The outcome of a controversy pitting the word of two Arkansas state troopers against the man they once guarded, Bill Clinton, may hinge on the troopers' credibility.
In that respect, a $500,000 auto insurance lawsuit involving the troopers, Larry Patterson and Roger Perry, could be illuminating.Patterson and Perry served on Clinton's security detail when he was Arkansas governor and claim to have facilitated sexual liaisons for him with several women. They also claim Clinton offered their colleagues federal jobs in return for their silence - allegations Clinton has denied.
The troopers' credibility is crucial because they've offered little more than their word.
On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton accused the troopers of promoting stories she called "outrageous" for political and financial gain. On Wednesday, the president denied any wrongdoing but refused to discuss specifics of the allegations.
Both troopers say it was not the alleged infidelity that made them go public; rather, it was Clinton's alleged misuse of state personnel and property to arrange his affairs. They admitted under questioning at a news conference that they abused their power and broke the law themselves if their claims about what they did for Clinton are true. They said they did it because they feared he would have them fired.
They also accused Clinton of offering members of the governor's security detail federal jobs if they would keep quiet or keep tabs on stories with which colleagues might go public. They attributed this information to a trooper they declined to name, but whose identity became known as Danny Ferguson through contact with other present and former troopers.
Ferguson denied Wednesday that Clinton offered him or any other trooper a job in exchange for silence or help in shaping their stories.
Although state police records generally portray Patterson and Perry as satisfactory officers, a check of the troopers' records revealed incidents over several years involving their credibility.
A report showed that in 1970, Patterson's sergeant confiscated his gun, badge and state car after a domestic incident in which Patterson reportedly beat his wife. The couple later divorced and the woman died two years later of cancer. Patterson said this week his wife's allegations of abuse were not true.
A 1981 report on Perry showed he was reprimanded for being asleep on the job. A supervisor wrote that Perry had been addressed in the past about being absent-minded and irresponsible, and that his actions had become "almost intolerable."
In a 1991 sexual harassment lawsuit, a female employee of the Arkansas State Police Association accused Perry of continuously making sexual suggestions and sexual movements that caused her stress and forced her to leave the job. Perry was president of the private group for state troopers at the time. The suit was later dropped. Perry said this week that the allegations were unfounded.
There is even a Perry vs. Patterson lawsuit.
In a suit pending in Pulaski County Circuit Court, Perry accuses Patterson of being drunk when Patterson drove a state police vehicle into a tree in December 1990, injuring Perry and a female trooper who was Patterson's companion. In an initial filing in his suit against Patterson, Perry said he was seeking more than $500,000 in damages.
An attorney representing Patterson's insurance company pointed to inconsistencies in both troopers' statements to the company and suggested they might be in collusion to collect insurance money.
"They have lied and lied and lied," Columbia Mutual Insurance Co. attorney Roy Gene Sanders said Tuesday night of Patterson and Perry. "I don't believe these guys have a lot of credibility."
Both troopers admitted in separate depositions in the case that they made false statements to the insurance company about how much they had to drink and about other events leading up to accident. This week, they denied any collusion in the suit.