-Caveat Lector- Newsmax-Inside Cover Monday, March 19, 2001 4:47 p.m. EST Pardongate Flashback: Lasater Party Girl Speaks Out In a little-noticed report last month on the 11th-hour pardons Roger Clinton sought from his brother, the Washington Post revealed what may turn out to be the most explosive aspect of the clemency-for-cash scandal now swirling around the former first family. Buried on page 7 of the Post's little-read Saturday edition, the headline seemed rather mundane: "Clinton's Brother Promised Pardons." But scattered throughout the story was a name that should have set off smoke alarms in newsrooms all across America. "Dan R. Lasater, a Little Rock bond broker convicted in 1986 of cocaine distribution, said Roger Clinton told him late last year he would put in a good word on his behalf with the president," the Post reported. "A millionaire entrepeneur who backed several Arkansas Democrats, including Bill Clinton's campaigns, Lasater got a conditional state pardon from then-Governor Clinton in 1990. Lasater said he lent Roger Clinton $8,000 in 1984 to pay off cocaine debts." But there's more - much, much more to the Lasater story, information so radioactive that there's little doubt Bill and Hillary Clinton are more worried over the Bush Justice Department's decision to make Roger a target of its Pardongate probe than about any other aspect of the investigation. The best account of Dan Lasater's world comes from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the former Washignton bureau chief of the London Sunday Telegraph whose 1997 biography, "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton," was largely overlooked by the press. "Dan Lasater's Drug Trafficking Organization" reads the key chapter heading. On the pages inside, the author quotes excerpts from law enforcement documents covering the accounts of several Lasater party girls who inhabited a world not exactly unknown to both Bill and Roger Clinton. Here's the opening paragraph from the police statement of Patti-Anne Smith, who was only 16 years old when she met Little Rock's most notorious "bond daddy": "I was a virgin until two months after I met Dan Lasater. He plied me with cocaine and gifts for sexual favors and I finally gave in and slept with him. ... I could get an eight ball [from Lasater] whenever I wanted it. I carried a vial of it around at school." After a visit to a Lasater-supplied gynecologist, who put Patti-Anne on birth control pills, Lasater was making her available for the sexual entertainment of his business colleagues. When investigators tracked her down to gain testimony against Lasater two years later, the terms they used to describe Patti-Anne were "drugged-out party girl" and "basket case." And she was not alone. Here's the police statement of Michele Cochran - 19 years old when she met Lasater. "He used drugs and money eventually to seduce me. As a result of the relationship I became addicted to cocaine." Another teen-age Lasater alum told police that after a few months in his orbit, she "would sometimes get up and snort cocaine in order to start my day." Author Evans-Pritchard managed to track Patti-Anne Smith down some 13 years later. Her account is fascinating for two reasons. First, for the pure shock value of what she endured during her days as an inhabitant of Lasater's world. And second, because the fact that an American president pardoned a thug like Lasater once on state charges - only to have the president's brother seek a second, federal pardon - is absolutely beyond belief. "I was the youngest of all the girls," Patti-Anne told Evans-Pritchard. "We were like hens in a roost, with the rooster. We got along in a bitchy kind of way because we didn't want to be expelled from the roost." "I knew a lot more than I should have known. ... Chuck Berry [Lasater's enforcer/driver who was later killed himself] told me that I was one of Dan Lasater's most trusted people and knew a lot about cocaine and his personal life. If I ever betrayed his personal trust and hurt Lasater in any way I would not 'see daylight' to tell about it anymore." Patti-Anne told Evans-Pritchard that Bill as well as Roger Clinton was a part of the Little Rock drug scene. "I met Bill Clinton several times, he'd know my name and I thought he was a wonderful person. But I can tell you that he was never acting like a governor when I saw him." The former Lasater good-time girl says she was present for one late-night meeting between her boss and then-Governor Clinton. "He was doing a line," Patti-Anne said of the future president. "It was just there on the table." Whether the current Pardongate investigation will probe deep enough to warrant revisiting any of this is anybody's guess. But if the feds are looking for clues as to why Dan Lasater's name turned up on Roger Clinton's pardon list, they might start by asking Patti-Anne Smith. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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