- Jim McDougal
James B. (Jim) McDougal (
August 25 ,1940 –March 8 ,1998 ), a native ofWhite County, Arkansas , and his wife,Susan McDougal (the former Susan Carol Hendley), were financial partners withBill Clinton andHillary Rodham Clinton in thereal estate venture that led to the Whitewater political scandal of the 1990s. Starting in 1982, McDougal operatedMadison Guaranty Savings and Loan.On
April 14 ,1997 , McDougal was convicted of eighteenfelony counts offraud and conspiracy charges. The counts had to do with bad loans made by Madison in the late 1980s. As his savings and loan was federally-insured, the $68 million was paid by taxpayers. During the McDougal case, special prosecutorKenneth Starr requested a reduced sentence for McDougal because of McDougal's assistance in the investigation.He joined with his wife, from whom he was later
divorce d, and the Clintons to borrow $203,000 to buy land in theOzark Mountains forvacation homes. When the development failed, he attempted to cover the losses with S&L funds. McDougal was prosecuted for fraud in 1984 and hired theRose Law Firm which Hillary Clinton was a partner of to defend him. Questions remain in regard to Mrs. Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records on Madison Guaranty and how much work she actually did. McDougal also held a fundraiser that paid off Clinton's then campaign debt of $50,000. Madison cashier's checks accounted for $12,000 of the funds raised.Jim McDougal was also found by federal regulators to have made fraudulent loans with regards to his
Castle Grande project that was a real estate development about 10 minutes south of Little Rock. The project was a convert|1050|acre|km2|sing=on lot where he hoped to build microbrewery, shopping center, a trailer park and other future projects in 1985. The sales price was $1.75 million. State regulations prohibited Jim McDougal from investing more than 6% of his S&L assets in the project. So, he put in $600,000 of Madison money and then for the difference had Seth Ward put in the remaining $1.15 million. This money Ward borrowed from Madison Guaranty on non-recourse loan. Jim worried that if federal regulators found out the S&L could be shut down, since it had already been operating under orders to correct its lending practices.Jim McDougal, a staunch Democrat, was a former aide to the late
U.S. Senator James William Fulbright . He later was apolitical science professor atOuachita Baptist University inArkadelphia in Clark County. Another Arkansaspolitician ,Bob Cowley Riley ,lieutenant governor from 1971-1975, also taught political science at OBU.McDougal died of a heart attack in federal prison in
Fort Worth, Texas . The circumstances of his death remain questionable: he was apparently denied access to his heart medication, and he was placed insolitary confinement without the medication.In 1982, McDougal made a failed bid for the
United States House of Representatives against the Republicanincumbent John Paul Hammerschmidt in Arkansas's northwesterly Third Congressional District. Hammerschmidt, who had a reputation for excellent constituent services, polled 133,909 votes (66 percent) to McDougal's 69,089 (34 percent). Coincidentally, Clinton himself had been defeated by Hammerschmidt in this same district in 1974.References
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/timeline2.htm Washington Post time line]
* [http://www.cnn.com/US/9604/13/whitewater.background/index.html CNN whitewater report]
* [http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/gen/resources/infocus/whitewater/ak.roots.html CNN report]
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/05/19/archive/main9813.shtml CBS]
* [http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/09/14/mcdougal/ CNN Report: McDougal had no access to his heart medication nor doctors just before his death]
* [http://www.geocities.com/botenth/jim.htm Hickman Ewing reduced Jim McDougal's prison sentence in exchange for testimony that Susan McDougal refused to confirm.]
* PBS, WGBH educational foundation, Frontline, [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/docs/recs.html]
* "Appraiser on Madison Loans in Plea Accord" NY Times, By STEPHEN LABATON, Published: December 6, 1994 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9407EFD61739F935A35751C1A962958260]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.