McDougal looking forward to ‘quiet life’

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 9:25 a.m.

Just moments after Susan McDougal said she wanted to live a quiet life, fraud investigators, auditors and attorneys mobbed her Tuesday, asking for autographs and pictures.

"I think she has a lot of integrity," Ray Lichauer, a fraud analyst from Pittsfield, Mass., said as he admired his autograph.

Ms. McDougal, who spent 18 months in jail for refusing to testify against President Clinton in the Whitewater probe, easily won over the crowd of 1,100 attending the 10th annual Association of Certified Fraud Examiners conference here.

Ms. McDougal, 45, stood outside a conference room at Caesars Palace hotel-casino until everyone who wanted an autograph got one. "Overwhelming," she said.

Conference organizers invited Ms. McDougal to speak on "beating embezzlement charges." Ms. McDougal, who told reporters she was broke, was not paid for her appearance.

But for a person who said she is looking forward to a quiet life, Tuesday might have been an indication of things to come.

She hasn't ruled out a book deal or a television movie, but for now Ms. McDougal said she is comfortable living in Camden, Ark., caring for her parents. She's engaged to her longtime friend, attorney Pat Harris, and said she wants to spend time helping women in prison.

"The abuses in the jail system in this country are unbelievable," she said in a news conference after her speech.

McDougal told the group about working as a bookkeeper and personal assistant to famed conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy, from 1989 to 1992. Ms. McDougal was accused of stealing $50,000 from the couple, but was acquitted of the charges in November.

She spent much of her speech talking about the embezzlement charges and barely mentioned her connection to the Whitewater affair and the Clintons.

Ms. McDougal was acquitted of obstructing justice in a recent Arkansas federal trial stemming from independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr's investigation. She also spent 3 1/2 months of a two-year sentence in a Whitewater-related loan fraud case. Also convicted in that case were her ex-husband James McDougal, who died in prison, and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker.

Ms. McDougal's reference to Starr as "the moral arbiter of America" was a bit nicer than her past statements about him, but she said jail helped her work through her anger.

She called Clinton "the greatest president of this century," and said she will support Mrs. Clinton if she seeks a Senate seat from New York next year.

"She certainly is believable," said David Reuben, a private investigator from San Francisco. "She won a lot of people over here."

And Susan McDougal, who has to have one of the most recognizable names in the country, isn't going to be Susan McDougal much longer. After she marries, she'll change her name to Susan Harris and hopefully, fade into the simpler life. No wedding date has been set.

"I just want a quiet life," she said.