Kenneth Starr has pled guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud, the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York just announced, which means he “faces a statutory maximum sentence of 45 years.”
In June, The Observer profiled his relationship with Carly Simon, one of the many boldface-named clients who say they lost millions to him. “He is nothing like an F. Scott Fitzgerald story,” she said then. “F. Scott Fitzgerald stories always had class, and where they fucked up, they did so by bathing in the fountain of the Plaza Hotel. They did not steal people’s money.”
Now that he faces half a century in prison, is she happy? “I want him to pay us back, but I don’t want him to suffer beyond that,” she said. “There should be less suffering in the world, even if the less suffering comes from Ken Starr.” She used his full name when she spoke. “There are so many people who have done worse things than Ken Starr,” she said. “When you think of Ken Starr, he was a poor little criminal guy who didn’t think he was happy enough and stole what wasn’t his.”
Does she have a preference for his sentence? “I don’t care how long he’s in prison for, as long as I get my money back,” she said. “I think he’s pathological. But I don’t he’s a monster.”
