Susan McDougal Wins Transfer to Pasadena Jail to Await Trial

A Santa Monica Superior Court judge Friday ordered Whitewater figure Susan McDougal transferred from the Sybil Brand Institute for Women to a Pasadena city jail while she awaits trial on charges of embezzlement.

McDougal is accused of stealing $150,000 from former Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife when she worked for them as a bookkeeper between 1989 and 1992. She has pleaded not guilty.

She has been in a maximum security cell in the county jail since Dec. 17 on contempt charges for refusing to testify before a Whitewater grand jury. McDougal was brought to Los Angeles to face the embezzlement charges from a federal medical facility in Ft. Worth, Texas.

McDougal’s attorney argued that her stay at Sybil Brand--where she is kept in shackles and isolation--is unfair and impedes his ability to consult with her. Judge Paul G. Flynn said moving McDougal would not hurt the prosecution’s case and granted the transfer.

Flynn also expressed anger that his Dec. 20 ruling approving McDougal’s transfer back to the Texas facility to receive medical treatment was not carried out.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, said McDougal could be released to federal authorities and taken back to the federal facility, but added that the district attorney’s office was not willing to pay for her to shuttle between Texas and the Santa Monica trial.