Former Clinton aides say Barak pressured president to pardon Rich.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

WASHINGTON _ Three former top aides to President Clinton told Congress Thursday that they staunchly opposed a pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich and said they thought pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to grant the pardon was pivotal in persuading Clinton.

Clinton pardoned Rich on Jan. 20, his last day in office, igniting a firestorm of controversy. Rich had fled the country after being indicted in 1983 for tax evasion, fraud and making illegal oil deals with Iran.

In a related development, New York state tax officials said Thursday that they are seeking $137 million in back taxes, penalties and interest from Rich for the years when he resided there. "Mr. Rich has avoided his tax payments in New York for nearly two decades while he was under federal indictment. It is now time for him to pay the piper," said New York Tax Commissioner Arthur Roth, in a statement.

The three former White House aides all told the House Government Reform Committee that they strongly opposed pardons for Rich and his former business partner, Pincus Green, as Clinton weighed their requests during his final days in power.

"We argued that if Mr. Rich and Mr. Green had such great legal arguments, there was a place to make them, and that was not the Oval Office," said Beth Nolan, the former White House counsel in charge of pardons applications.

Nolan said that she came away from a meeting with Clinton on Jan. 16 with the impression that he would deny the Rich request. But on his final full day in office, Jan. 19, Clinton received a farewell call from Barak, who beseeched him to grant Rich clemency.

"It seemed to me that Mr. Barak's phone call had been significant" in influencing Clinton's thinking, Nolan testified.