Jim Guy Tucker, Ex-Arkansas Governor Caught Up in Whitewater, Dies at 81

Jim Guy Tucker, a former governor of Arkansas who was caught up in the long-running investigation that unsuccessfully targeted his predecessor as governor, Bill Clinton, died on Thursday in Little Rock, Ark.He was 81.His death, at a hospital, was caused by complications of ulcerative colitis, said his daughter Anna Ashton.The Whitewater investigation, which looked into purportedly fraudulent land deals in northwest Arkansas, was led by a Republican special prosecutor and consumed much of the Clinton presidency.

But it wound up netting only secondary players on minor charges.Mr.Tucker was one of them.

He had been among the most promising figures in Arkansas politics and a rival to Mr.Clinton in Arkansas’s Democratic Party.

But he was forced to resign as governor in July 1996, after serving less than two years of his term.Two months earlier, he had been convicted in a federal court in Little Rock.He had been prosecuted by independent counsel, a team led by Kenneth W.

Starr, for receiving a fraudulent loan from a small business development company, Capital Management Services, in the mid-1980s.In August 1996, Judge George Howard Jr.of Federal District Court in Little Rock sentenced him to four years’ probation — Mr.

Tucker avoided jail because of testimony about a serious health condition — and ordered him to pay $294,000 in restitution to the Small Business Administration.By then Mr.

Tucker had already quit the governor’s mansion; he would never hold office again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....