Mcdougal Moved To Federal Jail Whitewater Figure Gets Wish For Less Restrictive Confinement

Whitewater figure Susan McDougal has been moved from a county jail to a federal lockup, a local ACLU spokeswoman confirmed today.

The move was a victory for McDougal, whose attorney had been battling for months to get her transferred from Los Angeles County’s Sybil Brand Institution for Women to a less restrictive facility.

The transfer was confirmed by Ann Bradley, spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. She gave no details; a news conference was planned for later today.

McDougal was jailed for contempt on Sept. 6, 1996, for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury in Little Rock, Ark., about President Clinton’s role in Whitewater.

In December she was transferred from a federal facility in Texas to Los Angeles County’s women’s jail for pretrial hearings in an unrelated case - charges of stealing $150,000 from symphony conductor Zubin Mehta while working as a bookkeeper.

McDougal’s supporters said that at Sybil Brand, she was held in solitary confinement with no privacy, shackled hand and foot, denied access to a chaplain and repeatedly awakened at night.

McDougal has already been tried for her role in Whitewater, a failed Arkansas land deal in which she and former husband Jim McDougal were partners with Bill and Hillary Clinton before Clinton was elected president.