Starr, Steele in court showdown

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Prosecutors presented evidence Monday that a Virginia woman falsely undercut the story of Kathleen Willey, the woman who accused President Clinton of making an unwanted sexual advance in the White House, in order to make money and avoid challenging the president.

Defense lawyers countered that independent counsel Ken Starr's legal team was overzealous and indicted Julie Hiatt Steele because her grand jury testimony conflicted with the case they tried to make against the president. One of her lawyers described Steele, 52, as a nonpolitical grandmother from Richmond who has never met Clinton.

''Julie Hiatt Steele has committed no crime,'' lawyer Nancy Luque said. ''She just got in the way of a runaway train.''

Steele is charged with obstructing justice and making false statements. Her trial revives lingering questions about the president, Willey, and the independent counsel's investigation. But the case boils down to one question peripheral to the larger sex-and-lies scandal: Did Willey tell Steele back in 1993 that Clinton had made an unwanted sexual advance on her?

Clinton has denied under oath making such an advance on Willey. Starr declined to refer the matter to the House last year as part of his impeachment report on the Monica Lewinsky matter.

Referring to the president 37 times in his 30-minute opening statement, prosecutor David Barger said Willey confided to her friend that Clinton had ''groped'' her just hours after it happened.

But Steele told FBI agents and two grand juries that she didn't hear the allegation until 1997, when Willey asked her to corroborate her story to a Newsweek reporter.

Luque said Steele made ''a mistake'' by bowing to pressure from Willey and backing up her story to reporter Michael Isikoff. But she said Steele ''corrected'' that lie and has told a consistent story ever since.

Prosecutors called a witness who once dated Steele, and he testified that she told him in April 1997 that she heard firsthand Willey's story of being ''fondled'' by Clinton soon after it allegedly happened in 1993.

William Poveromo, a local TV producer in Richmond, said later that as Starr's prosecutors were investigating the allegation in March 1998, Steele tried to convince him that, ''I never told you about Kathleen. You must be mistaken.''

Starr's prosecutors argued that Steele ''betrayed a friend to make money'' and to avoid being drawn into the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.

She feared she might be under surveillance by ''people associated with the Clinton administration'' and that if she supported Willey's allegations, she would face ''more serious consequences,'' Barger said.

So she ''allied herself with the president,'' he said, and once she began lying she stuck with her story ''to cover up.''

Mary Highsmith, who said she had been Steele's best friend, testified, ''Julie told me she was afraid it was to her detriment if she took a position against the president.''

But under questioning by the defense, Highsmith acknowledged that she had given different accounts of when she first heard Steele talk about the Willey matter.

Prosecutors' opening witness, freelancer Gregory Edward Mathieson, described how he helped Steele peddle a photograph of Willey with Clinton just after Newsweek wrote about the allegation. He said at one point, a British publication was interested in paying $100,000.

After she sold the photograph to the National Enquirer for $7,000, Steele and Mathieson met with a representative of the Star tabloid who said he would need information that was ''something different'' to pay a substantial sum for the picture, Mathieson said.

Steele then asked, ''What do we need to say to make that kind of money?'' Mathieson testified.

Didn't she tell the tabloid she couldn't give them anything but the truth? a lawyer for Steele asked. Mathieson said he didn't remember that.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton made it clear the case would not become a referendum on what, if anything, really happened between the president and Willey.

''We are not going to get into the truthfulness of Willey's story,'' Hilton said after the jurors and two alternates were selected Monday morning.

Willey will take the witness stand to explain why she had written cordial letters to the president after the 1993 encounter, Barger said.

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