Who Is Susan McDougal’s Husband?

Another brother, Bill “Friendly” Henley, served a term in the Arkansas State Senate. Susan made an appearance and a speech at the announcement of his candidacy. At a December 5, 2011 Chanukah Special, taped at the Clinton library in Little Rock, McDougal told her story and promoted her book, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Talk, which she co-wrote with attorney and former fiancé, Eugene Patterson Harris.

One of her brothers, Jim Henley, ran as a Democrat in the 2006 election for Texas’s 7th congressional district. He lost to incumbent Representative John Culberson, but was elected to the Harris County Department of Education Position 7 at-large in late 2008.

She received a full presidential pardon from Clinton in the final hours of his presidency in 2001.

A suit in 1999 against Nancy Mehta for malicious prosecution was settled out of court.

A suit in 1999 against Nancy Mehta for malicious prosecution was settled out of court.

McDougal’s trial for criminal charges of contempt of court and obstruction of justice began in March 1999. The jury deadlocked 7–5 in her favor on the charge of contempt of court and found her not guilty on the charge of obstruction of justice. In 2001, in the final hours of his presidency, President Clinton granted McDougal a full presidential pardon.

Following her release on March 7, 1998 for civil contempt of court, McDougal began serving the two-year sentence for her 1996 conviction.

After McDougal’s release, her embezzlement trial in California began. In 1998, McDougal was acquitted on all 12 counts.

McDougal was convicted of her role in Whitewater on May 28, 1996, and was sentenced to spend time in prison for four counts of fraud and conspiracy relating to the Whitewater scandal, but her prison term did not begin until March 7, 1998, as there were other court proceedings. Following her ex-husband’s James (Jim) B. McDougal’s conviction but prior to his sentencing, he began to co-operate with the Office of Independent Counsel and tried to persuade her to do likewise to avoid a prison sentence.

Susan’s defense lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that her ex-husband told her that Deputy Independent Counsel W. Hickman Ewing Jr. would be able to “get Clinton with a sex charge” before the 1996 election if she agreed to lie and say she had had an affair with Clinton. She has always denied ever having had an affair with Clinton.

Rejecting her ex-husband’s advice, McDougal’s sentencing hearing began August 19, 1996. After the judge levied a sentence of two years in federal prison but before she left the courtroom, Starr had her served with a subpoena for another Whitewater grand jury, to begin two weeks later.

From September 9, 1996 to March 6, 1998, McDougal spent the maximum possible 18 months’ imprisonment for civil contempt, including eight months in solitary confinement, and she was subjected to “diesel therapy,” described by McDougal as “the practice of hauling defendants around the country and placing them in different jails along the way.”

On August 5, 1994, Kenneth Starr became Independent Counsel to prosecute McDougal and other Whitewater participants. Her federal trial began in 1996, in which the government’s star witness, Arkansas banker and former municipal judge David Hale, claimed that Governor Bill Clinton had discussed an illegal $300,000 loan with him and McDougal. Hale was himself under investigation for having defrauded the SBA out of $3.2 million. He also unsuccessfully sought to have his brother Milas Hale corroborate his testimony against Clinton.

McDougal separated from her husband in the late 1980s and moved to Los Angeles, California. There, from 1989 to 1992, she worked in Los Angeles as a personal assistant to former actress Nancy Kovack, the wife of conductor Zubin Mehta. In late 1993, McDougal was charged with embezzling money from the Mehtas and began preparing her successful defense against the charges. After her release, her embezzlement trial in California began. In 1998, McDougal was acquitted on all 12 counts.

McDougal grew up as Susan Carol Henley in Heidelberg, West Germany, the daughter of James B. Henley and Laurette (Mathieu) Henley. Susan McDougal was married from 1976 to 1990 to James McDougal, also of Little Rock, Arkansas. The McDougals were partners with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the failed Whitewater real estate venture in the 1980s.

Susan Carol McDougal (née Henley; born 1955) is one of the many people prosecuted as a result of the Whitewater controversy of the 15 individuals who were convicted of federal charges.