Aquino Lawyers File New Charges on Marcoses : Philippines: The government alleges that the late dictator illegally transferred assets in violation of a court order.

Recently deceased Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, his wife Imelda and several of their associates have violated a 1986 Los Angeles federal court order that prohibited them from disposing of any of their assets worldwide, according to documents recently filed in U.S. District Court here.

For example, the Marcoses “fraudulently transferred” to Saudi arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi ownership and control over two New York buildings, four related corporations, and at least one Swiss bank account with a total value in excess of $100 million, according to a newly filed motion in a massive civil case in which the Philippine government is seeking to recover $5 billion the Marcoses allegedly looted from their country.

When the suit was filed in June, 1986, a federal judge issued a worldwide freeze on the Marcoses’ assets, pending trial in the case. Now, Philippine lawyers assert that because the Marcoses violated the injunction, a broader injunction blocking Imelda Marcos’ disposition of any of the assets is needed.

The motion asserts that documents were illegally backdated in an attempt to transfer Marcos holdings to Khashoggi to get around the injunction.

Court papers also state that the Marcoses violated the injunction by spending $2.8 million and encumbering an additional $200 million in their Swiss bank accounts to purchase arms for a planned invasion of the Philippines. And the court papers assert that the Marcoses violated the injunction by transferring ownership of their Honolulu residence to a Channel Islands corporation in England.

The allegations involving the Marcoses and Khashoggi closely parallel some of the charges in a New York federal criminal indictment brought against the trio in October, 1988.

All the transactions were described in detail in a motion, filed late Friday by Alan D. Bersin and Michael R. Doyen of Munger, Tolles & Olsen, the Los Angeles law firm representing the Philippine government in the massive civil racketeering suit originally filed against the Marcoses in June, 1986. The new motion seeks to modify the June, 1986, injunction by placing greater restraints on how Imelda Marcos and her allies spend money or dispose of property.

The lawyers are seeking a broader court order which would require that, except for legal fees, not more than $5,000 could be spent or committed on behalf of Imelda Marcos without prior court approval.

Additionally, Imelda Marcos would have to file a monthly report detailing expenditures and accounting for all loans or gifts.

The broadened injunction also would prohibit Khashoggi, now free on bail in New York, from transferring or encumbering any Marcos-related assets.

The plaintiffs also asked U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer, who issued the original injunction, to make any future violations of the order subject to a $1-million fine for each violation. The plaintiffs asked for a Nov. 6 hearing on the motion.

Lawyers for the Philippines requested that the order be modified to “more closely monitor, control and account for the Marcoses’ expenditures, transactions, and assets, in order to prevent further violations of this . . . order by Imelda Marcos and her deceased husband’s worldwide network of bankers, agents and cronies. The evidence shows that no lesser remedy will deter the Marcos Enterprise from violating the injunction and from squandering and concealing assets belonging to the Philippines.”

The civil suit against the Marcoses and several other defendants, including two California banks, asserts that they employed a series of elaborate financial schemes to illegally build a $5-billion fortune during his 20 years in office.

The suit, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corporate Organizations Act, contends that the Marcoses embezzled Philippine money and property and extracted kickbacks from foreign and domestic companies doing business in the Philippines. And the case alleges that the Marcoses stole money from government-owned financial institutions, converted to their own use foreign aid money designed to benefit ordinary Filipino citizens and engaged in illegal money laundering to conceal the funds from authorities.

Marcos, who died in exile in Honolulu on Sept. 28, after a long illness, reported a total salary of $370,000 during his 20 years in office, but wound up with an estimated $5 billion when he fled to Hawaii in February, 1986. The difference could only have come from money and property that rightfully belonged to the Philippine people, according to the Aquino government. The trial of the Los Angeles case is expected to start after the completion of the New York criminal case next year.

“Those are all matters they’ve known about for a while,” said John J. Bartko, a San Francisco lawyer who has represented the Marcoses in this case and others, after the new motion was described to him. “In the wake of Marcos’ death, there are things they (the Philippines’ lawyers) may do now (that) they wouldn’t have done before.” Bartko said he will make a full, written legal response once he had seen the motion.