Park-On-Meter was the first company to receive a loan from the Arkansas

Development Finance Authority (ADFA), created by the Arkansas state legislature at

Clinton’s urging in 1985.





POM president and co-owner Seth Ward’s brother-in-law, Webster “Webb” Hubbell,

who served on POM’s board during the early 80s, co-wrote the documents which

created the ADFA in 1985.

Park On Meter

One important business in the Arkansas narcotics network was Park-on-Meter, or POM Inc. Commercially, POM was to produce parking meters and machine parts. Covertly, it was manufacturing untraceable custom weapons parts for the Contras, and shipping them to Mena. POM had subcontracted the job from a CIA front, called Iver Johnson’s Firearms, of Jacksonville, Arkansas. Former CIA scientist, Michael Riconosciuto, is one of the original architects of the backdoor to PROMIS, a people-tracking software system sold to intelligence organizations and government drug agencies worldwide, originally part of a U.S. plot to spy on other spy agencies. Riconosciuto has told reporters that he was closely involved in these covert operations, and claims that he supervised high-tech equipment transfers to POM, and had developed software to help launder the Mena drug money.

Park-On-Meter was the first company to receive a loan from the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA), created by the Arkansas state legislature at Clinton’s urging in 1985. Its ostensible purpose was to attract capital to the state, for the purpose of economic development, by offering companies long-term loans financed through the sale of tax-exempt bonds. ADFA, however, had no regulator and no legislative oversight. The governor could appoint the board and had the right to approve or disapprove every bond issue.

POM president and co-owner Seth Ward’s brother-in-law, Webster “Webb” Hubbell, who served on POM’s board during the early 80s, co-wrote the documents which created the ADFA in 1985. Later Webb Hubbell would become a partner in the Rose Law Firm, which employed Hillary Clinton, and which eventually was at the center of the Whitewater scandal. Hillary Clinton, representing the Rose Law Firm, had also successfully defended Systematics, a subsidiary of Stephens Inc, during Stephen’s and Adham’s hostile takeover of Financial General. Clinton appointed Hubbell as the Associate Attorney General, the number-three position in the Justice Department, but he later resigned under questions about his role in Whitewater, and a question about the million dollars owned by POM to the Rose firm, not only shielding him from other accusations related to Whitewater, but also serving to get POM out of the headlines.

The names of Hubbell and the Rose law firm appear on the bond issues and loan agreements for the largest contributions to Clinton’s presidential campaign. The banks, which extended several loans of more than three million, were all owned by a company named Stephens Inc., which was also a primary underwriter of ADFA bonds. In 1992, Stephen’s Worthen Bank of Little Rock, Arkansas, made a timely, and much needed, two million dollar loan to the primary campaign of the then future president, Bill Clinton.

Part of Stephens’ laundering worked through front companies set up by bond broker Dan Lasater, of Lasater & Company, the principle bond underwriter for the ADFA. Lasater had first made his fortune founding Ponderosa, a steakhouse chain that went public in 1971, and then moved to Little Rock. He had close ties with Bill Clinton, through his friendship with Clinton’s mother and half-brother, Roger. In 1982 he was one of the biggest contributors to Clinton’s election campaign, when he won back the governorship after a term out of office. Terry Reed alleges in court documents, and in his recent book, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, that Barry Seal made deposits of cash from the Mena drug operation directly to Lasater & Co. Reed also says that Lasater introduced Seal to him once as a client of his, although Lasater’s attorney denies the charge.