Kathleen who? Until her recent remarriage, Kathleen Schwicker was Kathleen Willey. Almost two years ago, Willey went on "60 Minutes" to accuse President Clinton of unwanted sexual advances in the Oval Office, followed up by dark, never-confirmed tales of threats and intimidation by presidential operatives. Willey has remarried, changed her name and relocated to Ramrod Key, Fla. Now her bankruptcy appears to be one more effort at a new start, at leaving behind an overwrought period of life beginning with her husband Ed Willey's 1993 suicide and culminating in her 1998 grand jury testimony for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

But coming the same week that former Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly faces contempt-of-court charges, Willey's bankruptcy case raises more questions about the probity of Starr's investigation. The facts revealed in Willey's bankruptcy filing and other documents obtained by Salon also raise questions about her past and character, and Starr's decision to grant her sweeping immunity as a central strategy in his inquiry.

Willey claims she is virtually destitute. Her bankruptcy petition, filed in April, declares she has just $50 in her checking account, $2,000 worth of jewelry and $3,700 worth of household furniture. Her Subaru Outback, worth $13,000, has been claimed by her lawyers as collateral for unpaid bills.

In fact, Willey is far from destitute. She has been living in comfort in a suburban home, on a budget of thousands of dollars a month. Court records and other documents obtained by Salon suggest that in 1997 and 1998, at the very time she was going public with her accusations of genital groping by President Clinton several years before, Willey was at the center of a complicated series of asset transfers that appear to have been designed to insulate her money and property from the scrutiny of courts and creditors -- and claiming under oath in Virginia that she could not remember basic personal matters from just weeks earlier.

It is a noteworthy tale of legal intrigue: In declaring bankruptcy, Willey claimed personal debts of over $700,000. But financial records suggest that at least two-thirds of that "debt" consists of Willey's own assets, shifted on paper to her children while she has continued to reap the benefits. At the heart of this complicated financial maneuver, records suggest, is the manipulation of a $160,000 loan to create the appearance of a debt.

The road to Tuesday's bankruptcy hearing goes back to 1991 -- long before Kathleen Willey emerged as a White House volunteer with a tale to tell. It begins not with a presidential grope but with financial transactions by her now-deceased husband, Ed Willey Jr.

To understand Willey's predicament, it helps to understand her husband. Ed Willey Jr. was a Richmond attorney and investor in local real estate deals. He was the son of the speaker of Virginia's Assembly -- and so in theory, born to the state's political aristocracy. In fact he was the Willey clan's black sheep. Sometime around 1970 -- according to Kathleen Willey's own account in her application for a volunteer position at the White House -- Ed Jr. was charged with manslaughter in an auto accident, though the charges were later dropped. His taste for fast money further alienated Willey from his father.

When Ed Jr. married Kathy in 1971, their joint dedication to ostentation -- the condo in Vail, the Rolex watches and jewelry -- did nothing to dispel that reputation, though many in Richmond still find it convenient to blame outsider Kathy for driving her husband's greed quotient into the stratosphere. Whatever the truth, by the early 1990s Ed Willey Jr. was beginning a long slide into debt, ultimately owing the IRS alone $325,000.

In August 1991, Ed Willey turned to a longtime friend for help: Richmond developer, architect and political activist Louis Salomonsky. Salomonsky was Gov. Douglas Wilder's personal financial trustee and a successful player in local real estate projects that sometimes ended in scandal and indictments; though Salomonsky was named in at least one indictment, he was never charged himself.

Salomonsky agreed to lend the Willeys $160,000, according to court transcripts and Willey financial records obtained by Salon. The Willeys secured the loan with collateral: their suburban home worth over $200,000, part of a real estate partnership and their life insurance policy of over $1 million.

And in a final gesture, Salomonsky secured a promise of repayment not just from the Willeys themselves but from a company called "Planning and Zoning," which Ed had set up as a protective front for his real estate investments -- a company technically owned by his adult children.

This is a lot of collateral for a $160,000 loan -- but given the Willeys' life on the financial edge, any of their assets might evaporate at any time, so Salomonsky was evidently hedging his bets.

A few months later, despite the Willeys' precarious financial condition, they managed to contribute $10,000 to presidential candidate Bill Clinton; they met Clinton during a campaign swing through Richmond, where he received a congratulatory kiss from Kathy which her husband reportedly bragged about for weeks.

Politics 2000: Unflinching daily political news, analysis and commentary.