ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - As Washington braced for President Bill Clinton‘s impeachment defence on Tuesday, Julie Hiatt Steele, a minor player in the White House scandal, pleaded not guilty to the case‘s first criminal charges. "I plead absolutely not guilty," Steele, the one-time friend of former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey, said during a brief hearing in front of U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in this city just outside Washington. Steele faces four counts of obstruction of justice and lying, the first criminal charges brought by independent counsel Kenneth Starr during his year-long investigation into whether Clinton, Monica Lewinsky or others lied or obstructed justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. "I could not have imagined being caught in the middle of a political storm," Steele told reporters after the hearing. Steele told Newsweek magazine in 1997 that Willey had given her an account of sexual advances allegedly made by Clinton in the Oval Office in November 1993. But Steele later recanted her story and accused Willey of asking her to lie to back up Willey‘s version of events. Clinton has denied Willey‘s allegation. The charges against Steele claim that she obstructed justice by providing a false affidavit in the Jones case on Feb. 13, 1998, stating that Willey never told her about the alleged advances. According to the indictment, Willey did tell her about the incident and Steele then related the same information to friends of hers. "I feel confident that I‘m innocent and that I‘ll be vindicated," Steele later told CNN‘s "Larry King Live". "I will not go to jail. I will fight with every last breath in my body. I am not guilty." Steele‘s arraignment came just hours before Clinton‘s legal team was scheduled to present their defence of the president in the Senate. The charges against Steele carry a maximum possible punishment of 35 years in prison upon conviction. During the arraignment Steele‘s lawyer, Nancy Luque, told the judge that she intended to file a motion asking for the case to be moved from Virginia to Washington, D.C. Luque said by bringing the charges in Virginia, the independent counsel was trying to "manufacture" jurisdiction. Because the charges stems from the Jones case, the case should be heard in Washington, Luque said. The judge scheduled a hearing on the change of venue motion for Feb. 5. After a heated exchange with Luque, who said she would not be ready to try the case in six weeks because of prior commitments, Hilton scheduled the trial to start on March 30.