Susan McDougal faces 10 felony charges in California

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has built a strong case against Whitewater felon Susan McDougal for allegedly stealing $150,000 from former Los Angeles Symphony conductor and composer Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy, according to court documents obtained by HUMAN EVENTS.

McDougal's counsel, Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, has charged that the case is frivolous and is designed to pressure McDougal into testifying before Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's long-running investigation of the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. Currently out on a medical release, McDougal had been jailed for contempt of court for refusing to testify.

Assistant D.A. Jeffrey Sebow rejected Geragos' assertions. One year ago, Sebow wrote Geragos that it was his duty to come forward with any evidence of collusion between Starr and the State of California. Geragos has yet to produce any evidence, a spokeswoman for the district attorney told HUMAN EVENTS.

Court documents reveal that McDougal had an extravagant lifestyle after she was divorced from her husband, Jim McDougal, in Arkansas in the late 1980s and moved to Southern California. Prosecutor Sebow alleges that she financed this lifestyle through fraudulent credit charges, forged checks, and cash withdrawals, all purportedly hidden among the Mehtas' legitimate household and travel expenses.

Mehtas Had Complete Trust

McDougal began as the Mehtas' personal secretary. Soon, she ran the household. She prepared checks, oversaw rental properties, collected rent and submitted checks for the Mehtas to sign. Nancy Mehta reportedly trusted McDougal completely and treated her almost as a family member.

"It was a relationship where she entrusted Susan McDougal 100% with anything and everything" testified consultant Alan Byron during a pretrial preliminary examination. Household expenses were tracked on a computer system solely controlled by McDougal. While working for the Mehtas, Susan McDougal's authority over staff and purchasing decisions was considered to be unquestionable and absolute.

"Basically her authority was unquestionable;' said Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ignacio Gonzalez, who investigated the McDougal case. In one instance, McDougal allegedly told a Mehta employee to let her brother, David Henley, buy $600 worth of tennis equipment with the employee's credit card. McDougal reimbursed the employee from one of Nancy Mehta's accounts. Mehta had earlier told McDougal she didn't want to employ her brother.

The Mehtas traveled frequently and had a fail-safe system in place to pay bills that came due while they were gone. Mehta left presigned checks behind to be used by McDougal to pay bills. If the presigned checks ran out, the Mehtas' lawyer was authorized to sign and issue checks.

When doing bookkeeping for the Mehtas, McDougal earned an extra $15.00 per hour on top of her base rate of $15.00 an hour. She was to have been compensated by submitting a bill for any overtime hours to Mehta, who would then give her a check, except that she never submitted a bill for her overtime hours. "There was never any agreement to compensate her with anything else other than payment through checks for the bookkeeping services," Byron testified.

Unauthorized Credit Card Charges

He further testified that McDougal was never an authorized signer on any of the Mehtas' credit cards. According to Officer Gonzalez, McDougal had asked Mehta to place her as a second signer on Mehta's credit cards but Mehta "felt very uncomfortable with that."

It wasn't until 1992 that Mehta learned that McDougal held a credit card under Mehta's name. The account came to light when a Bank of America fraud investigator called Mehta for her approval to raise the MasterCard's credit limit. Bank of America had investigated the account because a cosigner sought to raise the credit limit from out of state. McDougal was vacationing in Texas at the time.

An LAPD handwriting expert analyzed the MasterCard's application and found McDougal's signature to be genuine. Mehta said hers had been forged. What's more, Mehta never saw a Bank of America MasterCard statement until after she fired McDougal. The card's monthly statements were sent to a postal drop rented by McDougal. Mehta "never instructed any mail to be sent anywhere else other than the house," said Detective Gonzalez.

In the Mehta's Quicken computer accounting program, maintained by Susan McDougal, there was an entry, purporting to itemize the Mehtas' travel expenses, that listed a $417.25 payment to a Nikki Hotel, Tokyo. Detective Gonzalez determined that Nikki was not a hotel in Tokyo, but a pricey dress boutique in Malibu, Calif.

The store's owner provided a sales receipt and invoice signed by Susan McDougal. She had also written "wore out" on the sales slip at the time, meaning McDougal wore the $400 dress home. In the Mehtas' record, the date, time and amount of the sale correspond exactly, said Gonzalez.

Disputed charges also show roughly $7,000 in airfares to places the Mehtas never visited, said Gonzalez. McDougal had relatives in Dallas, Arkansas and Florida and her boyfriend attended college in Ann Arbor, Mich., all destinations on the disputed airline tickets. The tickets were booked on Delta, an airline Nancy Mehta doesn't fly, Mehta told Gonzalez.