Former Starr Spokesman Cleared

The former spokesman for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was acquitted Friday in a contempt of court case in which he was accused of leaking information about the investigation of President Clinton and trying to hide his role.

The former spokesman, Charles Bakaly III, was cleared by Norma Holloway Johnson, chief judge of the U.S. District Court. She had initiated the case after Mr. Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, filed a complaint.

"Even if some of his statements are misleading by their negative implication that Mr. Bakaly was not a source of information that he in fact supplied or confirmed, such a finding does not provide a sufficient basis for a criminal contempt conviction for making false statements," Johnson wrote in a 50-page ruling.

Johnson conducted a six-day nonjury trial of Bakaly in July. The Justice Department, which had declined to indict Bakaly, served as prosecutor at Johnson's request.

One of Bakaly's lawyers, Robert Weinberg, said Friday, "We are pleased and gratified and we believe that the judge reached the right result." Another Bakaly lawyer, Michele Roberts, said, "He's in the clear. ... He and I and the rest of the defense team are very pleased."

Bakaly was charged with misleading Johnson in a February 1999 court submission that denied leaking material to The New York Times while Starr was investigating Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. If convicted, Bakaly could have faced up to six months in prison.

The judge had to decide whether Bakaly misled her court when he denied being the source quoted in a Times article that appeared Jan. 31, 1999, in the midst of the president's impeachment trial. It said Starr had decided that a sitting president could be indicted.

"The defendant was untruthful with many falsehoods and lies," Justice Department prosecutor Alan Gershel said in his closing argument. "This lie is built on a house of cards. One lie begets another lie. At the end of the day, it all falls apart."

Gershel contended Bakaly initially tried to hide his role from Starr's investigators and the court, but later changed his story and admitted he provided some information for the article.

In her closing, defense lawyer Roberts scoffed at the accusation that Bakaly revealed secret matters, describing the material he disclosed as "garden variety" information discussed in every newspaper and talk show during the Lewinsky investigation.

Roberts said her client was trying to inform the judge he did not provide the reporter "with any information about (Starr's office's) intentions" on a possible Clinton indictment.

She said in that context, "The statement was true then; the statement is true now."

Roberts also accused a Starr lawyer of omitting Bakaly's proposed changes to a court submission last year that would have more precisely defined his relationship with I>Times reporter Don Van Natta Jr.

Johnson said in her ruling, "Even though the government has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that any of the specific statements contained in the government's charges are inaccurate, it is clear that Mr. Bakaly's declaration was, at best, misleading."

The judge found that Bakaly's declaration was "designed to inform the court that Mr. Van Natta had told Mr. Bakaly that all of the reporter's sources for sensitive, internal OIC (Office of Independent Counsel) information came from outside the OIC."

But she concluded, "Mr. Bakaly was in fact the direct source or at least a confirming source for much of the information found in the Times article, including confirmation, even if 'inadvertent,' of certain sensitive, internal deliberations."

When Bakaly saw the final version of the article, he realized he had been "burned" and was a source for it, the judge wrote. Bakaly misled Donald Bucklin, a lawyer preparing the Bakaly declaration for Starr's office, but later revealed more of his role during an FBI investigation of the leak, the judge wrote. Bucklin later withdrew the Bakaly declaration because of questions about its accuracy.

Although she found Bakaly misled Starr's staff, Johnson wrote that he was not charged with lying to them but rather directly to the court. And she noted that "Bakaly revised the declaration to limit the sweep of his assertions to the court, thereby, making it more accurate and evincing some intent to provide a strictly truthful declaration."