Jones: Stress Takes Its Toll
In many ways, Paula Jones already has been on trial. From right-wing celebrity to Penthouse pinup to White House character assassination, Jones has wittingly or not bared both body and soul.
Her friends lament the toll, describing her as lonely and disheartened in the four years since she belatedly charged President Clinton with a crude sexual offense.
Her detractors point out that, if not for the attention the case has won her, Jones would not be sporting her slick hairdo, orthodontically perfected teeth and new wardrobe. Nor would she have any potentially lucrative book or movie deal to hatch.
Jones herself has said nothing.
Beseiged by cameras and reporters when she left her home in Long Beach, Calif., this week, the woman who accused President Clinton of sexual harassment still refused to comment.
Bound for a local gym, Jones put her two children in the back seat of a Mercedes-Benz sedan. She withheld comment other than to say she might speak at some later point in time and to ask reporters not to put her children on camera.
Attorney Joe Cammarata, who represented Jones through the lawsuit's first three years and still counts himself as an admirer, talks of "the emotional stress, strain and trauma of every part of your life being subjected to public scrutiny,"
"Deep down, she's a good person and a moral person," he said.
But former Clinton adviser James Carville persists in his oft-recalled depiction of Jones as "money-grubbing trailer trash."
"A lot of money was changing hands for a lot of people to tell a lot of lies," he charged a day after a federal judge threw out Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit, calling it groundless and denying her a trial.
Jones reportedly asked her friend and spokeswoman, Susan Carpenter McMillan, "Is it true?" after hearing the news. "Why? After all these years, why?"
All these years have seen wild ups and downs for the president's accuser.
She was courted by the Conservative Political Action Conference to tell her story and bankrolled by the conservative Rutherford Institute. She alternately was blasted and shunned by liberal feminists who were supposed who usually can be counted on to champion victims of sexual harassment.
She twice has graced the cover of Newsweek. She twice has been disgraced on the pages of Penthouse. For its more than 1 million readers, the porn magazine bought provocative topless pictures of her from an ex-boyfriend and printed graphic interviews with Arkansas men.
Her credibility regularly is the subject of national public-opinion polls, and both polls and random "man on the street" interviews suggest that at least some of her detractors' criticism has swaye dpublic opinion.
Her own sister, Charlotte Brown, accused her of fabricating the story for money and told TV reporters that Jones' reputation was forever tarnished. "I do't think people will respect her."
Since moving from Arkansas to Long Beach, Calif., with her husband, Steven, Jones is a stay-at-home mom to two preschool boys. The publicity of the case has turned her into a virtual recluse at her gated, stucco condominium building.
She counts few friends beyond Carpenter McMillan and Hollywood hairdresser Daniel DiCriscio, the pair credited with transforming Jones' frizzy hair and dowdy duds into tailored suits and a sleekly blow-dried do.
They were the only two to rush to Jones' side after the news broke that the judge had dismissed her case.
"She's a strong woman, and it takes a lot for a woman, especially a small woman like her, to stand up against the world," DiCriscio said.
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