Clinton Attorney Rejects Call for $300,000 Penalty

Paula Corbin Jones’ lawyers want President Clinton to pay at least $300,000 as a penalty for contempt of court, a figure his attorney calls “outrageous and greedy.”

John C. Whitehead, one of Jones’ lawyers, said that attorneys who assisted the former Arkansas state employee were not adequately paid for their work when they received portions of a settlement Clinton paid to Jones earlier this year.

“As far as being greedy, everyone took far less than what they put in,” said Whitehead. A final figure, which Jones’ lawyers will finalize Thursday, could exceed $300,000, he said.

They recently approached Clinton’s attorneys to inquire if the president would agree to pay the $300,000 to settle a judge’s historic contempt ruling.

The inquiry comes less than a month after U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright concluded that Clinton intentionally gave false testimony during Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit. The judge ordered him to repay her lawyers any “reasonable expenses” they incurred as a result.

Jones’ lawyers made the approach to Clinton’s attorneys in the last week, first in a phone call and then in a letter. They had hoped to present to the judge a sum to which both sides had agreed.

Now, Wright probably will have to decide if Jones’ reimbursement request is reasonable and amounts to an adequate penalty for the first president ever to be found in contempt of court.

Clinton’s lawyer signaled that the president would contest any amount that approached $300,000.

“That’s what they suggested and it is outrageous and greedy and, I think, a gross misunderstanding of the court’s order,” attorney Robert S. Bennett said.

Any money Clinton is ordered to reimburse Jones for legal bills is above and beyond the $850,000 he paid her earlier this year to settle her charges that he made an unwanted sexual advance at a Little Rock, Ark., hotel in 1991. At the time, Clinton was Arkansas governor and Jones was a state worker.

Clinton denies any wrongdoing and said he settled the sexual harassment case, which prompted the disclosure of his affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and the subsequent impeachment proceedings, simply to bring an end to a public crisis.