President Clinton’s former Whitewater business partner James McDougal entered a federal prison Monday to begin his three-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy.

The former savings and loan executive had faced 84 years in prison but received a lighter sentence because he cooperated with prosecutors investigating the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Asked outside the gate if he thought Hillary Clinton committed any crime, McDougal said: “I think that probably will be decided by the grand jury and by the courts. I wouldn’t care to comment any further.”

He discounted a statement he made two weeks ago saying the first lady also could end up in prison.

“Well, you mustn’t take Southern attempts at humor too seriously,” he said Monday.

McDougal was convicted last year of plotting to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration and his own Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which failed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $65 million.

McDougal, 56, was sent to the Federal Medical Center Institution in Lexington because he had a stroke in 1986 and suffers from manic depression.

His wife, Susan, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker also were convicted.