Big Calif. Holdings Linked to Marcos Sister, Friend : $8 Million in L.A. County--Assessor

California real estate worth more than $11 million is owned by relatives or associates of ousted Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos and may have been bought with Marcos money, state Sen. Paul Carpenter charged today.

And County Assessor Alexander Pope said today $8 million worth of property was registered to Marcos’ youngest sister and his alleged former girlfriend in Los Angeles County.

“We have strong suspicions that it was all purchased with Marcos’ money,” Carpenter said during a news conference outside a Pasadena mansion valued at nearly half a million dollars owned by Dovie Beams Villagran, allegedly Marcos’ ex-girlfriend.

Carpenter (D-Norwalk) assigned members of his Senate Select Committee on the Pacific Rim to investigate parcels of land “which have apparently been hidden behind all sorts of front names to conceal the true nature of the ousted dictator’s holdings,” he said in a release.

More than 100 parcels of land are being investigated, including the Pasadena mansion and a “huge block of land” in the Carlsbad area near San Diego, Carpenter said.

Carpenter handed out a news release listing nearly $2 million worth of property in San Diego County, including two unimproved parcels worth $326,912 owned by Ivar N. V. Corp. in San Diego and two other properties in Carlsbad with a combined assessed value of $1.6 million owned by P.R.L. Properties Management Inc.

However, Carpenter’s figures surpassed Pope’s figures for Los Angeles County holdings by about $1 million, and assessor spokesman Mark Ryavec said this may be because Carpenter’s figures are a year old, and many properties he listed may have since been sold.

However, even so, Ryavec said the properties currently listed as owned by people with ties to Marcos in Los Angeles County are probably worth more at market value than the $9 million Carpenter suggests. He said the assessor’s office lists only assessed valuation, which reflects the value of the property at the time it last changed hands.

The new government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino says Marcos looted the Philippines treasury of billions of dollars during his 20 years in office, investing much of the money in U.S. real estate from Long Island, N.Y., to Hawaii.