Daily News from New York, New York • 119

Dm) DDDS '4 Rikers guard thwarts her By CHRISTY SLEWINSKI and MARK MOONEY r'y Mahones said that her sister had done a talk show Monday, during which "they said a lot of bad things." During the jailhouse interview, host Rolonda Watts expressed skepticism when Lopez denied knowing about burn marks or broken bones on the little girl and wondered why Lopez didn't call for help when she felt Elisa's heart stop beating. At one point, Lopez repeated one of her many denials, saying, "I just want the world to know that I didn't did it That I didn't kill her." p. Daily News Staff Writers Awilda Lopez, accused of torturing and beating to death her daughter Elisa Izquierdo tried to kill herself yesterday in a protective custody cell on Rikers Island. Lopez' suicide attempt came 24 hours after she gave a rambling TV interview in which she admitted wanting to kill herself. During a taping for the Rolonda show, Lopez also accused her husband, Carlos Lopez, of the murder and later suggested someone snuck into the apartment while she was sleeping and battered her 6-year-old daughter.

Elisa's shocking death last November and the violence she endured, allegedly at the hands of her crack-addicted mother, became a symbol of the failures of the city's child welfare system. The case triggered a reorganization of the system, which was placed under Mayor Giuliani's direct control. Five months after Elisa's death, the Giuliani administration moved Mondayto fire the caseworker, Adriano Navalo, and supervisor, Thomas Gorse, who were responsible for the case. Lopez, held without bail and vilified as the most hated woman in New York, has been in protective custody in the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island.

No trial date has been set About 10:30 a.m. yesterday, Lopez, lying on her bed, a scarf wrapped around her neck, was pulling on it, apparently trying to strangle herself, spokesman Tom Antenen said. A correction officer heard choking sounds and quickly opened up Lopez' cell and took her out Lopez was taken to Elmhurst Medical Center, where she underwent X-rays. She was listed in stable condition and held overnight for observation. Her sister Diana Mahones said she last spoke to Lopez on Sunday, her 30th birthday.

"She's been feeling real bad," Mahones said. "She always said she wanted to kill herself, but I didn't think she would get the chance to do it" --v 1 V) -'Hii I I 1 CITY is looking to fire Elisa caseworker Adriano Navalo and his supervisor. When asked if she had considered suicide, Lopez answered, "I want to kill myself, I do. But not because that they say that I murder my daughter. I can't see my kids.

I don't have my daughter with me. What I have?" Lopez is one of three women accused of killing their children housed in protective custody at Rikers. The other two women are Denise Jenkins, 23, charged with assault in the death of her 9-month-old daughter in April, and Sylvia Valdez, accused of tossing her 7-month-old-infant girl to her death out the window of a Bronx apartment also last month. A fourth woman, Aysha Carmona. 23, is in the jail's mental observation unit Carmona is accused of killing her 17-month-old daughter in March.

LITTLE EUSA'S mom, Awilda Lopez, tried to strangle herself yesterday in Rikers cell. NEWS WIRE SERVICES Grandma will rear coma victim's baby ROCHESTER, N.Y. A premature baby born six weeks ago to a comatose woman who was raped in a nursing home is being raised by his maternal grandmother, the family's attorney said yesterday. Neurologists say it is unlikely the 30-year-old mother, who has been in a coma since a 1985 car crash, has any conscious awareness of what has happened. So far, no one has been charged with the rape.

A DNA analysis of blood taken from a fired nurse's aide at the facility where the woman resided is expected to be completed in about a month. The baby boy, born two months premature March 18, was taken home Sunday by his grandmother. Th Associated Press CO swered The unpaid bill has been a central point of the First Lady's account of her legal work for McDougal's failing The First Lady has minimized her role, telling federal regulators a year ago in sworn written answers that she met with McDougal on April 23, 1985, only to get him to pay the overdue bill and to arrange a pre-payment plan for new work. She referred to the unpaid bill three times in her three-paragraph answer, saying she told McDougal her firm could not proceed with the new work until "the previous bill was paid." The White House says it learned of the document only recently and that the First Lady stands by her answer. "The First Lady's sworn statement has accurately set forth her beliefs at the time," her attorney David Kendall said.

Meanwhile, the Senate Whitewater Committee moved yesterday to probe a report that the First Lady's fingerprints were found on legal billing records that turned up at the White House last year. Committee Chairman Alfonse D'A-mato said it was "absolutely essential we ascertain whose fingerprints are on the documents" and asked the panel's lawyers to find the best way of getting the information. Republicans on the panel also tried to show that bond underwriting for an Arkansas state police communications system was steered to a contributor to then-Gov. Clinton's campaign. The man was later convicted of conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

A federal appeals court judge rejected a request by two Democratic senators to fire Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr. The senators charged that Starr's private legal work had created conflicts of interest WASHINGTON A law firm document obtained by Whitewater prosecutors poses new questions about Hillary Rodham Clinton's sworn account of her legal work a decade ago for savings and loan owner James McDougal. The document, turned over by the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, shows McDougal paid off $5,000 of a $5,894 bill in November 1984. That was five months before the First Lady says she met with him about paying off the debt to her law firm, according to two attorneys familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, McDougal also cast doubt on whether the old bill came up in that meeting: "For your story, say that when asked, 'Do you recall the conversation in Mrs.

Clinton's McDougal an CO (0.