Richard Hibey Interview 8

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Oral History of Richard Hibey, Esq.
Eighth Interview
September 25, 2023
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of The Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is James Rocap, and the interviewee
is Richard Hibey. The interview took place in Dick Hibey’s home on Cathedral Avenue on
Monday, September 25, 2023. This is the eighth interview.
MR. ROCAP: Good afternoon, Dick.
MR. HIBEY: Good afternoon, Jim.
MR. ROCAP: To pick up where we left off in session seven, which was a week ago, we
discussed the formation of Anderson Hibey in 1981 and one of your
representations, namely the representation of Jonathan Pollard, that occurred
between November 1985 and March of 1987. Today we are going to discuss
another very high-profile and challenging representation that you undertook while
you were at an Anderson Hibey, and that, in particular, is the representation of
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos between March of 1986 and September of 1989,
when Ferdinand Marcos died. I think your representation generally ended upon
his death with perhaps I think there was one trial that was still going on at that
time that you tried. I guess my first question is: Here we are in the mid-1980s.
You have your regular docket, you’re still active in litigation in the District Court
and Court of Appeals in D.C., I assume?
MR. HIBEY: Correct.
MR. ROCAP: And then along comes Jonathan Pollard, one of the highest-profile major
espionage representations during the 1980s, in November of 1985, and then four
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months later, you were asked to represent Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos after he
stepped down from office.
So my first question is, what was it like in the office with those two major
representations going on? How did you organize your time and the time of your
colleagues in order to be able to do this along with your normal docket?
MR. HIBEY: The Pollard case was never manpower intensive. As I recall, it was staffed with an
associate, and we proceeded from there. So when the Marcos case came along, we
were able to devote manpower to the case without unduly burdening anybody. So
whereas my excellent colleague Gordon Coffee worked with me on the Pollard
case, I was ably assisted by Gordon, Tim Broas, Tom Steindler in forming a team
to deal with the Marcos representation and the peculiar legal issues that it
presented.
MR. ROCAP: Did the law firm undertake to represent him on more the political front, public
relations front, apart from the legal issues? So, for example, was Stan Anderson
involved in any significant way in dealing with the international and political
implications of the Marcos case?
MR. HIBEY: I think the short answer is no. I can’t speak to everything Stan might have done,
but undoubtedly it was because of Stan’s political connections, and especially to
Paul Manafort, that we got the case at all, but my recollection is, aside from a few
administrative issues, Stan did not participate in the substantive challenges of the
case.
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MR. ROCAP: There would still be, of course, media surrounding the legal issues, the legal
proceedings that you were handling. How did you handle that? Did you hire a
consultant? Did you manage it yourself?
MR. HIBEY: No. We handled it ourselves, and it was a relatively simple formula. I never
believed in talking to the press about pending cases or clients, and I pretty much
enforced that rule, which was never on the verge of being broken, at least by my
colleagues in the firm. Everybody just understood you don’t talk to the press and
especially in high-profile cases. I don’t recall any strain on us. I grant you that I
spoke to the press when an issue had just been discussed in court. I interpreted the
ethical requirements for trial lawyers to allow for a statement that could be made
to explain what just happened in court, and that’s about all you’re ever going find
in any articles where I’m quoted. So we did not wage a public relations campaign
in connection with the Marcos case.
MR. ROCAP Did the Marcos family have a media relations organization that you needed to
deal with?
MR. HIBEY: No. I’d like to amend that answer. I’m not aware of them having a media relations
organization after he was deposed. After he was deposed and he came to the
United States, I had no interaction with a media relations organization on his
behalf.
MR. ROCAP: We’ll start at the beginning, and just set the stage here, this, of course, is all public
record, but Ferdinand Marcos resigned in late February 1986.
MR. HIBEY: He did not resign. He was overthrown.
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MR. ROCAP: And that was because of what was then popularly known as the People Power
Revolution?
MR. HIBEY: Correct.
MR. ROCAP: And that followed the election between himself and Corazon Aquino, which he
announced that he had won by a landslide and many of the people in the
Philippines did not agree with that, I take it. There were protests, and then he
ended up being deposed. So that was late February of 1986. How did it come
about that you ended up representing Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos shortly
thereafter?
MR. HIBEY: On a Sunday afternoon after February 26th and before March 2, 1986, I was in
my office preparing to depose an expert witness in a medical malpractice case that
we had brought. The phone rang, and it was my partner Bob Blair who called and
wanted to know whether we could handle an injunction proceeding in Hawaii. I
answered in the affirmative. He said that Paul Manafort had been trying to reach
the firm about a client of his who needed help in an injunction proceeding in
Hawaii. I said, “Well, they’ve got lawyers out there who can handle it.” He said,
“Yes, but this is Ferdinand Marcos.” I said to him, “We can handle it.” I stopped
work on the deposition preparation. I went home, quickly packed a bag and a few
suits and explained to Mary Ellen what had gone on. My younger son said to me,
“Does this have anything to do with that guy in Hawaii who’s in trouble?” I told
him, “Yes and I didn’t know any more than that.” So I kissed everybody goodbye
and got on a plane, arrived in LA, stayed at some LAX facility overnight. The
next morning before I boarded, I stopped to get a shoeshine. The shoeshine guy
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asked me what I was doing. I said, “I’ve got to be in court in Hawaii.” He said,
“Is it a big case?” I said, “Yes, it’s a big case,” but I didn’t tell him anything
about it. He said, “Am I going to read about it in the paper?” I said, “I promise
you, you will read about this one in the paper.” He said, “Well, I better give you a
really good shine.” And he did.
I sprinted for the airport gate and boarded. I arrived in Hawaii and was
greeted by a State Department official who had been seconded to effect the
smooth installation of the Marcos family and their entourage. He filled me in on
things he thought I needed to know as we rode to Hickam Air Force Base where
the family and the entourage were currently staying. Somewhere along the line on
the way to Hickam, the State Department fellow, whose name I cannot recall,
injected a note of hostility toward the Marcoses in the context of telling me one of
the things I’m going to have to do is find a place for them to stay because they
can’t stay at Hickam indefinitely. I filed that one away.
We got to the Air Force Base, and I was taken immediately to the
residence of the President and his family. I had a brief light moment, free of
anxiety and anticipation upon meeting the President and his First Lady Imelda. I
told them that the State Department fellow put me on notice that there was a court
proceeding in federal court shortly and that I would do well to attend and
participate in it. The President gave me his permission to go to court, enter an
appearance on behalf of the Marcoses and anybody else in his entourage who
needed representation, and as quickly as I had entered the room where he was, I
departed in order to get to court on time.
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This time it was not a government car that took me. It was a hired driver
who was built like a Norge refrigerator, that would take me to court. When I got
out and got into the courthouse, which was crowded, in fact overflowing, waiting
to hear news of the Marcoses, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the driver
stood astride with his arms folded. Fast forward, when I got back in the car an
hour or so later, I asked him what he was doing. He said, “I was just watching out
because around here not everybody approves of the Marcoses and you could have
been in physical danger.” I should say right now I never perceived in all the time
that I represented the Marcos interests that I was in physical danger. So what he
had to say was truly news to me. I then entered the courthouse and made my first
appearance before Chief Judge Harold Fong of the U.S. District Court for the
District of Hawaii.
MR. ROCAP: Had you arranged for local counsel or was there any other attorney there for the
Marcos family?
MR. HIBEY: There was nobody there except me. I realized that we would have problems
because I was not a member of the bar of the court where the action was going to
take place. I explained that to the judge, who very cordially received me,
understood the circumstances under which I was making an appearance, excused
me from not having local counsel, and indicated he would receive my arguments
even though I was not associated with local counsel yet. I assured him I would be
in time, I just needed to get my feet on the ground, so to speak, and among other
things, meet my obligations to the court.
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MR. ROCAP: So your adversary was there, I assume, someone representing the Philippines, and
they were, I assume, trying to make some effort to retrieve some of the belongings
and goods that the Marcos family brought from the Philippines?
MR. HIBEY: Not some. All of the contents of a 747, a plane which was used to fly all of the
belongings of the Marcoses and the entourage that were taken when he and his
group flew to Hawaii.
MR. ROCAP: That’s a pretty tall task to get off the plane, say hello to the client, drive down to
the courthouse, and then begin arguing either a TRO or a preliminary injunction
hearing of some sort?
MR. HIBEY: I seem to recall he gave me a little time. He basically said we’re going to
reconvene at a certain date, and the issue will be argued then. And that’s what in
broad stroke happened.
MR. ROCAP: You went back after the hearing, I assume, and met with the family again?
MR. HIBEY: Yes. Somewhere along the line I broke long enough to register in a hotel in
Waikiki. I tell you that because I was booked in for three days. I stayed there ten.
By day seven, the hotel moved all my belongings out into the hallway because
they needed the room for the next person who reserved it. That’s the last time I
stayed in any hotel in Waikiki. Well that’s not true. I made hurried arrangements
to stay in a brand-new hotel in Waikiki. It was a Japanese hotel, and I cannot
remember the name of it. I might recall later. Thereafter, I stayed in the Kahala
Hilton for what I later calculated was a total of eight months of my life over three
years.
MR. ROCAP: In Hawaii?
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MR. HIBEY: In Hawaii.
MR. ROCAP: We’ll come back to the first meeting with the family, but over that three years,
how many trips to Hawaii did you make?
MR. HIBEY: Eighty-seven.
MR. ROCAP: And you’re so certain of that because?
MR. HIBEY: Because there was a card you had to fill out upon entry into Hawaii. One of the
questions was how many times have you been to Hawaii, and it was easier to keep
track of the number since the trips were frequent, very little space between them,
and the number simply accumulated.
MR. ROCAP: Let’s go back to the first meeting with President Marcos. We obviously can’t go
into what was said back and forth, but did you hit it off with him? What was it
like meeting him at the beginning of your relationship?
MR. HIBEY: He had a great sense of humor. I think he might have gotten a kick, or I’d like to
think he did, out of my candor about the problems that he was facing and the
humor which was indulged in to diffuse whatever tension anybody might have
been feeling. I take pride in my ability to explain things to a client, especially bad
news. I think those particular talents were on display at the very beginning of my
relationship with him.
MR. ROCAP: How did you perceive his approach to his legal problems, putting aside his
political and perception problems throughout the world from a legal standpoint?
Was he helpful to you? Did you have a good relationship? How did that work?
MR. HIBEY: He was lawyerly in his approach to his own problems. At least that’s what he
manifested with me. I understand this was a man who compartmented massive
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amounts of information and used it to his benefit. I don’t know that I ever taxed
him with anything more than an understanding of each of the cases, so I can’t tell
you what that meant to him politically, what moves he might have made. I don’t
know that he did make any. He was a very frail guy by the time he came to the
United States. So the asset which he displayed foremost was that of a lawyer
thinking his way through the issues that I presented to him as core to the cases.
MR. ROCAP: Let’s talk at a high level about what the principal efforts were that you had to
make on his behalf. Was there yet a federal criminal investigation going on? Had
that started when he came to Hawaii?
MR. HIBEY: In truth, I have no idea when they started it, but I would not at all be surprised that
Rudy Giuliani’s office began this investigation and prosecution of the Marcoses
almost immediately.
MR. ROCAP: And that’s where the criminal aspects of the representation were focused, in the
Southern District of New York?
MR. HIBEY: Yes.
MR. ROCAP: There were civil cases brought by the Republic of the Philippines using RICO and
other theories of recovery with respect to the assets that the Marcos family had
acquired over time, and we’ll talk in more detail about that, and then there were a
set of human rights cases, individuals who felt that they or their loved ones had
been persecuted by the Marcos regime and had brought lawsuits in the United
States. Were there other issues that you needed to deal with, with the Marcos
family?
MR. HIBEY: The litigations were at the core of everything we did.
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MR. ROCAP: What would you say your biggest challenge was with respect to defending the
Marcoses in those three major areas?
MR. HIBEY: The enormous bias against them.
MR. ROCAP: From just the press that preceded them?
MR. HIBEY: From the system. I never had any confidence that we were going to prevail in
every case. I thought that the cards were stacked against us. Certain judges
displayed an outright animus toward the defendants, Marcos, and the plaintiffs in
these various cases infused the cases with Filipino politics that were truly none of
the business of the US courts.
MR. ROCAP: How did you try to deal with that? What was your strategy?
MR. HIBEY: To lay out the strongest legal arguments under US law and international law that
we can make so that our position was known and undeniably correct.
MR. ROCAP: Let’s talk a little bit about one of the three major areas, the civil RICO litigation
regarding the Marcos family assets that the Republic of the Philippines was trying
to retrieve. We’ve already talked about the very first appearance that you made
before Judge Fong, and then he scheduled the injunctive hearing for a few days
hence. Did you actually make that argument during those first ten days that you
were there in Hawaii on the first trip?
MR. HIBEY: If I had a clearer recollection of what transpired, I could answer that with
accuracy. We were not devoid of legal arguments. We were quick to express them
in writing. It’s just that I can’t recall with precision how those arguments were
fashioned.
MR. ROCAP: What were the doctrines that they focused on?
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MR. HIBEY: This is not as authoritative as it should be, but we’re talking about thirty years ago
and me without the benefit of records now that I’m in my dotage. In no special
way, I think we challenged the power of the Commissioner of Customs to do what
he did to withhold the contents of the plane. I know that the act of state doctrine
and the political question doctrine and sovereign immunity doctrine and head of
state immunity doctrine were all legal principles that we argued.
MR. ROCAP: I understand that you did at some point go back to Hawaii to argue in those cases,
which are reported cases. One of them is Azurin v. Von Raab, which went up to
the Ninth Circuit, and you were in front of Judge Fong originally. I understand
that you missed an occasion to present your considerable tap-dancing skills in
order to make that argument. Could you talk a little bit about what happened?
MR. HIBEY: I guess nothing’s sacred. I’ve always loved tap dancing. Mary Ellen came to
understand that, and so she enrolled me in a tap dance studio. I was placed in the
beginning tap class, which included probably about twenty-five women and one
other person, a male. What I learned is you learn the steps, and by the end of say
fourteen weeks, there’s a recital, and that is the capstone of your tour as a
beginning tap dancer. I completed my first tap experience class, and it culminated
in a recital one night in a local high school auditorium that seated something like
1,200 people, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. In preparation for that,
I would practice at home to the embarrassment of my boys, who at the time were
13 and 14. They got over it, and the night was a triumph. The recital audience
included my parents, Mary Ellen’s mother, a number of my partners, some of my
dear friends and a cadre of others who knew me but who were there, not for me,
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but for their little girls who were performing their own routines. The whole thing
was filmed by a very close friend of mine, and it became a cherished memory.
I was so emboldened to continue that I enrolled for the next class which
would be Tap I, and I dutifully was attending those classes and was able to
maneuver my schedule in a way that I was able to show up for most of the Tap I
classes. Tap I would show its artistry on the Mall in Washington, DC, in June.
That was the target date for the next recital. Two weeks before the recital, a
hearing was scheduled in LA in connection with an injunctive proceeding against
the Marcoses in an attempt to recover the hidden wealth, as it was described, that
the Marcos’s had allegedly stolen during their years in power. So I turned to that
proceeding in earnest and at the expense of my burgeoning tap dance career.
MR. ROCAP: The sacrifices that lawyers make.
MR. HIBEY: Indeed.
MR. ROCAP: At least originally, I know that you all were successful before Judge Fong on the
litigation there with respect to the act of state doctrine. I think we’ll include those
cases as appendices to the oral history. But then that turned around at some point.
MR. HIBEY: Yes. Now there’s a jumble there in my memory, and I haven’t sorted it out. It
probably should have been more astute for purposes of this interview to try and
figure it all out. I remember that we prevailed in front of Judge Fong. I believe
that case died in favor of a new action in the Central District of California before
Mariana Pfaelzer, in which the government of the Philippines, in broader stroke
than the case in front of Judge Fong, laid claim to the hidden wealth of the family
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and sought an injunction to keep them from doing anything with those assets
except pay their lawyers.
That case then had a history where we are in front of Judge Pfaelzer
unsuccessfully but prevailed on appeal in front of a three-judge panel of the Ninth
Circuit. I think the opinion was written by Judge Alex Kozinski. It was a 2-1
decision. The Philippines sought rehearing en banc. I seem to recall there was a
rule in the Ninth Circuit that the panel whose opinion and ruling was going to be
reviewed en banc could not be included in the en banc panel for that case. Judge
Kozinski’s opinion, which I seem to recall was brilliantly written, was reversed,
and so the injunction was reinstated.
MR. ROCAP: You argued in the Ninth Circuit?
MR. HIBEY: Argued in the Ninth Circuit in front of Kozinski and prevailed, argued in the
Ninth Circuit in front of the en banc panel, and did not prevail. I think we got
maybe five votes.
MR. ROCAP: What was the argument like? Was it a difficult argument in the en banc?
MR. HIBEY: It wasn’t difficult conceptually. I remember an alarming degree of hostility
exhibited by Judge Pregerson, I think that was his name, and one other judge, the
latter less so, but nevertheless you knew where he stood.
MR. ROCAP: And with that decision I take it the act of state doctrine, political question
doctrine, and those other principles, which you had indicated were the core of
your defense, were no longer available?
MR. HIBEY: I have to believe that’s what happened.
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MR. ROCAP: We’ll add the case to the appendices, but I think that’s pretty much what they
concluded. Let’s now talk about the federal criminal investigation. We touched on
that earlier, and you mentioned at some point early on, it’s likely that Mr. Giuliani
and his staff at the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s Office began
an investigation of the Marcos family. Just to provide the timeframe here, there
was an indictment that was returned on October 21, 1988, which would have been
about two-and-a-half years after you began your representation of them in March
of 1986. Who were the primary line attorneys from the US Attorney’s Office who
you had to deal with?
MR. HIBEY: Chuck La Bella and Debra Livingston. Chuck La Bella had a lengthy history as a
federal prosecutor. I can’t remember everything about him. He was what you
would expect from New York, rough-hewn but decent. Debra Livingston is I
believe the Chief Judge of the Second Circuit.
MR. ROCAP: She is. So she was I assume a young prosecutor at that point.
MR. HIBEY: Very young.
MR. ROCAP: Your relationship with those two?
MR. HIBEY: It was straightforward. My colleague and local counsel who deserves a shout out,
John Bartko, of Bartko, Zankel, Tarrant and Miller, was an invaluable colleague
during all of this business. He had a more cordial relationship with Chuck than I
did. It was never a problem that he related to John more easily than relating to me.
That’s just the way things are.
MR. ROCAP: Oftentimes in criminal investigations like this the defense attorney will have
multiple opportunities to meet perhaps on procedural issues from time to time and
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to discuss the substance of charges, why they shouldn’t be brought, and so on. In
this case, what was the history of those kinds of discussions?
MR. HIBEY: I think they were hellbent on prosecuting the Marcoses. They had a visual of the
wealth they had amassed that took place in a few different frames. You’ve got a
747 loaded with cash and other items of value. You had the jewelry that was in
the possession of Mrs. Marcos, and you also had some enormous and storied
buildings in New York City that purportedly were owned by the Marcoses.
MR. ROCAP: I believe there was some litigation. This did not include you because the Marcoses
were not parties to it, but there was litigation that went up to the Second Circuit in
which there were some different approaches taken in the Ninth Circuit.
MR. HIBEY: Yes.
MR. ROCAP: Time goes by, and at some point I understand you were given the courtesy of a
meeting in the Attorney General’s office in Washington, DC?
MR. HIBEY: If you want to call it that. I got a call from the Office of Attorney General Dick
Thornburg and was asked if I could attend a meeting at the Department of Justice
which he was convening. We settled on a date. We were ushered to a small
conference room and three prosecutors came in. One was Dick Thornburg, the
Attorney General. The other was Mark Richard, who was the I’ll say the de facto
chief of the criminal division. I could be corrected. He might have been special
assistant to the attorney general. He had a very nice reputation. And Rudy
Giuliani. Thornburg said to me, “I want you to know this meeting has the
approval of the President of the United States, President Reagan. I have a meeting
to go to so I can’t stay, so I will leave you to the tender mercies of Mr. Giuliani
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and know that everything he says has approval up and down the line.” And he
was gone. I was not happy. So I turned my attention to Mr. Giuliani to hear what
he had to say. He never looked up and basically said, “Your client, Ferdinand
Marcos, and his wife shall fly to New York and arrive on Friday to surrender to
the charges set forth in an indictment under RICO. He will plead to a RICO count.
He will plead also to a charge that we will identify when he arrives here in New
York, and he will submit to a full-on interview regarding his criminal activities.”
I said to him, “Are you s******g me?” He looked up like how dare you. I
said, “You said that the President of the United States has given his approval to
this meeting. I want to talk to the President of the United States.” And he said,
“No, you will not. I will not allow it.” I said, “Well, then we don’t have much
more to talk about. Do what you’ve got to do, and we’ll do what we have to do.”
I stormed out, got on to a plane and flew to Honolulu to break the news.
MR. ROCAP: At this point, what was the physical status of Ferdinand Marcos?
MR. HIBEY: I don’t think he was hospitalized yet. I think his hospitalization came later, but not
much later, because I seem to recall that he was still operating sufficiently to
appreciate what I’d just told him and for him to try to initiate some contact with
President Reagan without success. But shortly after that he physically went south.
MR. ROCAP: The indictment was returned on October 21, 1988. It was assigned to Judge
Keenan in the Southern District. Did Ferdinand Marcos come in for an
arraignment?
MR. HIBEY: No.
MR. ROCAP: Why not?
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MR. HIBEY: He was too sick. I got him a medical severance from the case and therefore
severed husband from wife.
MR. ROCAP: Was that based upon a medical review or observation?
MR. HIBEY: Yes. A medical hearing. I had three doctors, but I can remember Dr. Elliott, a
noted, I think a heart guy. Doctor Chatterjee, I believe, was also a heart guy, and
Doctor Claver Ramos, who was a doctor who could testify to some of the further
underlying problems of a man with damaged kidneys from years ago.
MR. ROCAP: Did the government have their experts?
MR. HIBEY: They had an expert. We had heard his reputation was he never found anybody
sick. He was from the Weld family. His brother was governor of Massachusetts at
one time. They were a pretty white shoe family. He had earlier pronounced that
the old man was in shape still, but when we pressed the point in front of Judge
Keenan, Judge Keenan ordered that Weld go out to Hawaii and check him out. On
that trip, I am told, I did not see it, Weld walked into the hospital room, took one
look, never laid a hand on the old man, turned around and walked out and said he
can’t travel. And indeed he passed away in the hospital.
MR. ROCAP: Even though Ferdinand Marcos could not travel to New York for the arraignment,
Imelda Marcos could?
MR. HIBEY: Yes.
MR. ROCAP: You were representing her in connection with the arraignment, I take it?
MR. HIBEY: Yes.
MR. ROCAP: Could you describe what the trip to the courthouse was like with Mrs. Marcos?
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MR. HIBEY: Yes. We were staying at the Waldorf Astoria. She was in New York to be
presented before the trial judge for an arraignment, mugging, fingerprinting, and
bail bond. We received word from the FBI the night before arraignment that the
FBI would undertake her transport to the court in Foley Square. I’m sure it was
security reasons, but frankly I never gave it much thought. The idea that we were
going to be taken there and returned to the hotel was all that I wanted to know
about the involvement of the FBI on that day.
They came to us and said that they were ready to usher us down to the car,
and that’s what they did, but through a very circuitous route because I think they
were trying to shake the press that was loaded in the hotel, all over. So we went
and got in the car, but it wasn’t as furtive as I think they would have liked, and so
we took off. Now, before I tell you about what that meant, I should explain
another thing to you.
There is a traditional dress that Filipino women wear on special occasions.
The higher up you are in the class firmament, the more well-constructed this dress
is. It’s called the terno. A terno, and understand I haven’t seen one of these in
over thirty years, but as I recall, she wore a long skirt down to her toes and a
matching bodice arrangement that left her midriff exposed and her shoulders were
adorned with what I’ll call epaulets that might have been as high as two inches, or
if somebody said four inches, I wouldn’t dispute it. She got in the car, and I took
stock of the woman because she had an aura about her that was undeniable. She
was the essence of calm, which I found remarkable since she was going to what
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others might think is a humiliating experience of appearing in a criminal court and
then being mugged and fingerprinted. She was cool as a cucumber.
We get in the car, and the Bureau guys, the driver and front seat guard,
and the minute we took off, we’re being followed by, I can’t think of anything
else so will call it paparazzi. These people were aggressive. They would try to cut
you off in order to slow the car down to give the photographers who were hanging
out all over a couple of vehicles the opportunity to shoot photographs and movies
and other pictorials. It was the most harrowing ride I’ve ever been on.
We got to the courthouse, I’d say ten or fifteen minutes after we took off. I
think that’s pretty good in New York. Anyway, we get out. Now they didn’t do us
any favors when we got out. We had to walk up the steps to the Southern District
court. There are a lot of steps. There was a crowd there, and they were a mix, but
mostly anti-Marcos. We went up, and we finally got into the courthouse and were
escorted to the courtroom and waited for the judge to come out. While we were
waiting, I looked over at the First Lady and I noticed there were red blotches on
her midriff skin, and I deduced, and it was later confirmed by those attending her,
so to speak, that I was looking at puncture marks that the anti-Marcos crowd
made as she was going up the steps to the Southern District courtrooms. I never
heard her complain about it. It just happened to her.
MR. ROCAP: With umbrellas?
MR. HIBEY: Umbrellas. She was tough.
MR. ROCAP: You made it back to the Waldorf Astoria?
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MR. HIBEY: We made it back to the Waldorf Astoria and waited for things to quiet down
because we needed to go, what I thought, and I think I’m right, maybe next door,
to a residence, an apartment, that belonged to Doris Duke. Doris Duke had a
friendly relationship with Mrs. Marcos, and it was Doris Duke, through her
counsel, that put up $5 million to secure the First Lady’s recognizance to court as
required.
MR. ROCAP: After that, you remained the lawyer for Ferdinand Marcos. I understand that
Mrs. Marcos, after she got through his death, retained Jerry Spence to represent
her in the criminal trial, and ultimately she and her co-defendant, Adnan
Khashoggi, who I believe was represented by Mr. Linn at the trial, were both
acquitted in I think June or July of 1990 of all the charges. Was that the end of
your involvement in the criminal proceedings?
MR. HIBEY: It was. There were no more criminal proceedings.
MR. ROCAP: That was it. So let’s talk finally about what we referred to earlier as the human
rights cases. There were two sets of them, one of which you were directly
involved in. The first set was before Judge Fong in Hawaii, individuals alleging
that their relatives had been tortured or killed, bringing actions under the alien
torts statute. Of course those were allowed to go forward after the Ninth Circuit
decided that the act of state doctrine did not apply. But there was one case in
which you were directly involved, which was the Domingo case, which began
long before Ferdinand Marcos was deposed. Could you talk a little bit about that?
What happened. The case was set in Seattle, Washington, I believe.
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MR. HIBEY: Yes. Somehow Domingo got a life of its own, separate from those other cases,
and it ended up having to go to trial after unsuccessful attempts to get the case
dismissed. At that point, it became a trial.
MR. ROCAP: Early on in the proceedings, I think in 1986 right after you began the
representation I believe, Ferdinand Marcos was deposed even though he was not a
defendant at that point?
MR. HIBEY: He was deposed, but to be honest with you, I don’t remember that it was in the
Domingo case. I think the deposition that both he and the First Lady appeared in
didn’t have anything to do with human rights violations, but it was more in
connection with hidden wealth and the tracing of it.
MR. ROCAP: Let’s talk a little bit about the trial. First of all, at the time that it went to trial and
for a couple of years before that, it had been assigned to Judge Barbara Rothstein,
who was, of course, and has been for a number of years, a visiting judge here in
the District Court of the District of Columbia.
MR. HIBEY: Yes.
MR. ROCAP: You had, I think, unsuccessfully tried to have Marcos dismissed from the case on
act of state, head of state, those principles that you were talking about earlier,
without success, and then ultimately it goes to trial in November of 1989. Now at
this point, President Marcos had passed a couple of months before, so it was
against the estate. So what were the issues in the trial and what were the
challenges that you saw as you began to try the case?
MR. HIBEY: My recollection is that the deaths that aggrieved the plaintiffs were the result of
labor disputes. They were very localized.
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MR. ROCAP: In Washington?
MR. HIBEY: In the state of Washington. I think in particular in Seattle. This case was in the
hands of lawyers who had at least one of whom had spent an enormous amount of
time in presenting the case through the prism of politics and the terrible record
that the Marcoses had in the Philippines. I always had trouble understanding what
the connection was, and I thought we pretty much showed that about the only
thing you could say about Domingo and his friends or enemies was that they were
Filipino. But you know, they had a grieving mother get up there and cry and every
ruling seemed to run headlong into the prevailing view that the killers were
somehow instruments of the Marcoses, although I never thought that link was
ever established. That’s why I’m having trouble trying to remember what it was
that linked the Marcoses to this labor dispute in the state of Washington. Judge
Rothstein gave me a good trial. I really thought I might win that one, but did not.
And then I was transitioned out, to put it gently, and the case settled for I think
$1.5 million.
MR. ROCAP: That was the last that you did with the Marcoses, I take it?
MR. HIBEY: That I can remember, yes.
MR. ROCAP: Looking back on those three-and-a-half years from 1986 until the end of 1989,
any thoughts on the representation itself? Is that something you enjoyed
professionally, personally? How does it factor into your views of your career?
MR. HIBEY: I’m proud of the work we did. The outcomes were mixed. The principal clients
remained untouched, maybe less from my efforts because the old man died and
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the First Lady was acquitted when somebody else was at the helm of her case, but
I’m proud of what we did during that time.
I had a recent case of validation, or put it this way, a recent case that I
interpret as a validation of the work we did for the Marcoses. Thirty years after
my involvement with them, Bong was elected President of the Philippines by a
landslide.
MR. ROCAP: Who is Bong?
MR. HIBEY: Bongbong is the nickname for Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. He recently made a visit to
the United States, the first as Head of State of the Philippines, and spent a couple
of days here in the city. He specifically asked to see me, and so I went to the Blair
House where there was a reception, and his wife Louise gave me the warmest
embrace that one could ever ask for from a client. He spent a lot of time trying to
catch up with me, and it was a very gratifying moment. I don’t think I read too
much into it. There was genuine heartfelt feeling going both ways between
myself, Bong, and his wife.
MR. ROCAP: Nice story. Nice capstone. The other thought that occurred to me was during these
years in the mid- to late-1980s, you have two of the most challenging
representations I can imagine. We talked about Jonathan Pollard and what
happened there leading up to the sentencing and then of course we’ve talked now
about the Marcos cases and the difficulties you had in representing the client in
any kind of a sympathetic way given the bias that you perceived during that time.
Any thoughts on how that affects a lawyer’s approach to defense, because you
went on and defended some additional very difficult cases.
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MR. HIBEY: The cumulative effect of having cases like these is that it’s a gut check on your
sanity and your capability to practice your profession at a high level. It gave me a
lot of confidence each time I had a case like this. I suppose the fear factor went
down, and the driving factor went up, and it made for a very happy period of my
life.
MR. ROCAP: Great. Alright, well I think we’ll stop here. The next session that we’ll have in a
couple of days will be on yet another enormous challenge, and that’s the trial of
Clair George. So we’ll talk about that next time.
MR. HIBEY: Yes. Thank you.