Jones Case

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Arkansas found President Clinton in contempt of court yesterday for giving "intentionally false" testimony last year when he told Paula Corbin Jones' lawyers that he did not have "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky -- and could not even recall being alone with her.The ruling -- the first time a president has been found in contempt of court -- branded the only elected president ever to be impeached with yet another blemish...

WASHINGTON -- Paula Corbin Jones will receive $200,000 from the money President Clinton paid to settle her sexual-misconduct lawsuit, under a deal made yesterday by several groups of lawyers who had represented her.Clinton and Jones agreed in November to settle her case out of court, after a judge had dismissed it and she began pursuing an appeal, and Clinton paid an agreed $850,000 to end the lawsuit. There was no apology involved, although earlier Jones had insisted on one.Since then, an increasingly bitter fight had broken out among the lawyers who had handled her case at various stages, with competing fee claims along with charges of malpractice and bad faith traded back and forth.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Little Rock, Ark., refused yesterday to hand off to another judge the issue of whether to hold President Clinton in contempt for giving "misleading" testimony in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case.U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright said in a brief order: "The court will consider issues of contempt, but will do so on its own terms and in a manner it deems appropriate."Wright rejected a demand that she step aside and a separate plea that, before taking herself out of the case, she start a criminal contempt proceeding against Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Arkansas raised a new legal threat to President Clinton yesterday, saying the time had come to decide whether he was guilty of contempt of court when he gave a deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright did not decide immediately. Instead, she gave lawyers in the case a chance to ask that she step aside and pass the case to another judge.Her actions came just four days after the Senate found the president not guilty on impeachment charges, and more than 10 months after the judge had dismissed Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- Few points of difference between the two sides in the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton are as potentially decisive as their divergent views about the lawsuit that started the scandal: the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case. The president's defense team began outlining its view yesterday. Lyle Denniston of The Sun's national staff examines the differences.Jones' lawsuit was dismissed in April by a judge, and her appeal ended Dec. 2 after the suit had been settled out of court.

WASHINGTON -- Ending one of America's most famous and damaging lawsuits, President Clinton agreed yesterday to pay Paula Corbin Jones $850,000 to withdraw her sexual misconduct case. The president made no apology and admitted nothing.By settling the case that had led to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, Clinton put a stop to a legal challenge that threatened to run on for months and might have gone to trial in a flood of more negative publicity.Jones stands to receive some money -- after her lawyers take an undetermined share -- from a lawsuit that had been dismissed and whose long-term prospects were doubtful, even if it had been revived on appeal and gone to trial.

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Paula Corbin Jones vowed yesterday to continue to pursue an out-of-court settlement of her sexual misconduct case against President Clinton, and the president's attorney said he was waiting to hear further "to get all of this behind us."Each side's legal team spoke out in St. Paul, Minn., after a federal appeals court there explored whether to revive Jones' now-dismissed case and send it back to a federal judge to examine the evidence anew.All three judges on the panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took an active role in a hearing on Jones' appeal but gave few hints about how they were leaning.

WASHINGTON -- Paula Corbin Jones' sexual-misconduct lawsuit, a sideline diversion for President Clinton as his other legal woes deepened in recent months, may be about to take on a new and trouble-causing life at center stage.Instead of receding further into the background while an appeal by Jones goes forward quietly, her case could soon produce a constitutional battle as important as the one that took the case to the Supreme Court once before. Looming is a threat, which some lawyers say is not an idle one, that the president could be cited by a judge for contempt of court and face potentially serious sanctions.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge raised the possibility yesterday that President Clinton might have committed contempt of court for testimony he gave under oath in January, when he denied he had a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.If the judge, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Little Rock, Ark., should ultimately hold Clinton in contempt for that testimony, it could add to the president's possible legal troubles when the House considers whether to pursue impeachment.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge, reacting to fears voiced by President Clinton's lawyers of a "media circus," put off yesterday her plan to release scores of sealed documents in Paula Corbin Jones' sexual misconduct case against Clinton.As a result, hundreds of pages of never-disclosed papers -- many of them likely to be embarrassing to the president -- will not become public Monday, as U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright had ordered earlier.Wright said yesterday that she would not release any of the papers for at least two weeks, while she studies a plea by the president's lawyers that she reconsider the issue.