Jury Selection Underway for Susan McDougal Theft Trial

The painstaking process of picking a jury not polluted by tales of Whitewater, Kenneth Starr and the defendant’s dealings with President Clinton began Monday as the long-delayed embezzlement trial of Susan Carol McDougal got underway in Santa Monica.

McDougal, 43, is charged with a dozen counts of grand theft, forgery and fraudulent use of bank and credit cards--and with misappropriating about $150,000 from her ex-employers, former Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Semow is alleging that McDougal took the money, spending it on personal luxuries, clothes and trips, while she worked as a personal assistant to the couple between June 1989 and July 1992--before the Whitewater scandal broke.

Superior Court Judge Leslie W. Light told two pools of prospective jurors that McDougal’s “alleged” involvement with Starr, the Clintons and the Whitewater investigation has “no part whatsoever in this trial” and ordered jurors to disregard “anything and everything” they might have heard about it. The embezzlement charges were filed five years ago, and it is the oldest outstanding criminal case on the Santa Monica court’s docket.

McDougal spent nearly two years in prison for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Clinton and Whitewater.

About 60 jurors filled out questionnaires Monday probing their exposure to publicity about the embezzlement case, as well as McDougal’s other legal travails. They will be questioned individually by the lawyers this week, and then the trial will recess, Light said, until Sept. 8 to allow attorneys to investigate information from thousands of pages of newly obtained tax and accounting documents.

The four-page questionnaire solicited jurors’ opinions about the Mehtas and McDougal. It sought the source of their information about the key figures in the trial--and whether it came from television, radio, newspapers, magazines or conversations.

Prospects also were asked whether they could “consciously” keep their prior knowledge and opinions from entering into their decisions as jurors. Light cautioned jurors not to probe their psyches too deeply on the question of “consciously disregarding” previously formed opinions.

“Don’t put yourselves on the couch and get involved in paralysis by analysis in answering this questionnaire,” he said.

McDougal’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, previously has indicated that the Whitewater case is at the core of his defense. He says his client was targeted in the embezzlement case to pressure her into testifying against Clinton. But his prospects of being able to make that point in front of the jury remain unlikely. Light has ruled that Whitewater is irrelevant to the case at hand, and has barred the use of Starr’s name from the trial once the jury is selected.

McDougal, who wore a back brace under a black and white paisley print dress, sat stiffly in court in a high-backed chair. As she entered the courthouse, accompanied by her fiance, Pat Harris, and brother, Bill Henley, she said she was ready for trial, but that her back hurt. She has been treated recently for herniated discs.

It was her back problem that won McDougal an early release from prison last month. She had served nearly three months of a two-year sentence for fraud convictions stemming from a $300,000 loan she received in 1986. Her former husband, James McDougal, who died last year, and then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker of Arkansas were convicted at the same trial.

McDougal still faces prosecution in federal court in Little Rock, Ark., for charges of contempt of court and obstruction of justice after refusing to answer questions before the Whitewater grand jury.

Because of her back injury, arrangements have been made for McDougal to rest in a room off the judges’ lounge during breaks in testimony. If she can occasionally lie down, her attorney said, McDougal can sit in court for longer stretches of time.

Until Friday, when she appeared for a hearing, McDougal had been serving the remainder of her fraud sentence under electronic monitoring at her parents’ home in Arkansas.

The trial in Santa Monica began with a moderate amount of news media coverage, which will probably drop off as the case focuses on the less-than-titillating details of a paper trail of canceled checks, credit card receipts and tax returns.

As court ended for the day, McDougal and her fiance embraced. “I’m so tired,” she sighed.

Light said he expects the trial to last until the week of Oct. 5.