Mehta Knew of Spending, McDougal Testifies

At the beginning, Nancy Mehta’s wealth and free-spending ways made Susan McDougal uncomfortable, McDougal testified Wednesday at her embezzlement trial in Santa Monica.

But after she went to work for the famed conductor’s wife, massive shopping sprees became a part of her daily job description, as did nightly dinners out with her boss and twice-daily trips to the movies, she said.

She spent so much time with Mehta, McDougal testified, that she instinctively knew what her boss’ taste would be. She said, contrary to Mehta’s earlier testimony, that she had carte blanche to purchase makeup, clothes and household items for Mehta. In fact, McDougal said her boss even gave her a date book, covered in ostrich skin and loaded with Mehta credit cards.

Keeping track of the expenditures was another matter.

“We were not great about the receipt thing,” McDougal testified. “We were shopping every day, going through stores like tornadoes.”

In her first day of testimony in her own defense, McDougal began to try to explain thousands of dollars worth of credit card charges. She is accused of forging checks and using a credit card to bilk Nancy and Zubin Mehta of more than $150,000 between 1989 and 1992.

Her dark brown hair pulled back with a headband, McDougal nervously took the witness stand in a cream-colored pantsuit.

“So, do you prefer Miss, Mrs. or Ms.?” Superior Court Judge Leslie Light asked her. “Um,” she said, pausing slightly. “Ms.”

Her story began with her fiance, Eugene “Pat” Harris, introducing her to Nancy Mehta over lunch in 1988. At the time, he worked as Mehta’s assistant, managing five Westside properties--including the Mehtas’ huge Brentwood home, a guest house, two Brentwood rental houses and a Malibu beach house.

She and Mehta hit it off immediately, McDougal testified, even if she and Harris “felt funny” about Mehta’s lavish spending on her newfound shopping companion.

On a first, friendly shopping excursion in Beverly Hills, Mehta insisted on buying McDougal bags upon bags of chic, coordinated outfits, the defendant said. When McDougal balked at being the object of such a spending spree, she testified, Mehta grew angry over lunch and accused her of spoiling “the joy of the day.”

To repay Mehta for her generosity, McDougal said, she offered to help her compile a telephone directory. It was a “huge project,” a phone book like no other, McDougal testified.

“She wanted to have the number of the bathroom of the king of England,” she said, “the number of the car phone of the Russian diplomat in Washington.”

Mehta insisted on paying her $1,000 for her trouble, McDougal said.

When McDougal left what she called a “stressful” job at Occidental Petroleum, Mehta urged her during a phone call to come work for her.

The trial, now in its sixth week, ultimately will come down to the question of Mehta’s word against McDougal’s. Mehta spent seven days on the witness stand, insisting that she never gave McDougal, or anyone else who worked for her, permission to use her credit cards or sign her name to receipts.

McDougal testified that Mehta not only authorized the charges but also accompanied her when many of them occurred.

“She never told me, ‘Don’t sign my name,’ ” McDougal said. “I had her credit cards so there was no reason for me not to sign her name.”

In fact, McDougal said, Mehta often let her sign for meals and other purchases because she was too vain to wear her glasses in public.

And, she said, she and Mehta had talked about ordering a credit card to cover household charges since McDougal could not obtain credit on her own because of her financial difficulties in Arkansas.

Mehta testified that she had no idea McDougal held a credit card in both their names. But McDougal told the jury that it was Mehta who handed her the card.

Their first purchase on the card was made together, she said; it was an $8,000 home computer.

The two women, who knew nothing about computers, “bought the prettiest one” at the store, McDougal testified. “I remember thinking, ‘God, I hope it has memory.’ It looked like a makeup bag, and Nancy chose it.”

McDougal also recounted how, at one point, Mehta hired a new dog-sitter and moved the woman’s family from Long Beach to one of the Brentwood rental houses. She “sent the car” to fetch them, and made sure the refrigerator was well-stocked and fresh flowers filled the house, McDougal said.

The friendship--and with it the working relationship--began to deteriorate when McDougal took over keeping the Mehtas’ books.

Testimony continues today.