Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [78]
THE story that Paula Jones related to Danny Traylor in his law office in January 1994 was essentially the same story that she would repeat for the next four years, after she had become the most famous plaintiff in America.
As Jones would later retell the events in her sworn deposition, she had begun work for the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission in March 1991 as a “purchasing assistant,” performing odd jobs and filling in as a courier. At this time, her name was Paula Corbin and she was twenty-four years old; she was earning $6.35 per hour, or $10,270 per year. Her employment file indicated that she had applied for the job with modest qualifications, having majored in “executive secretarial” studies at the soon-defunct Capitol City Junior College, before dropping out eight months later. She had worked at a shoe store, at Dillard’s department store, at a pest control company, and at a television-and-appliance rental place, never moving beyond low-paying positions. Although her handwritten application listed her typing speed at fifty-five words per minute (after making allowance for errors), the test administered by the state listed her corrected speed as twenty-four words per minute. In the space blocked off for the names of references “who are not related to you, and who have knowledge of your work qualifications,” Paula Corbin listed her sister Lydia Cathey and friends Debbie Vickers (Ballentine) and Pam Blackard—all of whom would later become witnesses in the near-bizarre events involving Governor Clinton.
Paula Corbin received marginal to average performance reviews as an employee at AIDC. Her employment records reveal that she successfully completed two seminars: Stress Management, and Grammar and Usage. She was given periodic assignments as a courier, delivering documents to a variety of government buildings, including the governor’s office. At the time that she was asked to work the desk at the AIDC Governor’s Quality Conference at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, in May 1991, Paula had held the job less than two months and was still considered a probationary employee.
According to the account that Jones would eventually give under oath, she was working the AIDC registration desk on this day with her friend and coworker, Pam Blackard, when Governor Bill Clinton emerged from the ballroom, having just finished giving a speech. He was now working the crowd. Clinton was then forty-four years old and serving his fifth term as the state’s governor. He was also notorious in Razorback territory as a ladies’ man and attracted quite a following. As Jones recalled the events, Trooper Danny Ferguson had “come over just to chat or something and he said he was the governor’s bodyguard.” Jones said, “‘Well, let’s see your gun,’ or whatever.” Smiling, Ferguson “pulled back his coat and he showed us his gun that he was carrying.” The trooper reportedly told Jones, “The governor said you make his knees knock.”
Later, according to Jones, the bodyguard “come to hand me a note and tell me that the governor wanted to meet with me.” On the note was printed a four-digit number. Ferguson told the young employee that Governor Clinton “wants to meet with you in this room number.”
Jones would later say she wondered, “What for? What does he want to meet with me for?” She added, “I was excited, though.”
The two women caucused. Blackard told her coworker, “Good, maybe we can get a better job.” She agreed to watch the desk while Jones went up to the governor’s room, but she told Jones not to stay too long. She “didn’t want to get in trouble” and didn’t want to have to do any explaining. So Jones quickly walked over to the trooper who “escorted me up and around the corner and up the elevator.”
The hotel room door to which Ferguson pointed was partly ajar. Governor Clinton, according to Jones’s account, immediately greeted her and ushered her into the large suite.