nytimes.com
Political Drama Abounds in Trial Involving Mrs. Clinton's Hollywood Fund-Raiser
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
WASHINGTON, May 8 - It is a cast worthy of a political thriller: a former convict whose claims about a former president and first lady spurred a criminal investigation; a prominent senator's brother-in-law, who worked undercover for federal agents looking into the case; political enemies of the former first family trying to dig up fresh dirt; and some of Hollywood's biggest stars.
All these characters will share some of the spotlight beginning Tuesday in a Los Angeles courtroom, where David F. Rosen, the former fund-raising director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, will go on trial on charges that he illegally underreported the cost of a fund-raiser held for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign.
The case is being closely watched because of its political implications for Mrs. Clinton, who is not only running for re-election next year but is also considered a leading Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2008. While she has not been accused of any wrongdoing and is not expected to testify, the trial represents another potentially embarrassing chapter for the Clintons, who have been criticized for their associations with other questionable figures.
The federal government's criminal case is largely built around the claims of Peter Paul, an ex-convict who turned on the Clintons after producing a lavish Hollywood fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in 2000. Specifically, he claims that Mrs. Clinton's campaign staff did not disclose that he had spent nearly $2 million on the event, money that should have been reported as a contribution to Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign.
Mr. Paul said he organized and served as a co-host for the affair - a star-studded gala that charged $1,000 a person - to win former President Bill Clinton's support for Stan Lee Media, an Internet venture he had started with Mr. Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man.
"An ex-president is the best rainmaker you can get," Mr. Paul said in a recent telephone interview from his apartment in North Carolina, where he is free on bail while awaiting sentencing in an unrelated criminal case.
But Mr. Paul says the Clintons and their associates turned their backs on him after The Washington Post disclosed his criminal past, which includes his guilty plea in 1979 to cocaine possession and an attempt to defraud the government of Fidel Castro out of millions of dollars.
Representatives of the Clintons have dismissed Mr. Paul's claims. And they have sought to discredit him as a shady person whose role in the 2000 fund-raiser stemmed only from his connection to the company he had started with Mr. Lee, who was listed as the host of the event, according to a copy of a program. Other luminaries on the program included Gray Davis, the former governor of California; Gregory Peck; Norman Lear; and Rob Reiner.
The indictment against Mr. Rosen states that he falsely reported that the gala cost $401,419 when it actually cost at least $1.2 million, a figure that includes at least $1.1 million worth of in-kind contributions of goods and services used to stage the gala. Prosecutors are apparently working under the premise that underreporting these in-kind contributions would have freed up additional "hard money" that the Clinton campaign could directly spend in the election itself, under a complicated series of campaign-finance formulas governing such expenditures.
But the defense is expected to argue that Mr. Rosen had no way of knowing that the figures he reported were wrong because he had relied on information provided by Mr. Paul and others who arranged the event. "It's not as though David Rosen wrote the checks," said one person involved in the case.
Mr. Paul says that he regularly kept Mr. Rosen apprised of production costs and that he decided to go public with his concerns after discovering that the finance disclosure statements filed by the Clinton campaign were at odds with his own records. But allies of the Clintons say Mr. Paul made the accusations in an attempt to cut a deal with prosecutors investigating financial improprieties at Stan Lee Media.
Prosecutors said in a court filing on Thursday that Mr. Paul would not be called to testify. Yet his charges prompted the investigation and have given a new stage to the cast of colorful characters surrounding the Clintons, at a time when the couple have been trying to move past the intrigue that engulfed them during their White House years.
In the process, Mr. Rosen, 40, who faces five years in prison on each of three charges against him, could become a bit player at his own trial.
Recently, for example, it was disclosed that a brother-in-law of Senator Edward M. Kennedy had been working as an informer in the case against Mr. Rosen. The brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie, was among the scores of donors to Mrs. Clinton's campaign who got to spend the night at the White House and Camp David.
Mr. Reggie - a member of a politically prominent Louisiana family, whose sister, Victoria, is married to Senator Kennedy - gave at least $7,330 in direct contributions to Mrs. Clinton's campaign, according to records. He was also on a committee that held a luncheon for Mrs. Clinton in New Orleans that raised an estimated $100,000 for her campaign, according to published reports.
People involved in the case say he wore a wire during a dinner with Mr. Rosen and recorded their conversation. In the tapes, Mr. Reggie steered the conversation into a discussion about the production costs of the 2000 Hollywood fund-raiser, according to a person involved in the case.
Mr. Rosen, in turn, told Mr. Reggie of his frustration at having to deal with Mr. Paul, whom he described as an unreliable character, according to people familiar with the case.
While it is unclear what impact the tapes will have on the case the federal government is pursuing against Mr. Rosen, the disclosures about Mr. Reggie's role as an undercover informer led to a flurry of speculation over whether he had recorded conversations with anyone else associated with the Clintons.
The case has re-energized many of the couple's longtime critics, as the Clintons seek to establish new political roles - he as an elder statesman and she as a leading presidential contender.
In an effort to publicize his allegations against the Clintons, Mr. Paul recently enlisted the help of the United States Justice Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy group.
The group, in turn, plans to employ its direct-mail operation to raise money for the Hillary Clinton Accountability Project, a venture meant to disseminate potentially damaging information about the Clintons, and cover the costs of a civil lawsuit Mr. Paul has filed against them. The suit says Mr. Paul claims he gave close to $2 million in services and donations to Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign based on promises - unfulfilled, it says - that Mr. Clinton would join his Internet venture.
The Accountability Project is reminiscent of the Arkansas Project, an enterprise at The American Spectator magazine in which a multimillion-dollar fund paid for efforts to dig up dirt on the Clintons' dealings before they came to Washington.
Recently, the Justice Foundation created a Web site, hillcap.org, that invites visitors to make a contribution of at least $50, which will entitle them to a 90-minute film of the 2000 fund-raiser. According to the indictment against Mr. Rosen, the gala, billed as the Hollywood Gala Salute to William Jefferson Clinton, raised more than $1 million for Mrs. Clinton's campaign.
According to the Web site, the film shows more than a thousand guests - including the Clintons - attending a concert with performances by Cher, Melissa Etheridge, Patti LaBelle, Diana Ross, Toni Braxton, Michael Bolton and Paul Anka.
The Web site, which also includes photos of Mr. Paul hobnobbing with both Clintons, said the film captured "an unforgettable and emotional evening that brought tears to Bill Clinton's eyes." It also described the film as "evidence of the biggest campaign finance fraud in American history."
The Justice Foundation is only the latest group of Clinton critics to get involved in the case. Initially, Mr. Paul's case was championed, in the courts and in the news media, by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that hounded the Clintons during their White House years.
But the relationship between Mr. Paul and officials at Judicial Watch ended in acrimony, with Mr. Paul accusing the group of using his case merely to raise money from conservative donors opposed to the Clintons. |
