Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- April 1, 1998
Beauty queen says sex with Clinton was consensual
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Elizabeth Ward Gracen, the former Miss America who fled the country rather than testify in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit, acknowledges she had sex with Bill Clinton in 1983 but denies being a victim of unwanted sexual overtures.
Miss Gracen, who previously denied having sex with Mr. Clinton, came forward to rebut what she said were false accusations that the former Arkansas governor had forced himself on her during an encounter in a limousine.
The beauty queen-turned-actress said in an interview published yesterday in the New York Daily News that the encounter was consensual and that a sworn deposition in the Jones case by a former friend, Judy Stokes, saying she had been forced to have sex with the governor was false.
"It's completely false," Miss Gracen said. "The lies gain credibility every day that I don't address them. I had to put a stop to it. It's become a three-ring circus. This is something I don't want to talk about at all. It's no one's business at all."
Miss Gracen was reluctant to come forward earlier out of fear of becoming "another victim of the Clintonites," a Hollywood acquaintance told The Washington Times. Friends said she was afraid her testimony would get her trashed like witnesses before her.
Miss Stokes, in a sworn deposition in the Jones case, said Miss Gracen told her in the mid-1980s that Mr. Clinton had forced her to have sex in the back seat of the limousine.
Miss Gracen, who appears on the TV series "Highlander," told the newspaper that Mr. Clinton "never acted improperly, never asked me to lie, never gave me a job," but she added that the encounter with Mr. Clinton was "a very bad error in judgment."
"You think you can get away with these things, but they always come back down the road," she said.
At the time of the incident, Mr. Clinton was married and his daughter, Chelsea, was 3.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones' attorneys yesterday told the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright went too far in excluding evidence about former White House intern Monica Lewinsky from their case and asked the court to overturn the decision.
"The Lewinsky discovery seeks highly relevant and admissible evidence, especially in this case where the parties' and witnesses' credibility is probably the swing determinant," the attorneys said.
The trial is scheduled to begin May 27. The Jones defense team said Judge Wright's orders "deprive Mrs. Jones of key evidence" in the case and that the need for grand jury secrecy "could easily be met" by a delay in the start of the trial.
"In short, to appease Mr. Clinton individually as a politician, the district court unjustifiably terminated the Lewinsky discovery to preserve the scheduled trial date," said the attorneys, adding that independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr asked only for a delay in admitting Lewinsky evidence in the Jones suit and not a ban while he conducted a parallel criminal probe.
Judge Wright warned attorneys in the case yesterday not to reveal in court papers the identities of women who choose to remain anonymous. On Saturday, Mrs. Jones' attorneys identified a woman they said was sexually assaulted by Mr. Clinton in the 1970s.
"The court cannot ignore the fact that the parties have filed a number of contentious pleadings and have perhaps engaged in activities in violation of court orders," she said, warning she could impose a wide range of sanctions.
The judge also said she was close to ruling on a request by Mr. Clinton's attorney, Robert S. Bennett, to dismiss the lawsuit, but she did not say when.
Also yesterday, the federal grand jury in the Lewinsky sex-and-lies investigation heard for the fourth time from Nancy Hernreich, the president's chief of Oval Office operations. Grand jurors also heard testimony from Marsha Scott, deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of presidential personnel. It was her third appearance.
Miss Scott and Miss Hernreich are among several White House aides with knowledge of Miss Lewinsky's White House work history who have testified. Mr. Starr is investigating accusations by Miss Lewinsky on 20 hours of secretly recorded audiotape that she had an 18-month affair with Mr. Clinton and that the president and others, including White House insider Vernon E. Jordan Jr., told her to lie about it in the Jones suit.
In the Jones case, her attorneys had sought to link Miss Gracen to the president to establish a pattern of unwanted sexual advances and deliver one of the women they contend was tracked down by White House aide Bruce R. Lindsey's Little Rock law firm and offered a payoff for silence.
Miss Gracen jetted from one continent to another to avoid subpoena servers who have been one city behind her since they missed her at home Christmas Day in Russellville, Ark. She was tracked to Las Vegas and to Princeton, N.J. She also went to St. Martin in the Caribbean and to Paris.
Friends and associates said the actress did not want to testify in the Jones case because she was afraid it would damage her personally and professionally. In a voice-mail message left for Tom Squitieri, a USA Today reporter covering the Jones case, she said: "I do not want to be a party to women being unjustly humiliated in the media and victimized by politicians' agenda."
Miss Stokes testified that Miss Gracen told her she "was with Bill Clinton in the back seat of his limousine and that he had come on to her, and she ended up having sex with him." She said the former Miss America was suffering marriage troubles at the time that she blamed on the Clinton link, was tearful and denied she ever wanted sex with Mr. Clinton.
"It wasn't an affair. He just pressured her into it," Miss Stokes said, in explaining why they felt it was truthful to deny an affair.
Arkansas state Trooper Larry Patterson testified that his boss, Raymond L. "Buddy" Young, told him he went to Texas to talk with Miss Gracen and came away with the view that "if the money's right, I know she'll keep her mouth shut."
Miss Gracen was one of five women named in a 1990 state lawsuit filed by Clinton opponent Larry Nichols as having been involved sexually with the governor. The suit was dropped for lack of evidence.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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