Reprinted from The Washington Times, March 13, 1998
Arkansas colleague tells
of Clinton receiving oral sex
in state office
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
A former Arkansas official has told an attorney for Paula Jones that he witnessed an oral sex episode in his own office between Gov. Bill Clinton and a young state worker, according to a source familiar with the men's meeting.
Former Secretary of State William J. McCuen identified the woman involved in the episode, naming her as one of two female staff members at the secretary of state's office who accompanied McCuen on his controversial 1990 road trip to seven cities in which all three reportedly shared hotel rooms.
McCuen also told the lawyer that when Mr. Clinton saw Mrs. Jones, then Paula Corbin, for the first time at the state Capitol, he said, "God, who's that?" and commented on the young clerk's "good body and tight clothes."
Mr. McCuen reportedly made the statements to Robert Rader, a lawyer with the Dallas firm that took over Mrs. Jones' case in October, during a meeting at the Texarkana, Ark., prison, where McCuen is serving a 17-year state sentence for corruption.
The Washington Times has learned that Mr. Rader went to see McCuen again Thursday, this time at a prison in Pine Bluff, Ark., where McCuen is receiving special medical care.
Until recently, McCuen has been a reluctant witness in the case. While dangling incriminating tidbits before Mrs. Jones' attorneys, he vowed to recant if subpoenaed, fearing the parole board's retaliation if he went public against the former governor.
"I'm telling you all this, but I'll lie if put under oath," he said to Mr. Rader, according to the source.
But McCuen, 54, is said to have reassessed that stand since learning in recent weeks that he is dying of colon cancer and might not live long enough even to attend his first parole hearing next March.
A source familiar with Thursday's meeting said Mr. Rader apparently sought a written declaration from McCuen to buttress Mrs. Jones' legal response to motions asking U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright to throw the lawsuit out of court on a summary judgment. It was not learned whether he succeeded.
The deadline for filing that response is Friday, and it was expected to be hundreds of pages long, including documentary evidence and testimony from previously sealed witness depositions, including that of Mr. Clinton.
As a convicted felon, any testimony by McCuen would be attacked by attorneys for the president, but he also brings some stature: He was a multiterm secretary of state and in 1992 defeated incumbent Rep. Beryl Anthony Jr. for the 4th District Democratic congressional nomination in which Mr. Clinton took sides with Mr. Anthony.
McCuen lost the congressional race by 10,000 votes to Republican Jay Dickey in 1992 and then lost re-election to his own job in 1994.
He was indicted the following year for charges involving a $53,560 purchase of flags from a nonexistent company and several other corruption counts. McCuen pleaded guilty, expecting a suspended sentence as a public servant admitting victimless crimes. He got 17 years.
If a jury believed McCuen now, that oral sex anecdote and others he related could be vital to Mrs. Jones' case because they corroborate her charge of "quid pro quo" sexual harassment at work -- using a governor's power to reward women who cooperate and punish those like her who did not.
In the first meeting at the Texarkana prison, McCuen told Mr. Rader that he first told the governor the identity of Paula Corbin. That was some unspecified time before the governor summoned her to his suite at the Excelsior Hotel.
His testimony about Mr. Clinton's comments about the woman would buttress the claim that the governor considered her a sexual target before summoning her May 8, 1991, to his suite, where Mrs. Jones says he groped her, exposed his penis and said, "Kiss it."
McCuen also said he advised the governor to arrange a state job requested by his admitted sexual partner Gennifer Flowers.
"With what she knows, you've got to give her a job," McCuen said he told the governor, the source said.
And he described watching Mr. Clinton flirt and pay attention to Mrs. Flowers in the presence of Hillary Rodham Clinton during a Democratic fund-raiser at the Capitol Club in Little Rock.
McCuen's current lawyer, John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock, gave permission to contact his client about the episode, but McCuen sent word through a prison official that he didn't care to discuss it with The Times.
Mrs. Jones' attorneys cited the gag order when asked about McCuen.
McCuen collects a $2,722-a-month pension despite the convictions. After entering prison in 1996, McCuen married Rhonda Langster, who headed his elections division and ethics office. He spends occasional weekend furloughs at their Hot Springs home.
Until chemotherapy last week left him too sick to work, McCuen held a job outside the Texarkana prison as manager of a Mr. Gatti's pizza shop. Thursday, assistant manager Ron Ferguson said McCuen never got specific about his relationship with Mr. Clinton.
"He said he had some run-ins with Clinton but never explained that to me. I liked him. He always was straight and honest with me," Mr. Ferguson said.
Pulaski County prosecutor Larry Jagley said here Thursday that McCuen never told any Clinton-related anecdotes while seeking a light sentence.
"He has zero credibility with me and this office. He was difficult to catch, not helpful or truthful," Mr. Jagley said.
By coincidence, Mr. Jagley's wife, Angela Jagley -- now a federal prosecutor so aggressive she is nicknamed "the mongoose" -- was the assistant attorney general who defended McCuen in official lawsuits against the state.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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