretenses from a savings and loan and a small-business investment corporation created by the SBA.

Tucker and his supporters greeted his sentence as a pleasant surprise because Howard had been expected to impose a much harsher penalty for Tucker’s two felony convictions. Family members wept tears of joy.

“It was a very compassionate sentence based on the hard facts of my medical condition,” Tucker declared after a 3 1/2-hour court hearing. Tucker’s brief remarks during the proceeding brought him to the verge of tears.

Clearly disappointed, Starr nevertheless declined to criticize the judge’s decision. He said Howard’s sentence in no way diminished the seriousness of the felonies for which Tucker was convicted.

Tucker, who stepped down as governor after the conviction, is awaiting a liver transplant to remedy the effects of a serious gastrointestinal disease.

Two physicians testifying on Tucker’s behalf told Howard that Tucker likely would be denied a liver transplant if he were to be sent to prison. Chances of his survival there would be so low that donor organs, which are in short supply, would go to recipients who have a better chance of survival, they said. Without a transplant, the doctors said, Tucker will die within a few years.

The doctors said imprisonment would increase the three risks that currently threaten Tucker’s life: infection, uncontrolled bleeding and cancer. If Tucker receives a transplant while in prison, they said, there would be no way to protect him from the risk of infection that would rise substantially with use of drugs designed to keep him from rejecting a donated organ.

“He has lost most of all the things that have counted to him,” argued Tucker’s lawyer, Buddy Sutton. “Would any good purpose be served by the further punishment of incarceration. . . ? Gov. Tucker is imprisoned within a diseased body.”

Prosecutor Ray Jahn, who is part of Starr’s team, argued that Tucker should be sent to prison because of the seriousness of his crimes and because he has never expressed remorse.

Tucker will be confined to his home during the first 18 months of his probation. The judge also gave him a list of a dozen Arkansas secondary schools where he will be required over the next four years to give speeches on the value of family, education and respect for authority.