McDougal Admonished Over Actions in Court

While testimony in the Susan McDougal embezzlement trial focuses on the dry details of canceled checks and 6-year-old credit card receipts, a far more entertaining sideshow over matters of decorum continues between the scolding judge and the voluble defendant.

As far as Superior Court Judge Leslie W. Light is concerned, he rules Department M in Santa Monica.

“This courtroom is not being run by the defendant in any way, shape or form whatsoever,” he said sternly on Monday.

Light, who last week chided McDougal for talking too much in court, questioned her at length Monday over the position of her chair at the defense table.

Was she attempting to move herself closer to the jury?

Not so, McDougal insisted. She just couldn’t see the witness.

The judge stepped down from the bench and took the seat next to McDougal. The view from there seemed fine, he reported.

“It appears the area where the witness is seated is visible,” Light said.

“There’s no witness,” protested defense attorney Mark Geragos. “You cannot see the witness’ face when she is testifying, especially when she is addressing the jury.”

*

Although this skirmish, like the others, occurred when jurors were not in the courtroom, McDougal’s demeanor has not escaped at least one juror’s notice.

On Friday, testimony was delayed for most of the morning after a juror sent Light a note alleging that McDougal was not “taking these proceedings seriously.”

Light read the note into the trial record, saying the juror wrote that McDougal was acting as if the trial “is a social gathering.”

The anonymous juror also complained that McDougal was glaring at some witnesses, and had been chatting with her boyfriend, attorney Pat Harris, and her brother, former Arkansas state Sen. Bill “Friendly” Henley.

One such incident occurred Thursday, as a witness testified about the seriousness of McDougal’s relationship with Harris.

According to the testimony, Harris had described himself as McDougal’s fiance, but McDougal had called him just a “boyfriend.”

As the judge and the lawyers huddled at the bench, McDougal rose from her seat and walked over to Harris, seated in the first row of the spectators’ section. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he placed his hand on hers. They gazed into each other’s eyes as they spoke softly.

*

McDougal, who worked for famed symphony conductor Zubin Mehta and his actress-wife, Nancy, from 1989 to 1992, is charged with embezzling $150,000 from the couple.

She is under house arrest for fraud and conspiracy convictions stemming from the Whitewater land deal.

She has said in interviews that she regrets her courtroom behavior during that case. Reports have indicated that she and former husband James McDougal laughed and joked during that trial.

She also faces a trial in Arkansas this fall on charges of contempt of court and obstruction of justice for refusing to tell a grand jury about her Whitewater dealings with President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Defense attorney Geragos has asserted that Nancy Mehta authorized the checks McDougal wrote and credit card purchases she made on the Mehtas’ accounts.

Geragos told jurors that Nancy Mehta had devised a scheme to empty the accounts every month so Zubin Mehta could not send money to his children.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Semow says McDougal took the money on her own initiative, attempting to return to the life of privilege she had known before her and James McDougal’s bank and real estate investments collapsed.