No Jail Time For Clinton Pal
Longtime presidential friend Webster Hubbell was sentenced to a year of probation Wednesday after pleading guilty to concealing aspects of his work involving the failed savings and loan at the center of the Whitewater investigation.
Â"After five years, it's over,Â" Hubbell said outside the courthouse. Â"Our lives can begin again.Â"
Hubbell's attorney said Starr had agreed Â"never to investigate or prosecute Hubbell again.Â"
Hubbell also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a tax evasion case that revolved around payments he received from friends of the president in 1994 and 1995, while under investigation by Starr.
A somber-looking Hubbell changed his plea from innocent on failure to disclose facts to investigators.
The plea ended nearly five years of investigation of Hubbell—formerly the No. 3 official in the Justice Department—and halted plans for a trial that could have been embarrassing for Mrs. Clinton as she explores whether to run for the Senate.
Â"I told the office of Independent Counsel, as I told them five years ago, that I have no knowledge of any wrongdoing on behalf of the president or Mrs. Clinton,Â" Hubbell said.
Starr sat at the prosecution table as Hubbell, who already has served 16 months in prison for an earlier guilty plea, entered his pleas in the two separate criminal cases brought last year.
In one case, Hubbell was accused of covering up his and Mrs. Clinton's legal work on a 1,050-acre land development south of Little Rock owned by Mrs. Clinton's Whitewater partner, Jim McDougal, and Hubbell's father-in-law.
The land deal—which federal regulators said was riddled with sham transactions—cost the failing savings and loan owned by the Clintons' Whitewater partner $3.8 million and contributed to the insolvency of the institution.
In the tax indictment, Hubbell was accused of failing to declare as income $74,000 of more than $450,000 in fees from 15 employers in 1994, when top Clinton advisers arranged consulting contracts for the former associate attorney general from Vernon Jordan and other close friends of President Clinton.
The indictment said Hubbell paid only $30,000 in taxes for 1989-92 and 1994-95, even though he earned more than $1 million from 1994 to 1997.
It also said that by the end of 1997, Hubbell and his wife had liquidated about $1 million in assets and spent virtually all their money.
Hubbell pleaded guilty in 1994 to stealing $400,000 from his law firm and its clients and served 16 months in prison, while promising to fully cooperate with Starr's probe.
Barring any surprises, this would just about do it for Starr, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart. After five years and $40 million, the investigation that rocked America is apparently out of targets to shoot at.
The plea deal resolved Starr's only remaining cases, although he is required by law to submit a final report about his nearly five-year and $40-million investigation.