Reagan OKd Plea Bargain for Marcoses, Lawyer Says : They Were Indicted 3 Days Later

Then-President Ronald Reagan personally approved a plea bargain offered to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos three days before they were indicted in October, 1988, Imelda Marcos’ attorney says in court papers obtained today.

The papers add detail to reported failed negotiations just before the deposed Philippine leader and his wife were charged with siphoning more than $100 million out of their country’s treasury and into the United States.

Marcos died Sept. 28. His wife awaits trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Mrs. Marcos’ lawyer, Richard A. Hibey, said in the papers filed last month that government lawyers made the plea offer during a meeting at the Justice Department in Washington attended briefly by U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh.

“The attorney general started the meeting by advising us that the President was aware that the meeting was taking place, and what would be conveyed to us during the conference had the President’s full knowledge and approval,” Hibey said.

While the personal attention of a President in a criminal case is unusual, White House involvement can be expected in sensitive matters that carry implications for U.S. foreign policy, government spokesmen said.

“It’s not usual for the White House to be involved in the conduct of cases. It’s not usual for the attorney general to be involved in the handling of criminal cases,” David R. Runkel, Justice Department spokesman, said today. “But there are those times when issues do rise to the level of the attorney general or the White House.”

Marcos, who died Sept. 28, and his wife were charged in a racketeering indictment Oct. 21, 1988, three days after the meeting described by Hibey.

The trial of Imelda Marcos and her other co-defendants, including Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi, is scheduled to begin March 14.

Hibey’s account of the meeting said Thornburgh left after telling Hibey and another Marcos attorney, John Bartko, that the other government officials at the meeting were the “sole representatives” of the government in the matter and urging them to consider the offer seriously.

The representatives were Mark Richard, a Justice Department official, then-U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles LaBella, he said. LaBella is prosecuting the case.

After Thornburgh’s departure, Giuliani described a “non-negotiable proposal with respect to the disposition of proposed charges against our clients which the government intended to present to the grand jury in the Southern District of New York . . . ,” Hibey said.

Giuliani said he would bring the indictment unless the Marcoses agreed to his proposal by the end of the business day of Oct. 20, 1988, according to Hibey. He did not provide any details of the government’s proposal.

Published reports at the time of the indictment, citing unidentified sources, said the offer called for Marcos to forfeit millions of dollars worth of real estate, artwork and jewelry in return for a recommendation that he be spared a prison sentence.