Saturday, February 28, 1998 --- New York (APJP) --If you were on a mailing list that Paula Jones' handlers bought last fall, you received a letter signed by Jones pitching you for cash to fund her lawsuit against President Clinton that contained the following words:
"My lawyers can't keep fighting now without outside funding. And they'll need at least $250,000 to keep my case going.… This money is going to help my legal case and expenses related to it."
But news emerged late yesterday that Paula's current and former lawyers are now claiming that they have not received any of these funds, clearly suggesting that Jones is misappropriating funds originally raised for her "defense".
John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, was quoted in a number of news outlets as saying "We've never received any money from them and our lawyers have never received any money. The Rutherford Institute has been concerned about the fact that it appears the money's being raised for litigation expenses when the Rutherford Institute's paying for all litigation expenses… I've seen the funds pieces of advertising implying the money is being used to pay lawyers expenses, and that's not true."And Joseph Cammarata, one of Jones's former lawyers almost half a year ago, has come forward to state that neither he nor partner Gilbert Davis had received any money from this fund-raising scheme; in fact, they've placed an $800,000 lien against any money Jones might win in the lawsuit.
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that direct control of the Paula Jones Legal Defense Fund has recently been transferred to Paula Jones and her husband. Houston lawyer Brent Perry, who has served as counsel for the fund, has claimed there was nothing wrong with last fall's fund-raising mailings and that the money was never intended to pay lawyers.
The contract between the fund and mail-order firm Eberle & Associates Inc., which handled the mailing, guaranteed Jones at least $300,000 if it could turn a profit from the fund-raising campaign --- a condition both sides clearly felt would be a slam-dunk.
And according to the Washington Post, "a source familiar with the effort" says Jones has already received $100,000 from the mailing campaign.
This claim has exploded like a bombshell inside the Jones camp, as other factions scramble to undo the damage made by the attorneys' comments and the money revelations.
Which begs the question: what the hell is the mail campaign "defense" money really intended for?
We already know that Clinton's attorney, Bob Bennett, has produced evidence that Mrs. Jones used several thousand dollars from the fund to pay for clothing, a makeover --- and kennel fees (not for Paula herself but for her dog).
This only lends further credence to claims made by Clinton's lawyers that Jones's main motivation in pursuing a lawsuit against the President for allegedly harassing Jones while he was Arkansas governor is money, not justice or a "restor[ation] of her good name."
Good name? This incident only makes Jones look more like the scam artist we believe her to be.
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