McDougal Wrongly in County Jail, Suit Says

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday sued the federal marshal’s office, claiming that former Whitewater partner Susan McDougal is being held illegally in a Los Angeles County jail as further punishment for not cooperating with Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

ACLU attorneys said that since McDougal is being held on federal contempt-of-court charges for refusing to testify about the Arkansas land deal before a grand jury, she belongs in a federal facility, such as the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The lawyers--echoing prolonged complaints by McDougal’s own attorney--said she has been held under the most restrictive conditions in the county custody system since she was brought here in December to face state embezzlement charges.

Her county confinement persisted even though the judge in the California case ordered McDougal released and returned to federal custody, the ACLU said.

“Obviously, what is going on here is an attempt to break her spirits in hopes of resuscitating a desperate and flailing investigation,” said ACLU legal director Mark Rosenbaum.

McDougal says Starr is on “a witch hunt” against President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who were partners with McDougal and her ex-husband, James B. McDougal, in the Whitewater development.

In a statement released Monday, Starr said he is not responsible for the conditions of McDougal’s confinement.

“From the time that Ms. McDougal was first placed in federal custody,” the statement said, “the independent counsel informed the United States Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons that it was our position that Ms. McDougal should be treated like any other” person held on similar charges.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department custody chief Barry King, who did not return calls to his office Monday, has said previously that the department did not have the proper paperwork to transfer McDougal to federal detention.

She was held in a county facility, King has said, because it was easier to transport her from there to her appearances in Santa Monica Superior Court, where she is charged with stealing more than $150,000 from conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife. The ACLU disputes that contention, saying that McDougal is being housed just a few blocks from a federal facility and that she has had only eight court appearances in the seven months she has been in California.

McDougal was convicted of bank fraud in May 1996, along with her ex-husband and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. She is appealing that conviction, for which she faces two years in prison.

After she refused in September to testify before the grand jury, McDougal was held in contempt and placed in a federal medical facility in Texas. She is serving a sentence of up to 18 months on that charge.

In December, McDougal was transferred to Los Angeles County’s Sybil Brand Institute for Women to face trial in the Mehta case. Shortly thereafter, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Paul G. Flynn ordered her released on her own recognizance in that case. At that point, the ACLU maintains, McDougal should have been sent back to a federal facility to continue serving her contempt-of-court time.

The ACLU and McDougal attorney Mark Geragos said she was instead held at Sybil Brand, then transferred to the county’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility in June.

In both places, the attorneys said, McDougal has been subjected to “abusive and inhumane” treatment, such as being held on “keep away” status that has meant being kept in her cell up to 23 hours a day.

The suit says that other inmates on her cell block--both the most dangerous prisoners and the most vulnerable thought to be in need of protective custody--have been given access to a room of exercise bikes and TV and allowed interaction with each other, but that McDougal has been denied such privileges.

Often, the suit contends, she has been barred from attending religious services because no guard has been available to escort her.

Although the extraordinary measures were often explained as needed for McDougal’s security, she has unnecessarily been kept handcuffed during family and attorney visits, the suit says.

“Shackling her when she talks to her own attorney is not for her own protection,” Geragos said. “Not giving her a Bible is not for her own protection. . . . These are tactics to break a witness.”