ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a political victory for President Clinton, a federal jury on Thursday acquitted two Arkansas bankers of misapplying bank funds and conspiring to boost Clinton's political career. The jury deadlocked on seven other counts, and the judge declared a mistrial on them.
After six days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Herby Branscum Jr. and Robert M. Hill on four counts, handing Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr the first defeat of his Whitewater investigation.
Starr's office has the option of retrying the defendants on the seven deadlocked counts. The chief prosecutor, Hickman Ewing, said he presumed that Starr's office woull seek a retrial ``but we'll have to evaluate it.''
``Obviously we're disappointed; I'm not totally surprised,'' Ewing said. ``This was one part of the investigation. This was not necessarily a steppingstone to something else.''
Defense attorney Dan Guthrie said in most similar circumstances, prosecutors don't seek to retry a case on deadlocked counts. ``I hope Ken Starr would take that into consideration,'' he said.
``This a $30 million prosecution machine that has been stopped dead in its tracks in Little Rock, Arkansas, by a jury that exercised good common sense,'' Guthrie added.
The not-guilty verdict included a conspiracy count in which the defendants were accused of conspiring to conceal $52,500 in cash withdrawals by Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign.
Prosecutors had contended that presidential aide Bruce Lindsey was part of that conspiracy and had named him an unindicted co-conspirator.
Lindsey issued a statement saying he was pleased with the verdicts. His friends and defense attorneys in the case noted that the only charge involving him - the one in which he was named an unindicted coconspirator - ended in acquittal.
``As I have said repeatedly, it simply made no sense to think that I or anyone else in the Clinton for Governor Campaign would have had any reason to ask the bank not to file with the federal government a confidential report regarding a lawful campaign expenditure that we publicly reported on state disclosure forms,'' Lindsey said.
Clinton's political team hoped the verdict would dampen Whitewater as an election-year issue.
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