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Former Arkansas governor loses appeal
AP ^ | 10/18

Posted on 10/18/2004 8:11:20 AM PDT by SmithL

WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider whether former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was wrongly barred from raising new arguments in challenging his 1998 conviction for tax conspiracy.

Tucker pleaded guilty to the charge, but now wants to have his conviction overturned based on new information. His attorney had asked the court to use the case to clarify when defendants can get new evidence before a judge.

Separately, Tucker was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 1996 in a joint trial with former President Clinton's one-time business partners, James and Susan McDougal. They had been accused of scheming in the mid-1980s to make illegal loans.

An independent counsel spent more than six years investigating the business dealings of the Clintons. In all, 14 people were convicted in what became known as the Whitewater investigations.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: clintonista; tucker
a w w w w w w w w w w w w w
1 posted on 10/18/2004 8:11:21 AM PDT by SmithL
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To: SmithL

Bill & Hillary Clinton still running free...


2 posted on 10/18/2004 8:13:43 AM PDT by Coop (In memory of a true hero - Pat Tillman)
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To: SmithL

He never really had much appeal, IMO.


3 posted on 10/18/2004 8:14:31 AM PDT by Sloth ("Rather is TV's real-life Ted Baxter, without Baxter's quiet dignity." -- Ann Coulter)
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To: SmithL

Whitewater
Jim Guy Tucker Plea Agreement

This agreement allowed former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker to protect himself against further prosecution by independent counsel Kenneth Starr in return for a guilty plea to charges of defrauding the federal government by filing misleading bankruptcy papers. In return for the two dropped counts, the February 20, 1998 plea required that Tucker cooperate with Starr's Whitewater investigation and potentially to testify at trial for Starr. Since the plea, Tucker has appeared before Starr's Little Rock grand jury to give testimony, presumably about his knowledge of Arkansas land deals in which Tucker was involved and which may have included involvement by President Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Tucker said he agreed to the plea in order to save himself a prison term, which he said would have been a "death sentence" due to his ailing health. He will likely receive probation instead and will have to pay some back taxes.


4 posted on 10/18/2004 8:20:15 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: SmithL

I was hoping this meant the Demoncrats were trading in their Lewinsky knee-pads.

Guess not -- you know what they say about stupidity -- "In the morning, I will be sober."



5 posted on 10/18/2004 8:21:39 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (The cool points are out the window, and you got me all twisted up in the game)
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To: SmithL

Sorry,Wrong"Former Arkansas Governor"!!!!!


6 posted on 10/18/2004 8:22:59 AM PDT by bandleader
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To: SmithL

I thought this would be about Slick Willie!


7 posted on 10/18/2004 8:27:32 AM PDT by RockinRight (John Kerry is the wrong candidate, for the wrong country, at the wrong time)
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To: Coop

Jan. 15, 1995, details the cable systems dealings that led to former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker's guilty plea...


It was a bargain-hunter's dream. A multimillion-dollar fire sale.

For $6.5 million, Jim Guy Tucker had a chance to buy a small cable company and, within months, sell part of it for millions more than he paid.

All he had to do was finalize the deals. Or so he thought. But in the last few months of 1987, surprised by a stock-ownership claim from a fired employee, the company ducked into bankruptcy court in Texas.

The wide-ranging investigation of Gov. Tucker by Whitewater investigators has focused on this Texas bankruptcy.

The grand jury in Little Rock was briefed shortly before it recessed in December on the hastily filed bankruptcy from which Tucker made millions of dollars within three weeks after a reorganization plan was approved.

They also were presented with details about Tucker's tax returns from that period, according to a source who asked not to be identified.

The trail to the Texas bankruptcy winds through Iowa, Arkansas and Florida. It covers a complex series of transactions with Tucker's then-business associate William Marks Sr. It involves an on-again, off-again merger, a sealed settlement and accusations by a fired accountant.

A review of the bankruptcy of Landowners Management Systems Inc. raises some questions about how much the court was told -- or not told. The bankruptcy petition does not disclose the close business ties between Tucker and Marks in 1987 or the negotiations at that time to sell one of the assets, a small cable company in Plantation, Fla.

Tucker would not respond to questions about the bankruptcy, said spokesman Max Parker.

Tucker's attorney, John Haley, said any flaws in the bankruptcy are minor.

"There was a great hurry to get this over with because of the impact it would have on the business," Haley said. "Sure, there's bound to be some inaccuracies or incomplete statements in there.

"There were some awful problems we were trying to clean up, but remember, everyone got paid."

When Tucker met William Marks Sr. in early 1987, he was trying to sell Marks a small Texas cable company -- not buy a bigger system.

At the time, Marks was president of Planned Cable Systems Corp. Its assets included three suburban cable companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well as a small cable system near Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Tucker thought his company in Southlake, Texas, would fit well with the systems Planned Cable already operated in that area.

Tucker and his wife, Betty, had begun investing in the fledgling cable television industry in 1983 as a way to pay off $250,000 in debts from his failed 1982 race against Bill Clinton for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

They bought part of County Cable Inc., a small Arkansas company with three employees working out of a converted garage office. It filled a gap by providing cable service to outlying areas of Pulaski County not covered by the larger cable companies.

In addition to his law practice, Tucker in the next few years aggressively expanded his cable business. He created partnerships to generate funds and added other companies in Arkansas, such as Cablevision Management Inc., which managed cable companies.

His companies received numerous loans from Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association and David Hale's Capital Management Services Inc. -- the two businesses most prominent in the Whitewater investigation. All those loans were repaid.

In early 1987, Marks was negotiating to buy Planned Cable outright. Meredith Corp. of Des Moines, Iowa, the publisher of Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies Home Journal owned 82 percent. Marks held the remaining 18 percent. Meredith agreed to sell.

But there were several problems.

In 1983, Marks had convinced Michael Starks to move from Florida to Texas to help run Planned Cable. According to a Texas lawsuit, unsealed recently by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Marks promised Starks one-sixth of all the Planned Cable shares that Marks owned or would later acquire.

Marks and Starks were "jubilant" when Meredith agreed to sell the company. They believed, the suit stated, that the net fair-market value of Planned Cable "exceeded the Meredith purchase price by at least $4 million to $6 million."

The hitch?

Meredith representatives indicated that the sale at that price would be better received by Meredith's management if the purchaser were someone other than Planned Cable, Marks or Starks, according to the suit.

Enter Jim Guy Tucker.

In March 1987, he signed an agreement with Meredith to purchase stock and a $7.9 million note of Planned Cable for $6.5 million.

Why would Meredith sell so low? Two reasons, Haley said. They wanted to get out of the cable business and they wanted to cut their cash-flow losses.

By June 10, the financing was set. Tucker and Marks had an $8.5 million line of credit with Fleet National Bank of Rhode Island and State Street Bank and Trust of Massachusetts.

Tucker spent $6.5 million purchasing Planned Cable stock. Another $200,000 from the line of credit was used to purchase Marks' Planned Cable stock and $500,000 went toward retiring debts between Marks and Planned Cable.

On the same day, Tucker merged his Cablevision Management with Planned Cable. Cablevision Management was the surviving company --Planned Cable no longer existed.

In a few months, however, that all would change.


8 posted on 10/18/2004 8:28:08 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: kcvl

People often plea to a lesser offence to avoid being prosecuted for the real offence. Sometimes they aren't technically guilty of the offence they plead to.

One of the oldest tricks in the book is to plea to something you didn't do, then try to have that conviction reversed without being charged with the original offence. A shameless lawyer trick.


9 posted on 10/18/2004 8:31:15 AM PDT by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: js1138

The crook should just shut his mouth and be happy that he didn't get thrown in jail WHERE HE BELONGS as do the Clintons. Nothing but corruption through and through. I hope people remember that when Hillary runs for President because if we think the media has shilled for Kerry/Edwards we haven't seen anything yet.


10 posted on 10/18/2004 8:35:37 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: kcvl
The Clintons left a sea of dead and broken bodies in their wake. I had forgotten all about Jim Guy Tucker.

Web Hubbell

Jim McDougal

State Troopers

Vince Foster

11 posted on 10/18/2004 8:54:56 AM PDT by YaYa123 (@ Sacrificial Fools.com)
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To: SmithL

Maybe he needed to use the same NON-STICK grease as Bubba and Hitlary.


12 posted on 10/18/2004 9:42:26 AM PDT by gunnygail (Founding member of the VRWC. --Black Helo crewman. (I operate the Liberal tinfoil hat scanner.)
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To: Sloth
Former Arkansas governor loses appeal

Clinton had appeal?

13 posted on 10/18/2004 9:55:57 AM PDT by RockinRight (John Kerry is the wrong candidate, for the wrong country, at the wrong time)
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To: RockinRight

It was.


14 posted on 10/18/2004 9:59:45 AM PDT by SmithL (Vietnam-era Vet: Still fighting Hillary's half-vast left-wing conspiracy)
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To: kcvl
Tucker said he agreed to the plea in order to save himself a prison term, which he said would have been a "death sentence" due to his ailing health.

As long as he didn't testify against Bill or Hillary he would have survived.

15 posted on 10/18/2004 10:06:37 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Hey, look at me, I'm a math major.)
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To: SmithL

Tucker was clinton's lieutenant governor and became governor after clinton's election to President.


16 posted on 10/18/2004 11:17:33 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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