Cher Has Cameo Role in Clinton Gala Testimony
By LESLIE EATON
Published: May 20, 2005
LOS ANGELES, May 19 - For all the flamboyant figures swirling around the criminal trial of Hillary Rodham Clinton's former chief fund-raiser, the most damaging testimony against him may well have come from a tiny woman in Mary Janes who had the manner of a high school accounting teacher.
Her name is Whitney W. Burns, and she took the stand for the prosecution on Thursday in its case against David F. Rosen, who was the national finance director for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. Mr. Rosen is charged with three counts of causing false filings to be made to the Federal Election Commission; Ms. Burns is the compliance officer who prepared the filings.
The filings in question involved the finances of a fund-raising event called the Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton. Mr. Rosen is accused of reporting only $400,000 in costs for that event when, according to prosecutors, the actual total exceeded $1.1 million. He has denied the charges, and has said that he was misled about the cost of the gala.
The prosecution has said that Mr. Rosen had hoped that underreporting the fund-raiser's cost would help Mrs. Clinton's campaign or his own career. As Ms. Burns walked jurors through various budgets for the event, she said that shortly before the Aug. 12, 2000, gala, Mr. Rosen told her that the expenses had dropped by about $100,000.
Mr. Rosen, she said, had an explanation - an explanation that was untrue, according to other evidence presented to the jury.
When pressed by prosecutors about the reason for the falling expenses, Ms. Burns said that Mr. Rosen "mentioned that Cher had dropped out and there wouldn't be any expenses for her band."
But Cher did perform at the gala - the jurors have seen a DVD of her with crimped hair and silvery clothes, singing two numbers. They have also heard testimony that more than $31,000 was spent on a private plane that Cher and her entourage shared with another musical group.
Ms. Burns also linked Mr. Rosen to a mysterious invoice, for $200,000, that prosecutors have contended was false. She said Mr. Rosen faxed her the invoice after she asked him for documentation of a production expense listed on several budgets, which were often adjusted.
Several witnesses have testified about the same invoice, including a party planner who said yesterday that she had asked a producer of the event to provide it. The planner, Bretta J. Nock, at first said Mr. Rosen had asked her for it, but admitted under cross-examination that she has at times said she was not sure who made the request.
The producer who provided it, Allan J. Baumrucker, testified earlier that Ms. Nock told him it had been requested by a man named James Levin.
Mr. Levin, a self-described "dear friend" of former President Clinton, has also testified against Mr. Rosen at the trial, after agreeing to plead guilty to a felony stemming from a scheme to defraud the Chicago public schools. Under his plea agreement, cooperating in the Rosen case may help persuade a judge to sentence him to less than the 20 years in prison he might have faced.
A man in a similar situation took the stand on Thursday - Raymond C. Reggie, a New Orleans businessman and political operative who is the brother-in-law of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Last month, Mr. Reggie pleaded guilty to bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, involving a check-kiting scheme and faked collateral for a loan; he testified on Thursday that he faces five years in prison, fines and $3.5 million in restitution. He also said he hoped for a lighter sentence in return for his cooperation in this Rosen case.
The defense also brought out that Mr. Reggie had been charged with impersonating a police officer in Louisiana, using a blue light, given to him by a local sheriff, on his car. Saying that the charges had been dismissed, Mr. Reggie insisted that his actions had been proper because he had an honorary commission as a police officer.
After describing his close relationship with former President Clinton, Mr. Reggie described how he had been asked to help in Mrs. Clinton's campaign, and had put on fund-raising events for her.
He was also on the host committee for the Hollywood gala, and said that shortly before that event, at a lounge at L'Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills, Mr. Rosen told him that a producer of the concert portion of the event was charging half a million dollars - more than all the expenses reported for the entire gala.
Another time, he said, Mr. Rosen told him that "the last-minute costs crushed him."
After Mr. Reggie started cooperating with the F.B.I. in 2002, he arranged to have dinner with Mr. Rosen at a Chicago restaurant and wore a wire. The government did not introduce the tapes or transcripts from that meeting into evidence.
Mr. Sandler accused Mr. Reggie of trying - and failing - to trap Mr. Rosen into repeating the things he supposedly said about the gala to Mr. Reggie in 2000.
Mr. Reggie replied that he was trying "to recall and rehash" the gala. "To this day, I would still love to talk about the event," Mr. Reggie said. "It was a huge, grandiose event."
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