Imelda Sheds Cape in Effort to Shed Pounds in Cartoonist Eyes

NEW YORK — Imelda Marcos, apparently concerned about how she’s being portrayed in tabloid cartoons, today took off her cape at her racketeering trial “so I won’t look so fat.”

The former Philippine first lady, on trial with Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, took a bit of umbrage at the beefy representation of her physique in a New York Post cartoon.

The cartoon depicted Marcos walking by a shoeshine boy and an associate telling the shoe shiner, “This may be your lucky day,” a reference to Marcos’s once-huge footwear collection.

As she sat down for the third day of jury selection in her trial, a smiling Marcos, eyeing the cartoon, said, “I’m taking off my cape so I won’t look so fat.”

Marcos, 60, is accused of plotting a $345-million racketeering scheme with her husband, Ferdinand, to siphon money from her native land’s treasury. Prosecutors say Marcos, with Khashoggi’s help, transferred more than $160 million from the Philippines and invested it in Manhattan real estate.

Twenty-four people have been selected for a pool of potential jurors to hear the case against Marcos and Khashoggi. A pool of about 60 people must be picked, from which a final panel of 12 jurors and six alternates will be selected to hear the case.