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Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 3: Zupanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 8: On June first, nineteen eighty one, two young activists Silm
Speaker 8: Domingo and Jeane Verenz were murdered in Seattle and what
Speaker 8: was made to appear like a gang's slaying, but the victims,
Speaker 8: families and friends suspected they were considered a threat to
Speaker 8: the dictatorship of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his regime's
Speaker 8: relationship to the United States. But how could they prove
Speaker 8: it up against such powerful and ruthless adversaries. In Summary Execution,
Speaker 8: attorney and author Michael White describes his ten year battle
Speaker 8: for justice for Domingo and Veroness that he fought because
Speaker 8: they killed my friends. Fall along as he embarks on
Speaker 8: the long and dangerous investigation and into the court room
Speaker 8: to obtain convictions of three hitmen and then prove a
Speaker 8: U S. Federal court that Marcos was behind the assassinations.
Speaker 8: If so, it would be the first time in U
Speaker 8: S history that a foreign head of state would be
Speaker 8: held liable for the murder of American citizens on U
Speaker 8: S soil. However, to accomplish this, with the and his
Speaker 8: r legal team working with the victims, families and friends,
Speaker 8: would have to defeat concerted efforts by the murderers and
Speaker 8: those who hired them to cover up their crimes and
Speaker 8: obstruct justice. Then they'd have to overcome numerous obstacles, including
Speaker 8: exposing the perjured eyewitness testimony of an FBI informant, uncovering
Speaker 8: the brutal murder of an accomplice who was being sought
Speaker 8: to turn state's evidence, and working around the failure by
Speaker 8: local authorities to prosecute the Marcos operative who planned the murders.
Speaker 8: The book they were featuring this evening is Summary Execution
Speaker 8: the Seattle Assassinations of Silne Domingo and Jean Verenes, by
Speaker 8: my special guest attorney and author, Michael Withe. Welcome to
Speaker 8: the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to
Speaker 8: this interview.
Speaker 3: Michael Withe, Well, thanks so much for having me. Dan
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to your questions and talking about this
Speaker 3: case in this book.
Speaker 8: Absolutely fascinating. I normally would ask your background how you
Speaker 8: came to come to this, but I think very very
Speaker 8: quickly we will find out your incredible involvement in this case,
Speaker 8: in this story. So let's start off as you do
Speaker 8: in this book. June first, nineteen eighty one. Just to
Speaker 8: set the stage here, you have a Local thirty seven
Speaker 8: union hall in Seattle, and you have the president, Tony Baruso,
Speaker 8: his real name is Constantine, and you open with a
Speaker 8: photo in his office of him shaking hands with Ferdinand
Speaker 8: marcos So. Then you introduce the secretary treasurer still May,
Speaker 8: Domingo Bacher, Jean Verness. So tell us what they were
Speaker 8: recently elected as, and tell us a little bit about
Speaker 8: the union that they work in and represent, and a
Speaker 8: little bit about you mentioned that they don't share Barrusso's politics.
Speaker 8: So tell us a little bit about as you do
Speaker 8: in the beginning, and set the stage for this incredible
Speaker 8: day where they're about to meet activists. Fellow activist David Della.
Speaker 3: Sure, Dan Yeajean, and Selmy were leaders of the reform
Speaker 3: movement within Local thirty seven. It's a Canary Workers local,
Speaker 3: largely Filipino workforce that dispatches at at that time about
Speaker 3: fourteen hundred canary workers out of Seattle to basically work
Speaker 3: the slimelines up in Alaska at the canneries. They were
Speaker 3: very popular. They had been doing union organizing for years,
Speaker 3: and they had also brought race discrimination suits against the
Speaker 3: Alaska seafood industry. And they had decided that they wanted
Speaker 3: to reform the dispatch out of Local thirty seven from
Speaker 3: one which is basically kind of based on bribes you
Speaker 3: have to pay to Tony Baruss or to the foreman,
Speaker 3: and and just not fair to carry workers who had
Speaker 3: worked the previous years. So Gene and sell Me and
Speaker 3: I came up with a reformed dispatch that based on
Speaker 3: the constitution. Well, both Gene and sell Me were aware
Speaker 3: that there were forces within the union that, you know,
Speaker 3: weren't going to be happy with this dispatch. But on
Speaker 3: the other hand, and there had been there had been
Speaker 3: a very kind of scary encounter with Tony Dictata, who
Speaker 3: was the head of the local Tulisan gang that was
Speaker 3: a Filipino gang in the International District. And Tony Dictato
Speaker 3: had wanted some of his boys to be dispatched up
Speaker 3: to the dilling and camerony at peter Pan in Alaska
Speaker 3: that weren't dispatched under the new dispatch, So there was
Speaker 3: some you know, angry words exchanged. In the meantime, both
Speaker 3: gene and sell Me, who had just recently been elected
Speaker 3: to the Union, were seen as kind of a threat
Speaker 3: to Tony Brusso, who was the Union president, but also
Speaker 3: a very strong pro Marcos ally, and so Gena and
Speaker 3: tell Me have been very active in anti Marcos politics,
Speaker 3: both in the United States and internationally. And I can
Speaker 3: go into more detail what Gena tell Me had done
Speaker 3: which threatened the relationship between Ferdinand Marcos and the labor
Speaker 3: movement in the Philippines and the opposition in the countryside.
Speaker 3: But needless to say, they were there on June first,
Speaker 3: in the context in a vortex of union reform, not
Speaker 3: you know, Tony Bruso not happy with them. And then
Speaker 3: they're anti Marcos politics, all of which came into play
Speaker 3: when the boats start flying in that Union hall.
Speaker 8: Now you also talk about them being this partners in
Speaker 8: this movement. So why don't you just go back, as
Speaker 8: you do quickly to a little bit about the backgrounds
Speaker 8: of so made dominion as opposed to his partner. They
Speaker 8: make great partners, but they are very, very different people.
Speaker 8: And so tell us a little bit of bit about
Speaker 8: Silmy Domingo. First, you talk about his father being the
Speaker 8: former vice president of Local thirty seven, so this is
Speaker 8: in his blood. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 8: Silmy Domingo.
Speaker 3: Well, sell me, when he first went to the cannery,
Speaker 3: saw his father's name etched in a you know, kind
Speaker 3: of carved out Numisio Domingo Senior, and just realized the
Speaker 3: importance that this work held for Filipinos coming to the
Speaker 3: United States because his father's initials were engraved in the
Speaker 3: carry back in the you know, back in the in
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties. But more importantly, you know, Selly was
Speaker 3: a strategist. He was one of the leaders of the
Speaker 3: Union of Democratic Filipinos as a national anti Marcos pro
Speaker 3: socialist organization in the US. He was the kind of
Speaker 3: the mastermind, I think of the strategist. He was a
Speaker 3: great union organizer. He knew how to talk you know,
Speaker 3: canary workers into joining the union in an unbelievably great way.
Speaker 3: And you know, he was a very formidable opponent. He
Speaker 3: was my best friend and tell me, you know, loan
Speaker 3: me his car if my family came to town. We
Speaker 3: shared a lot, and he was just an amazing, amazing,
Speaker 3: dynamic guy.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about Jean Verness and sure
Speaker 8: the differences between the two.
Speaker 3: Well, Jane was the assault of the earth. He came
Speaker 3: from His dad was Filipino and his mom was Caucasian,
Speaker 3: and he grew up with eleven brothers and sisters out
Speaker 3: in Wapatoau, Washington, where there was seasonal work in farm working,
Speaker 3: but also cannary work, which is what Jane really took to.
Speaker 3: You know, he was he's always in his overalls and
Speaker 3: and he would come to the International District to help,
Speaker 3: you know, help with a community garden for instance. And
Speaker 3: Jean would be out there in his wheelbarrow whill bearing
Speaker 3: around doing all the work and sell me in his
Speaker 3: pump elevator's shoes would be standing on the rock looking
Speaker 3: like a million bucks kind of directing people. So, you know,
Speaker 3: Bob Santo's the unofficial mayor of the International District, kind
Speaker 3: of had that description of him selling the strategists. But
Speaker 3: Jean got the work done and they were totally inseparable.
Speaker 3: They were each other's best friends. And I just think that,
Speaker 3: you know, it was always Gene and sell Me. You know,
Speaker 3: it wasn't sell Me did this or Gene in that.
Speaker 3: It was Gene and sell Me. And unfortunately they died together,
Speaker 3: but they lived an amazing life. You know. Jane was
Speaker 3: worked at the canneries, and when I went up there
Speaker 3: to do organizing, you know, when sell Me walked in,
Speaker 3: everybody would stop working and they we'd all come up
Speaker 3: to it, and there would be Gene with his decibel
Speaker 3: reader to say, hey, this sees the desibel levels. We
Speaker 3: gotta you know, we got to get a hold of
Speaker 3: ocean and stuff. He was. He was just an unbelievably
Speaker 3: dedicated leader.
Speaker 8: Now you talk about Ben Galoy and Jimmy Rammel, and
Speaker 8: if I'm mispronounced his names, please correct me. And you
Speaker 8: explain that they are members of this aforementioned gang, the
Speaker 8: Tulisan gang, which is a Filipino gang. Tell us what
Speaker 8: the philip this Tulissan gang really specializes in, and tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit more a little bit more about
Speaker 8: Ben Galoy and Jimmy Rammel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Uh, Dictato, Tony Dictato was the was the head
Speaker 3: of the gang, and basically they ran gambling operations in
Speaker 3: the International District at the five O nine and six
Speaker 3: O two clubs. These are two clubs that were run there.
Speaker 3: They were involved with They were suspected of being involved
Speaker 3: in murders of prior cannery worker dispatchers. Rameil hadd to
Speaker 3: the Canaries but was kicked out because he was he
Speaker 3: was a tough He was basically he had eyes of
Speaker 3: cold steel. Terry Mass, the widow of sell Me to
Speaker 3: Mingo and a Canary worker herself, recalls that Selmy said,
Speaker 3: the guy is just a cold blooded murder. Bengaloya, on
Speaker 3: the other hand, was kind of a novice in the gang.
Speaker 3: I think he was sent as a kind of a
Speaker 3: decoy because he had been close to sell Me. Sell
Speaker 3: Me had loaned him money in his youth, and he
Speaker 3: was recently kind of being recruited into the Tuisson gang.
Speaker 3: So if you want me to describe the murders and
Speaker 3: how they happened, I'd be happy to. But it was
Speaker 3: Ramil was selected by Dictato to be the gunman and
Speaker 3: Galoy was the decoy. And then there was another Tulisan
Speaker 3: gang member named boy Peelai short for Taio Dernico's the
Speaker 3: mingas and he was the lookout and the also a decoy.
Speaker 3: And I'll describe how the murders happened, you know, when
Speaker 3: you want me to.
Speaker 8: Before you describe this June first murder assassination as you
Speaker 8: describe them. And now we set up who the perpetrators are,
Speaker 8: Galoy and rammel So and this is a Tulissan gang,
Speaker 8: and of course we will talk about the incredible motive
Speaker 8: and what it looks like rather than what it really is.
Speaker 8: You have alluded to, did you? This is your friends
Speaker 8: and you've been involved. But in a few pages you
Speaker 8: talk about and explain that you were just about to
Speaker 8: address a large May Day demonstration and militant march of
Speaker 8: ten thousand people on the streets of Seattle, protesting Ronald
Speaker 8: Reagan's administration's welfare cutbacks on and their ongoing union bashing.
Speaker 8: Now and as you explained, you were a private attorney
Speaker 8: with a small solo practice. You help fund the Seattle
Speaker 8: Law Collective with then your then brother in law, Dan Smith,
Speaker 8: and together you represented protesters, union members, and minorities in
Speaker 8: a series of controversial cases. And you moved back to
Speaker 8: Seattle spending about a year in Puerto Rico fighting for
Speaker 8: the independence movement there. So now tell us just a
Speaker 8: little bit more about the KDP in the Union of
Speaker 8: Democratic Filipinos and your relationship in that organization, and again
Speaker 8: why these people were your friends but much more your comrades.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, first of all, I was part of that
Speaker 3: the leadership of that large march that took on Reaganomics
Speaker 3: and the new Reagan administration. But that was as part
Speaker 3: of a movement in Seattle called No Separate Peace that
Speaker 3: Gena and sell Mey were also leaders of. And what
Speaker 3: was unique about the Seattle politics was the fact that
Speaker 3: you know, I went to to Beacon Hill School when
Speaker 3: we occupied it to create Alcinto Dayla Lasa. Well, were
Speaker 3: there if we went down to the picket lines surrounding
Speaker 3: a construction site, there were no people of color on
Speaker 3: that were building the buildings. People would occupy those spaces,
Speaker 3: and the African American construction crews were there. So everybody
Speaker 3: worked with one another. And the Union of Democratic Filipinos
Speaker 3: was a leading organization in the entire United States. Formed
Speaker 3: after Marshall Law was declared in the Philippines in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two, very dynamic leadership, very effective. They helped establish
Speaker 3: the coalition against the Marcus dictatorship. They were seen is
Speaker 3: kind of the leftist, more revolutionary elements within the anti
Speaker 3: Marcos opposition. They sought the overthrow of the Marcos regime.
Speaker 3: There's also moderate politicians like the Senator Bnino Okino, who
Speaker 3: were wanted to pursue the electoral path of going back
Speaker 3: to the Philippines when democracy eventually was brought back. But
Speaker 3: genens sell Me where labor leaders within the Union of
Speaker 3: Democratic Filipinos. The KDP wasn't a union itself, it was
Speaker 3: a political organization, but they also had members in various unions. Well.
Speaker 3: The International Longshore and Warehouseman's Union was a very important
Speaker 3: union on the West Coast. They loaded and unloaded all
Speaker 3: the commodities that went to and from the Philippines and
Speaker 3: Hawaii and the US. So to be officers within the
Speaker 3: isle WU Local thirty seven gave gene sell Me a
Speaker 3: lot of cachet and the ability then to go to
Speaker 3: the Philippines and you know, and meet with the organizations
Speaker 3: there that were opposed to Marcos. Right, So that's some
Speaker 3: of the background that comes together here. Dave Della was
Speaker 3: also a member of the Union of Democratic Filipinos. He
Speaker 3: was late for the meeting that afternoon because if he
Speaker 3: had been on time, he probably would have been assassinated
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about you. You mentioned that they're supposed to
Speaker 8: meet Dave Della there at the local thirty seven Union Hall.
Speaker 8: What was it the meeting was about? Was it anything untypical?
Speaker 3: It was? It was about the.
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Speaker 8: Sorry, yes, yes, you were just about to describe the murder.
Speaker 8: On June first, Local thirty seven. David Della is late
Speaker 8: for the meeting. What is the meeting about specifically and
Speaker 8: is it typical? What's different about this meeting?
Speaker 3: Well, it was typical. It was about some of their
Speaker 3: work in the anti Marcus opposition. Jene had just returned
Speaker 3: from the Philippines and Gene and sell Me had return
Speaker 3: from the International Lunture Warehouseman's Union. There was some great
Speaker 3: progress made in both of those trips, and they were
Speaker 3: also talking about some of the work going on in
Speaker 3: the local community where they were fighting for the rights
Speaker 3: of the dispossessed and disenfranchised, particularly over housing issues, trying
Speaker 3: to maintain the character of the international district. So that
Speaker 3: was their meeting.
Speaker 8: Now what happens and where is Gene and where is
Speaker 8: Silmy and what do they see and what do they encounter?
Speaker 3: Well, it was four twenty. They were with the exception
Speaker 3: of Johnny Theodore, who was the janitor, they were the
Speaker 3: only two people in the union hall. In the outer office.
Speaker 3: Jean had received the phone call from Ben Beloy because
Speaker 3: Ben wanted to know whether he could be dispatched to
Speaker 3: Alaska to work. Was at a filing cabinet. Selmy was
Speaker 3: in the swivel chair at his desk which is next
Speaker 3: to the file cabinet, so the two of them were
Speaker 3: within three or four feet of each other. So at
Speaker 3: that time, Jimmy Rameil had a brown paper bag. Ben
Speaker 3: Galoy enters the union hall first, which would kind of
Speaker 3: put Geene and sell Me off because if Vermeil had
Speaker 3: walked in, sell Me would have known something was up.
Speaker 3: So Ben comes in first. Rameal then comes in afterwards.
Speaker 3: Out of the brown paper bag, pulls out a Mac
Speaker 3: ten forty five caliber execution piece with a suppressor, points
Speaker 3: it at Jane, fires twice. Jean sees him, dies for
Speaker 3: the floor, and Gene is struck with two bullets tearing
Speaker 3: into his back and into his heart, killing him instantly.
Speaker 3: He Rameil then swivels the gun toward sell Me, who's
Speaker 3: getting starting to get up from his chair, and puts
Speaker 3: four or four five caliber bullet holes and sell me,
Speaker 3: believing him dead. Ramil and Gloy then exit the Union hall,
Speaker 3: put the mac ten back into the paper bag and
Speaker 3: walk down the alley, which is you know, has walls
Speaker 3: on either side at that time. Boy Peli, the third hitman,
Speaker 3: then is the lookout. He then walked, runs across the street,
Speaker 3: gets into a black trans dam driven by Tony Dictato
Speaker 3: and drive off. Now that we didn't know any of
Speaker 3: this at the time, but that's that's who the hit
Speaker 3: team was. Four members of the tulis Un gang. Sell Me,
Speaker 3: with unbelievable courage and bravery, gets out of his chair
Speaker 3: with forty five caliber bullet holes in him. Believe you know,
Speaker 3: drop it, drops of blood across the union floor, goes
Speaker 3: out into the outside of the Union Hall and collapses
Speaker 3: on the on the sidewalk, screaming and yelling you know,
Speaker 3: help me, help me. Believe it or not. There was
Speaker 3: a fire station a block away and two first responders
Speaker 3: hear the cries of help. Someone said, hey, someone's been shot,
Speaker 3: So they went out and sell me was able to.
Speaker 3: Then the fireman say, what happened? I've been shot? Who
Speaker 3: shot you? Rameil and gooy? And so they write the
Speaker 3: names down, and one of them misspelled the name, said
Speaker 3: Ramo R A M M O, and sell Me corrected
Speaker 3: him to R A M I L So boom right
Speaker 3: then and there sell Me was able to live long
Speaker 3: enough to name the two people that shot him. So
Speaker 3: then the fire trucks came, and the meta came, and
Speaker 3: sell me it was hustled off to the Harbor View
Speaker 3: Hospital in a vain attempt to save his life. And then,
Speaker 3: if I could excuse me, if I could read from
Speaker 3: the just a real quick passage from the book, here's
Speaker 3: what else happened, so says the ambulance ward off to
Speaker 3: Harvardview Medical Center, sirens blaring across the street from the
Speaker 3: Union Hall. A middle aged man in a gray suit
Speaker 3: and dark glasses emerged from a telephone booth, looked at
Speaker 3: the scene in front of the Union and slipped into
Speaker 3: his car. As he pulled away from the curb, heading
Speaker 3: south on Second Avenue, he lifted a Cbee radio to
Speaker 3: his lips and started to speak, So what I do
Speaker 3: In the first, very first chapter, of the book introduced
Speaker 3: the fact that there was someone we didn't know who
Speaker 3: it was at the time across the street watching all
Speaker 3: this come down. And I'll explain later how this person's
Speaker 3: surfaced and how we found out who he was.
Speaker 8: Yes, it's incredible. Now, obviously, Silmy Domingo's partners Terry mast
Speaker 8: and you talk about Bacon Hill, Seattle and her first
Speaker 8: meeting Selmey in nineteen seventy seven. So talk about how
Speaker 8: they met and how they became partners and how much
Speaker 8: she was involved in this with Silney.
Speaker 3: Well, they met at an anti martial law coalition, a
Speaker 3: meeting which the Union Democratic Filipinos were involved in, and
Speaker 3: Terry was drawn to Selmy's dynamism, his leadership abilities, his
Speaker 3: great organizing abilities. Selmy was drawn to Terry because she
Speaker 3: was patient, organized, level headed, and it was a love
Speaker 3: match because the two of them just really got along well,
Speaker 3: I mean, like any couples, they went through, you know,
Speaker 3: some problems, but by the time of the International Longshore
Speaker 3: Wareshouseman Union Convention in Hawaii that took place about a
Speaker 3: month before the murders, they had patched the relationship up.
Speaker 3: They had two beautiful little daughters three year old Lagaya
Speaker 3: and then Kylieano was just a few weeks shy of
Speaker 3: her first birthday. And those two girls were just the
Speaker 3: love of their lives. So Semmy and Terry were, you know,
Speaker 3: really living in a very happy situation at the time
Speaker 3: Selmy was cut down. Now getting by the way, Terry
Speaker 3: is also Terry was a union activist too. She was
Speaker 3: part of the reform movement within Local thirty seven, a
Speaker 3: cannery worker in her own right, came from a strong
Speaker 3: working class background.
Speaker 8: Now back to the hospital with the Silmy and you
Speaker 8: talk about the the call for more blood, for people
Speaker 8: to enable, tell us about what's happening at that scene,
Speaker 8: about the developing vigil that's there with friends and family,
Speaker 8: and tell us what, yes, how Terry's is contacted and
Speaker 8: everyone's reaction. Tell us about this as you do in
Speaker 8: the book.
Speaker 3: Well, my book draws the reaction of Terry Masks being
Speaker 3: told by her friends that Selmy has been shot. He's
Speaker 3: in the hospital, and Gina's dad and she was just
Speaker 3: shelf And then Sinney Domingo, the sister of sell Me,
Speaker 3: was in Berkeley at the time working for the National
Speaker 3: Union of Democratic Filipinos. And then I was up at
Speaker 3: El Centa del Rosso about to greet people, you know,
Speaker 3: a summation of the march, when Michael Kozu, a union
Speaker 3: of Democratic Filipino activists, came took me aside and said,
Speaker 3: Jean's dead. Sell Me's in the hospital. We need you
Speaker 3: to go to the Union Hall and find out what
Speaker 3: the police are doing. So after all of this happened,
Speaker 3: there was a vigil up at Harve of You, and
Speaker 3: the word went out that sell Me's in dire needs.
Speaker 3: And I mean hundreds and hundreds of people came to
Speaker 3: the blood bank and they were overflowing and people just
Speaker 3: wanted to give the blood. That's I'll get a little
Speaker 3: emotional still think about how many people responded. But more importantly,
Speaker 3: at the vigil, sell Me was in surgeries and excuse me.
Speaker 3: His family was saying, well, wait a minute, where's Tony Brusso,
Speaker 3: how come he's not here? So he basically had Oddi Domingo,
Speaker 3: Sellmy's mother call up Tony and say, how come you're
Speaker 3: not down here? Oh okay, well I'll come down. So
Speaker 3: he comes down and what he doesn't know, but what
Speaker 3: we know because I had been to the Union Hall
Speaker 3: and found out from the police that Sellmy had named
Speaker 3: Rameil and Galoi, so we know that the police know
Speaker 3: that the names of the hitmen. So we confront Brusso
Speaker 3: and say, okay, do you know the police know who
Speaker 3: shot him? And he kind of looked startled, Oh no,
Speaker 3: who are those guys? And we said, well, you know
Speaker 3: Jimmy Rameil and Ben Galoi And there was this flicker
Speaker 3: in his eyes. I don't know those guys. And Msio
Speaker 3: Domingo Senior said, of course you do. They're cannery workers.
Speaker 3: You go gamble with them down at the Union Hall.
Speaker 3: So the fact he denied knowing who Ramel and Goloy
Speaker 3: was was significant to us. But then in addition, Selmy
Speaker 3: came to and even of those he's intubated, Terry and
Speaker 3: ODDI were able to go up and talk to him,
Speaker 3: where they were able to confirm that yes, Ramel and
Speaker 3: Galoi had been part of the you know, had been
Speaker 3: the hit man. But when Terry asked him, well it
Speaker 3: was someone else, someone got agitated, nodding his head and
Speaker 3: he took his right finger index finger like a gun
Speaker 3: and pointing it to his leg and but Terry couldn't
Speaker 3: figure it out you've been shot in the leg and
Speaker 3: he goes no, no, no, and nobody could figure it
Speaker 3: out until later that evening we realized that boy Peli,
Speaker 3: the third hit man, had been shot earlier and was
Speaker 3: had a limp, and Peli means limp or someone who
Speaker 3: limps into golic, So then we kind of put it together.
Speaker 3: So it was it. Basically, it was at that vigil
Speaker 3: before Selmy passed that we kind of came to the
Speaker 3: understanding that there was more involved than just romealing Galoy
Speaker 3: and we immediately suspected Bruso because the murder took place
Speaker 3: in his union hall and he was close to at
Speaker 3: least we knew to boy P, and so we started
Speaker 3: putting we started our our investigation right then and there.
Speaker 8: Now we have to tell the audience about again Jean's
Speaker 8: trip to the Philippines and how much how close it
Speaker 8: was to this June first, and then we can talk
Speaker 8: about again the couple things that a couple of times
Speaker 8: that Jean and sil May and these guys that were
Speaker 8: attached at the hip addressed I lw U conventions.
Speaker 3: Right well, as we're looking at this, you know, the
Speaker 3: head of the KDP of Union of Democratic Philippino, Bruce Ksenia,
Speaker 3: and another lieutenant, Dale Bergson, who grew up in Seattle.
Speaker 3: We all got together with Cindy and Terry and the
Speaker 3: families and said, we got to figure this out. The
Speaker 3: first question is that we going to go back in
Speaker 3: this union hall the next day because it was totally intimidating,
Speaker 3: and when the police provided us with bulletproof vests and
Speaker 3: recommended we do target practice, you know. So we were
Speaker 3: bulletproof vests for the first six months of this investigation
Speaker 3: and packed firearms because the Tulissan was still out there.
Speaker 3: But anyway, we started piecing this together and realizing, well,
Speaker 3: what it didn't make sense to dispute over dispatch because
Speaker 3: two weeks after the murders, the Tulisan gang would have
Speaker 3: gotten most of their people up to the canries. So
Speaker 3: the whole theory of the prosecution had a hole in it,
Speaker 3: and we started looking for deeper relationships. So to do that,
Speaker 3: we traced Jim excuse me, Jeans trip Gen had always
Speaker 3: wanted to visit his family in the Philippine. His uncle
Speaker 3: Mariano lived there, his dad had passed away. Felix, but
Speaker 3: he went through the Bay area and stopped at the
Speaker 3: Union Democratic Filipino headquarters, which at the time we didn't
Speaker 3: know at the time, but we found out later. At
Speaker 3: the time, the Naval Intelligence Investigative Service out of Alameda
Speaker 3: County Air Station had an informants within the Union of
Speaker 3: Democratic Filipinos. Pursuing to an executive order signed by President
Speaker 3: Gerald Ford, they were able to legally infiltrate a domestic organization.
Speaker 3: So jan goes through the Bay Area and then goes
Speaker 3: to the Philippines. He's bringing with him two hundred and
Speaker 3: ninety twenty nine hundred dollars in monies to provide to
Speaker 3: the religious order there that was supporting the opposition. Okay,
Speaker 3: So Jean went went to the countryside to visit his family,
Speaker 3: but also visited the New People's Army in the countryside,
Speaker 3: kept the journal, and then toward the end of his
Speaker 3: journey he went and met with the head of the
Speaker 3: May First Movements, the large anti Marcos union federation that
Speaker 3: had been outlawed under the Marcos regime. I mean there
Speaker 3: were shootings that picket lines. Their leadership had been arrested
Speaker 3: and charged with sedition. They were really one of Marcos's
Speaker 3: biggest the thorns in Marcos aside. Well, Jane was able
Speaker 3: to meet with the head of that union. So it's
Speaker 3: Berto Alalia who was later arrested in charged with subversion.
Speaker 3: Alalia was and get from Alalia the conditions that faced
Speaker 3: the Filipino workers, particularly in the export industry, were large
Speaker 3: US multinationals operated and paid people very little without any
Speaker 3: union protections. So Jane then took this information and a
Speaker 3: letter from Felix Berto Alalia to the International Longshore and
Speaker 3: Warehouseman Union International Convention, which happened to be in Hawaii,
Speaker 3: and they were at the Sheraton Waikiki. Sell Me joined
Speaker 3: Gene and many a couple of the other KDP activists
Speaker 3: in Hawaii, and they engineered the passage of the resolution,
Speaker 3: which for the first time put a mainstream US union
Speaker 3: on record as concerned about Marcus's treatment of the labor.
Speaker 3: Even Csar Shavez's United farm Workers never took a position
Speaker 3: against Marcos. This wasn't so much a condemnation of Marcus
Speaker 3: as it was the key cutting edge thing was a
Speaker 3: was to dispatch an investigative team to go to the
Speaker 3: Philippines and look into the poor conditions facing Philipino workers. Then,
Speaker 3: in the process of trying to get this pass anti
Speaker 3: I mean pro Marcos elements within the large Union in Hawaii,
Speaker 3: Local one forty two took the floor to condemn the resolution,
Speaker 3: saying it lied about this and light about that, and
Speaker 3: the conditions aren't so bad. And so we could tell
Speaker 3: they could tell that the local Consul General Trinidad I'll
Speaker 3: can Sell of the Marcos government was involved in providing
Speaker 3: efforts to try to stop this resolution. Well, Jenns tell
Speaker 3: me had done their homework and they knew that once
Speaker 3: Local one forty two, the large Hawaiian local came out
Speaker 3: in favor of the resolution, it was going to pass.
Speaker 3: So on the floor, Tony Barusso, who's the head of
Speaker 3: the delegation from Local thirty seven, takes the floor and says, well,
Speaker 3: I support this resolution and I've been on all these
Speaker 3: trade delegations of the Philippines, et cetera. So what Barusso
Speaker 3: did was basically realized it was going to pass anyway.
Speaker 3: He comes out and tries to pitch the International to
Speaker 3: point him as the head of the delegation rather than
Speaker 3: Gene and Sell.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 3: It was a very shrewd move, but it also incurred
Speaker 3: the wrath of the Marcos regime because they were really upset.
Speaker 3: This resolution passed. We believe later that we knew. We
Speaker 3: eventually realized there was Marco's military at the Chase that
Speaker 3: were in a y that were monitoring all of this
Speaker 3: going on. Well, Jean took the floor, talked about his
Speaker 3: meeting with Felix Berto Alalia sell Me that always the
Speaker 3: dip rat was able to kind of well, we understand
Speaker 3: some people are upset about this, but believe me, this
Speaker 3: isn't a condemnation of Marcos. We just want to go
Speaker 3: to the Philippines and have a look sie and report
Speaker 3: back at the next convention. So the resolution passed because
Speaker 3: of the incredibly great political strategy and work that Gene
Speaker 3: and sell Me brought to bear. So then, believe it
Speaker 3: or not, that delegation never took place, because within a
Speaker 3: month both of them lied, you know, were murdered by
Speaker 3: the tulis On gang.
Speaker 8: Now, how do police proceed with the information that they
Speaker 8: have that he has of sound mind and being able
Speaker 8: to say to these firemen, these are the people that
Speaker 8: killed me, even correct the spelling. What do police do
Speaker 8: with that? How do they proceed with this information?
Speaker 3: Well, what happened was they had The police work in
Speaker 3: the initial stage of the murders was incredibly great. Detective
Speaker 3: John Botman and Michael Tando worked this case tirelessly. What
Speaker 3: happened was they they came to me and said, could
Speaker 3: you get us witnesses who could testify about the Tulists
Speaker 3: on Gang? And we got them Angel Don Diego. We
Speaker 3: got them a lot of witnesses who knew the inner
Speaker 3: workings of the Tulists on Gang, but they had also
Speaker 3: had book on them. So what happened was they then
Speaker 3: get rest warrants for Remeal and Galoi and the rest Remealingloy,
Speaker 3: and that puts then pressure on the higher ups because
Speaker 3: people are saying, well, what if Ramel and Gloy named
Speaker 3: Tony Diccato or they were willing to implicate Tony Bruso.
Speaker 3: So when Rameil and Gloy got arrested, the Tony Barruso
Speaker 3: still comes into the union hall and we have a
Speaker 3: big union meeting and Terry Mask confronts him saying, you
Speaker 3: know you're not going to run this union anymore. You know,
Speaker 3: he was trying to take credit for some of the
Speaker 3: reform reforms of that Gene and Selmy brought about, and
Speaker 3: slapped her hand down on the desk. You know, when
Speaker 3: I saw that happen, I said, I'm going to follow
Speaker 3: that woman anywhere, because here she is in Tony Bruso's
Speaker 3: union confronting him saying we need a fair dispatch. Three
Speaker 3: people came forward to be the dispatch. We got bulletproof
Speaker 3: windows on the dispatch office, and nobody could dispatch other
Speaker 3: than these three. Well, Tony breus So dispatch boy plai
Speaker 3: up to Dillingham, Alaska, to peter Pan, where the foreman
Speaker 3: of the peter Pan Cannery, guy named Robert sim Pablo,
Speaker 3: had heard about the murders about to happen. He didn't
Speaker 3: think it was going to happen, but he was internal
Speaker 3: to the murder conspiracy. So the police are interested in
Speaker 3: all of this. But what happened was Brusso is under
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure. Little did we know it. But
Speaker 3: what happened was Tony Diccato gets the mac ten murder
Speaker 3: weapon away from Themeil and he he planted in a
Speaker 3: dumpster in West Seattle. And Rudy Schultz, who was a
Speaker 3: guy that likes to go work, you know, look through dumpsters,
Speaker 3: founds the murder weapon and gives it to the police.
Speaker 3: Well gets to the murder. Weapon is registered to Dan
Speaker 3: Tony Barrusso. So I get a call. I get a call,
Speaker 3: you know, by from John Botman in mid July. This
Speaker 3: is like a five weeks after the murder, saying what's
Speaker 3: Tony Brusso's full name? I said, Constantine Baruso. And he goes, okay,
Speaker 3: that matches. I said, what do you got? He goes,
Speaker 3: you know, sit tight, I'll get back to you in
Speaker 3: a little bit. So what happens is they go do
Speaker 3: great police work. They go to Bruso's home. They said,
Speaker 3: we'd like you to come down to the station. Sure, Sure,
Speaker 3: he comes down to the station and he and he's
Speaker 3: shown the mac ten. They just pull it out of
Speaker 3: the bag and say what's this. He goes, I've never
Speaker 3: seen that before. Well then why is this gun registered?
Speaker 3: Do you? Oh? Oh, well, yeah, that gun there I
Speaker 3: never saw it got stolen from me. I claimed it
Speaker 3: on my insurance and the policeman said, well, who's your
Speaker 3: insurance agent? Luco Sing? He's up in Capitol Hill. So
Speaker 3: of course they send the police up there, and Lucio
Speaker 3: Sing said, well, Tony Bruso did claim some weapons were
Speaker 3: stolen from his car, but he never claimed this weapon,
Speaker 3: so his alibi was broken in, you know, in the
Speaker 3: first half an hour. So they arrest him. We go
Speaker 3: to the prosecute attorney says, this is great, you got Barrusso.
Speaker 3: There were some rumors that he had paid money to
Speaker 3: the Tulistan gang to get this. These murders happened. You
Speaker 3: got to arrest Tony Brusso and Norm Mailing the proscuity
Speaker 3: attorney and join Maita. Let Barruso out of jail, and
Speaker 3: we go crazy saying how could you do that? His
Speaker 3: gun's a murder weapon. Any rate, They don't charge Bruso
Speaker 3: and we're pretty upset with that. But in the meantime,
Speaker 3: the ramil In Gloy trial is scheduled for September and
Speaker 3: we're all The Committee for Justice for Domingo and Variance
Speaker 3: was formed. Elaine co and Bob Santos were co chairs.
Speaker 3: I was heading up the legal team. I got my
Speaker 3: legal team together, John Coughlin, Jim Douglas, Liz shot. That
Speaker 3: was the legal team that saw this case through for
Speaker 3: ten years. And the Committee for Justice was so well organized.
Speaker 3: We had huge memorials for Gene and Semmy we had
Speaker 3: a march through the International District turned anguish to anger.
Speaker 3: Thousands of people came forward and we were a movement
Speaker 3: that was going to seek justice, you know, no matter
Speaker 3: who it led to. So the hitman trials coming up,
Speaker 3: we are filling the courtrooms for the hearings, and then
Speaker 3: uh Selmy's dying declaration naming the hit men is admitted
Speaker 3: into evidence. So we're pretty convinced about a conviction for
Speaker 3: Rameal and Galoy. A witness had come forward. That's Jamie
Speaker 3: Malabu who saw Remeal and Galoi walking down the alley,
Speaker 3: Remeal with a brown paper bag getting into their car
Speaker 3: right at the time of the murders. So what happened
Speaker 3: you want me to I'm going to tell you this
Speaker 3: story about this mystery witness if that's okay now, sure, sure, absolutely,
Speaker 3: So the evidence is going in well, Johann Maida was
Speaker 3: doing a great job trying Remeal in Galoi. They had
Speaker 3: this lay mass out by that. Oh they were gambling,
Speaker 3: doing a dealing in the Union, I mean in the
Speaker 3: gambling halls in the International District. So they have a
Speaker 3: bunch of their gambling buddies come in saying oh no, no,
Speaker 3: he was dealing for me. He wasn't shooting anybody, so
Speaker 3: nobody believed that. But then a mystery witness came forward,
Speaker 3: and Jim Grubb, who was a lawyer for Ramil, said,
Speaker 3: the honor of this guy just came forward to my office.
Speaker 3: He said he had seen pictures of the hit men
Speaker 3: in the newspapers and he was there. He was at
Speaker 3: the scene of the murders and those weren't the guys
Speaker 3: that went into the Union hall, and prosecutor goes crazy.
Speaker 4: Honor.
Speaker 3: They hadn't a list of this witness, and then I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: well they didn't know about this witness. I'm gonna allow
Speaker 3: him to testify, but I'm going to give you mismaid
Speaker 3: to the opportunity to call this witness. So she talks
Speaker 3: to him over the weekend and he comes forward. In
Speaker 3: the courtroom's totally packed. I was sitting next to Cindy
Speaker 3: and this guy said, well, I'm a construction contractor in
Speaker 3: Alaska and I just happened to be down in your
Speaker 3: square and I was trying to find the address of
Speaker 3: my architect, Alex Bertulius, and I tried calling him up,
Speaker 3: but he's not in And then I see this guy.
Speaker 3: One guy goes into the this union hall, kind of
Speaker 3: this rinky dick union hall across the street, and then
Speaker 3: he comes out really fast and gets into a green
Speaker 3: car and drives away. And then this guy comes out
Speaker 3: of the union hall hollering and yelling and he collapses.
Speaker 3: And I said, oh my god, this guy looks like
Speaker 3: he's been shot. So I ran across the street. What happened?
Speaker 3: I'd been shot? Who shot you? And the man said,
Speaker 3: I don't know. And Sidney's fingernails dug into my I'll
Speaker 3: never forget this into my leg saying what the and
Speaker 3: so the guy said, I went, I had a CB
Speaker 3: radio in my car, said, I went over to my
Speaker 3: car and tried to get nine to one one, but
Speaker 3: there was any reception. So I drove around the block
Speaker 3: trying to get reception. And know nobody was walking down
Speaker 3: the alley, So I drove up the alley, but there
Speaker 3: wasn't anybody there, and when I got there, I could
Speaker 3: see a fireman's helping. I didn't want to get involved,
Speaker 3: so I left and went back to my home in
Speaker 3: Port Orchard. Do you see the man that walked into
Speaker 3: the union hall with you know, with something under his arm.
Speaker 3: You see him in the corn. No, he's not there,
Speaker 3: mister Romeo, stand up, William. Mister Forsyth's name was Levane
Speaker 3: Malveson Forsyth. Is this the man you saw walking? No,
Speaker 3: didn't look anything like him. So mister Galois stayed up.
Speaker 3: Was this the man who walked in there? No, didn't
Speaker 3: look anything like him. So we're just sitting there saying,
Speaker 3: oh my god, who is this guy? We have a
Speaker 3: Committee for Justice meeting that night, and we had the scenarios. One,
Speaker 3: Forsight's a martian. Two he's a publicity seeker. Three he's
Speaker 3: a paid witness. Well, the prosecution used the fact that
Speaker 3: Forsyth's actually had worked for Howard Hughes and knew about
Speaker 3: this Mormon will Melvin Dumar. If everybody seen that movie
Speaker 3: about the Will that supposedly Howard us had given to
Speaker 3: this guy Forsyth to deliver to Melvin Dumar in the desert.
Speaker 3: So it sounded like the guy was a total coop, right,
Speaker 3: That's the way the prosecution presented it, and they didn't
Speaker 3: believe him. Well, we ended up taking his deposition. The
Speaker 3: guy was an FBI informant and a formant for the FBI.
Speaker 3: And we only discovered dan about two months ago that
Speaker 3: the FBI in Seattle has twelve hundred and fifty six
Speaker 3: pages of documents related to this guy's work as an
Speaker 3: FBI in formant for the Seattle office. In his deposition,
Speaker 3: he admitted being an FBI informant, admitted he knew Robert
Speaker 3: Mayhew out of the Howard Hughes Empire. The guy the
Speaker 3: Kennedy administration used the contact of mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Speaker 3: He was a deep us black bag job. He had
Speaker 3: done a lot of deliveries at any rate. We found
Speaker 3: all this out, but he never admitted he was an agent.
Speaker 3: He was operating out of Seattle. He said he was
Speaker 3: operating out of southern California. So that's who this So
Speaker 3: we we had to look at it and say, okay,
Speaker 3: that means the FBI and someone in the FBI knew
Speaker 3: this was going to happen. I asked him what was
Speaker 3: his modus operande? What did you do for the FBI?
Speaker 3: I said, well, I'd be given a phone call. I
Speaker 3: would be told to go to a certain location, observe
Speaker 3: what happened, and write a report. I said, well, did
Speaker 3: you write a report on June first about the murders.
Speaker 3: He goes, yeah, well then, and he actually had a
Speaker 3: copy of the report. I said, well, who did you
Speaker 3: send it to? He said, I'm not trying real hard
Speaker 3: to remember. But he never admitted he was operated out
Speaker 3: of the Seattle FBI office. And we've now got a
Speaker 3: Freedom of Information Act request of the FBI to give
Speaker 3: us those documents, and they're stonewalling us. They're not giving
Speaker 3: us a single Document's been almost three years. Wow. So
Speaker 3: that was the that was the That was our understanding
Speaker 3: then when we're looking at this guy coming forward that oh,
Speaker 3: there's very powerful interest that don't want Ramel and Gloyd
Speaker 3: to get convicted. They don't want this to go up
Speaker 3: the chain and start, you know, look looking at the
Speaker 3: higher levels, which by that time we suspected included the
Speaker 3: Marcos regime and that so we then, well, the prosecution
Speaker 3: brought uh prosecution not only against Ramel and Gloyd, but
Speaker 3: against Tony Dictato. In the meantime, boy Plai had absconded,
Speaker 3: he was gone, So they got Dictato convicted, and then
Speaker 3: we had to turn to our own civil lawsuit in
Speaker 3: order to get additional discovery because it was clear to
Speaker 3: us that the prosecuting attorneys.
Speaker 8: We were talking about boy Pelai, but we didn't mention though,
Speaker 8: is that and you say he's on the run, but
Speaker 8: you also talk about Guloi being using Elis as an
Speaker 8: alibi for June first, doesn't he?
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Speaker 3: Gloy used, Uh, it wasn't Pelie so much as he
Speaker 3: used Galoy used other people that ran the gambling hall.
Speaker 3: Guy named Charlie Panor was the head of one of
Speaker 3: the gambling halls down there, so he called his the
Speaker 3: people who ran the gambling halls to say that Gloy
Speaker 3: was at the game minghall, not at the Union Hall.
Speaker 3: But Pilloy PELI excuse me, he went to Alaska, Terry
Speaker 3: and I took Terry mass and I took a visit
Speaker 3: to Alaska, and then Barusso decides he wants to come.
Speaker 3: But we were able to talk very briefly to Robert
Speaker 3: san Pablo and after that visit, sam Pablo then decides
Speaker 3: to turn state's evidence and talks to the Seattle Police
Speaker 3: Department that he overheard a conversation in which Dictata was saying, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we're going to kill Verness and that beat
Speaker 3: boy Plai told him that if he turns state evidence,
Speaker 3: he's going to kill him and blow up his car.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure in which order. So that that made
Speaker 3: sam Pablo decide to seek protection from the police department,
Speaker 3: and he became a very key witness in the convictions
Speaker 3: of Rameio, Gloy and Dictato. And we credit Robert sam
Speaker 3: Pablo with having, you know, uncovered and provided very valuable information.
Speaker 3: But Simpablo also testify that Pili told him he was
Speaker 3: that they were to be paid five thousand dollars by
Speaker 3: Barrusso for the hit.
Speaker 8: Yeah, very very very incriminating.
Speaker 3: So Peli's up to his eyeballs in this. It proves
Speaker 3: that Dictado and Barusso are up to their eyeballs in it,
Speaker 3: but they never get They only charged Rameio Baloy and Dictado,
Speaker 3: not Peli or Bruso at that time, and then Bruce
Speaker 3: and then Peli abscons and we don't hear from him
Speaker 3: for like a year.
Speaker 8: You talked about the prosecution, it was evident that along
Speaker 8: this is what we haven't mentioned is and to the audience,
Speaker 8: is that you have an incredible role in this. As investigators.
Speaker 8: You're not passive sitting at the phone waiting for news
Speaker 8: updates from police. You're actively interviewing witnesses and later when
Speaker 8: we talk about these incredible depositions. So when you are
Speaker 8: talking to the prosecutor, you are advising them what you
Speaker 8: think and trying to provide as much information to back
Speaker 8: up your assertions, aren't you? And you find with this
Speaker 8: that at some point the prosecution and you are not
Speaker 8: in agreement.
Speaker 3: Tell us about that, right, That's a really good question
Speaker 3: and the lesson that we drew from it is that
Speaker 3: if you're involved in the justice efforts, you've got to
Speaker 3: use your own resources and not just rely upon the
Speaker 3: police and the prosecuting attorney to uncover the evidence. They
Speaker 3: play an incredible role. Boatman and Tando get My Hero
Speaker 3: Police Hero of the Year's award for the work they did.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, the prosecuting attorney kind of blinked
Speaker 3: when it came to looking up started moving up the
Speaker 3: ladder to Tony Brusso. So what we did is, you know,
Speaker 3: we had Genen sellmy was were beloved in the community.
Speaker 3: So through Angel Don Diego, Lynn Domingo, sell Me's sister
Speaker 3: Sidney Domingo, through our contact Dave Dell and others, we
Speaker 3: put the word out through a call for Justice that
Speaker 3: anybody with any information about this murder should come forward.
Speaker 3: And that's what got us Jamim Malabo because he was
Speaker 3: a kid, he was like eighteen years old. He was
Speaker 3: really afraid and his mother said, you got to go
Speaker 3: to the police. You got to go to the police.
Speaker 3: And Lynn Domingo encouraged him to go to the police,
Speaker 3: but he didn't want to go. But finally he screwed
Speaker 3: his courage to the sticking post and thank you Jamie
Speaker 3: Malabo for coming forward. But and he came forward and
Speaker 3: testified he saw Rameil and Gooy coming down the alley,
Speaker 3: very important witness. So we did provide the context in
Speaker 3: detail to the prosecution and witnesses, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: all the members of the reform movement. Emily van Bronkhors,
Speaker 3: another true heroine in this saga, said that she saw
Speaker 3: Tony Dictato meeting with Brusso on the thirtieth of May,
Speaker 3: but right before the murders. So uh, don't turn over
Speaker 3: to the prosecution attorney the pursuit of justice. But then
Speaker 3: we met a brick wall when it came to the
Speaker 3: higher ups. And that's what frustrated us the most, both
Speaker 3: with you know, with what happened to boy Pelai sometime later,
Speaker 3: but also principally with Baruso. So we I put together
Speaker 3: a twelve page memo here's the evidence against Bruso, and
Speaker 3: gave it to the prosecuting attorney all the people who
Speaker 3: would testify. For instance, on the murder weapon, Bruso claimed
Speaker 3: he had never seen it, but Dave Della said that
Speaker 3: he had. He had shown people that mac Tan the
Speaker 3: Christmas before the murders and sell me believe it or not,
Speaker 3: said today, boy, I don't want to be on the
Speaker 3: other end of that piece. So that was very vivid
Speaker 3: testimony that that would be something you don't forget, right,
Speaker 3: and so that we did everything we could to knock
Speaker 3: down Bruso's alibi, and it just they just never they
Speaker 3: didn't charge. They didn't charge him until way later. But
Speaker 3: then getting into the boy Pelai story, is that okay
Speaker 3: now to talk a little bit about him.
Speaker 8: Sure, absolutely, Well.
Speaker 3: So we realized that they're not going to charge Bruso.
Speaker 3: But the key missing link of someone who knew Bruso's
Speaker 3: involvement and the murders was boy Pli. And so we're
Speaker 3: looking in the International District. He's gone and someone said, well,
Speaker 3: his mom was back in Maryland. Well, by this time,
Speaker 3: it's toward the fall of nineteen eighty two. This is
Speaker 3: a year and a half after Ramil Goiloy and Dictata
Speaker 3: Wood were convicted, and we're looking at our civil suit.
Speaker 3: So we form a civil suit, a lawsuit against the
Speaker 3: Marcos dictatorship and the US involvement. US government intelligence was
Speaker 3: involved in backing the Marcos regime. And our basic theory
Speaker 3: was that Marcos had sent his spies to the US
Speaker 3: to monitor and operate against the US based anti Marcos leadership,
Speaker 3: including the Democratic Filipinos including Gene Selmy and others. You're
Speaker 3: not supposed to have spies military attache is attached to
Speaker 3: the consulate or identified. Well, we sue Marcos and we
Speaker 3: get him served in Maryland, I mean in DC at
Speaker 3: a national when he is here for a state visit
Speaker 3: with Ronald Reagan. We had an investigator who as a
Speaker 3: former Jesuit priest who had a collar, and so he's
Speaker 3: waiting for Marcos at the National Press Club, looking very
Speaker 3: you know, obscure, and Marcos kind of walks, believe it
Speaker 3: or not, was walking down the hall. He sees here's
Speaker 3: his father, just you know, Catholic priests. He says, well,
Speaker 3: hello father, and Bill Davis walks up to Marcus, says here,
Speaker 3: I have something for you and serves them with the papers. Well,
Speaker 3: we were celebrating. We had a big press conference that
Speaker 3: was covered that we had served Marcus with the murders
Speaker 3: of US citizens, even though by that time we you know,
Speaker 3: we had some evidence, but we didn't have as much
Speaker 3: as we eventually got so, I'll I'm staying in Maryland,
Speaker 3: and believe it or not, I just said, you know what,
Speaker 3: someone said, boy Pelei was in Maryland. I look up
Speaker 3: at the Maryland phone book and in southern Maryland, near
Speaker 3: DC Tero de Rico Domingus. I look up the Domingo's name.
Speaker 3: There wasn't any tayaror Dericos, but there was dimingas there
Speaker 3: was three of them. I call the first number and say, hi,
Speaker 3: is boy Peli there? And the woman in the end
Speaker 3: of the line says, oh, he just left. Who's calling.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe my luck. It was a simple phone book,
Speaker 3: a simple phone call. We now know where Peli is.
Speaker 3: Excuse me. So I called the proscuing attorney, Joanna. I said,
Speaker 3: I found Pelai. What where are you? I've been Maryland.
Speaker 3: So she takes three or four weeks, gets the Maryland
Speaker 3: State Patrol swat team to surround the house. A young
Speaker 3: man walks out of the house, gets in his car,
Speaker 3: and drives away. The swat team then raids it. Well,
Speaker 3: that was Peli that walked out, and the excuse for
Speaker 3: not arresting him was while we didn't think he had
Speaker 3: a limp. We we thought that Peli had a limp,
Speaker 3: and we didn't want to have a shootout in the
Speaker 3: neighborhood in case any rate, so plai then we lose him. Well,
Speaker 3: then about three months later we hear that he's in
Speaker 3: the International District at the gambling halls again. So I,
Speaker 3: my investigator, and I Christopher Hershey, get a room in
Speaker 3: the Bush Hotel in the International District overlooking these gambling
Speaker 3: halls down you know, from six floors up. We do
Speaker 3: a steak at him and we find we we see
Speaker 3: Peli and believe it or not, I took a picture
Speaker 3: of him from the from the Bush Hotel and there
Speaker 3: he was in front of a car later identified the
Speaker 3: next day is Tony Brusso's car. So I go to
Speaker 3: the prosecutor, said, we've got Peli. Oh okay, great, all right,
Speaker 3: well we'll we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll arrest them. You just stay,
Speaker 3: you know, stay off the streets. You're you're in danger
Speaker 3: down there. I have my bulletproof vest I was packing
Speaker 3: a forty five, but I wasn't on the streets. I
Speaker 3: was up and I was up in the Bush Hotel, right.
Speaker 3: So then we heard we had it foremant within the
Speaker 3: gambling halls. I'm not going to name that person. But
Speaker 3: the guy calls us and says, Okay, you guys aren't
Speaker 3: gonna believe this. But two six foot two white guys
Speaker 3: in gray suits and thin ties walk into the six
Speaker 3: h nine last night the gambling hall and asked, does
Speaker 3: anybody know what boy Peterli is? We're looking for him.
Speaker 3: I go, you're kidding me. I said, this is horrible.
Speaker 3: So I called Joeanne up and said, Joe Anne, did
Speaker 3: you send the FBI in there?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, I didn't. Did you even tell the FBI? You
Speaker 3: could not have told the FBI about this, right, she goes,
Speaker 3: I have to. They're conducting an investigation. The FBI had
Speaker 3: entered the investigation of the murders back right after the murders,
Speaker 3: and they signed forty two FBI agents to interview all
Speaker 3: the union members, et cetera. They even had a witness
Speaker 3: Dan that they said Barusso met with the heads of
Speaker 3: the seafood industry after the murders and he was laughing
Speaker 3: about how big the bullet holes were and sell me
Speaker 3: to these people. They had an inside witness, a guy
Speaker 3: named clevit Er anyway. So we were just outraged that
Speaker 3: the FBI had tipped off PLI. We shut down the
Speaker 3: we shut down the uh, you know, the the uh,
Speaker 3: the little search thing we had from the Bush hotel.
Speaker 3: And then two weeks later we found out he's there again.
Speaker 3: So we set up our steak out. We watch him.
Speaker 3: I see him, see him down there, and I call I.
Speaker 3: Don't call him, prosecutor, call John Botman, the police Department,
Speaker 3: the SPD. I said, you want to cuff He says,
Speaker 3: you want to get Pelisis. Yeah, I'll cough Peelis. He's
Speaker 3: down on you know, the sixth and you know, and
Speaker 3: laying in the in the I D Boom. But within
Speaker 3: five minutes there's three cop cars arresting p LII. We
Speaker 3: go to the prosecutor. I said, fantastic, now you've got PLI.
Speaker 3: Turn PLI. He'll testify against Barusso turn BARUSO. He'll testify
Speaker 3: against the higher ups. And I told Normili, I said, Norm,
Speaker 3: if you let Pela out of jail, he's a dead man.
Speaker 3: Well they held him for seventy two hours and let
Speaker 3: him go. A month later, he's got two bullet holes
Speaker 3: in his head. Convicted of murder was a guy named
Speaker 3: Val Barbara, and the other guy that was implicated was
Speaker 3: a guy named Estebana Blanc who would come from the
Speaker 3: Philippines with hundreds of dollars bills in his pocket and
Speaker 3: then left and flew back to the Philippines the next
Speaker 3: day they tried. So the main murder witness to the
Speaker 3: murders that could have implicated the higher ups, boy to July,
Speaker 3: was right out of jail, never charged, and then was
Speaker 3: found murdered. And we knew then and there that the
Speaker 3: cover up had won a huge, huge victory and that
Speaker 3: we had to turn our sites to our civil suit
Speaker 3: where we had subpoena power and started taking depositions and
Speaker 3: getting travel documents of Barusso and started, you know, took
Speaker 3: Foresight's deposition.
Speaker 8: So the prosecution doesn't believe in political ties to these
Speaker 8: what you call assassinations and isn't going to pursue it,
Speaker 8: and didn't pursue it, and so then you have to
Speaker 8: do this civil lawsuit to be able to not number one,
Speaker 8: get information you wouldn't get otherwise, and also to be
Speaker 8: able to do things that you can't do in a
Speaker 8: criminal case. Explain what you want to do with this completely,
Speaker 8: with this civil action and tell us what the process
Speaker 8: that you do next.
Speaker 3: Yes, So we realized we'd run into a dead end
Speaker 3: at the prosecuting attorney's office. They weren't going to charge
Speaker 3: Bruso and that was their choice. I mean, they controlled
Speaker 3: the criminal prosecution. We can only offer witnesses. So we
Speaker 3: created our own vehicle, which is a civil rights lawsuit
Speaker 3: brought under US law that was basically passed back and
Speaker 3: right after the Civil War that outlawed conspiracies in restraint
Speaker 3: of the exercise of First Amendment rights, Okay, and it
Speaker 3: was used against the Klan. It was the fact it
Speaker 3: was called the Kukux Klan Act. Well, we thought, what
Speaker 3: better use of this than against the murderous dictatorship of
Speaker 3: the Philippines, And so we brought the lawsuit against Fernand Marcos,
Speaker 3: the Republic of the Philippines under the Foreign Sovereigns Immunity
Speaker 3: Act and against the US government for the fact that
Speaker 3: we had been told just as a background, we had
Speaker 3: hired an investigator who had extensive ties in US military
Speaker 3: intelligence who informed us that the files in the Naval
Speaker 3: Investigative Service were starting to be disappearing. We should file
Speaker 3: Freedom of Information Act requests, but he informed us that
Speaker 3: Naval Intelligence in the Bay Area had sent to both
Speaker 3: the FBI and to Marcos Intelligence a memo stating that
Speaker 3: Jean Verness had come through the Bay Area and was
Speaker 3: traveling to the Philippines with two hundred and ninety thousand
Speaker 3: dollars to provide to the anti Marcos movement in in
Speaker 3: the Philippines. Well, Jane didn't have two hundred and ninety thousand,
Speaker 3: he had twenty nine hundred. Someone maybe the informant or
Speaker 3: Naval intelligence had dropped a decimal point. Well, that obviously
Speaker 3: would have incurred, as we later found out when we
Speaker 3: took Marcos's deposition, incurred the intense interests of Marcos Intelligence
Speaker 3: in the activities of gene fareness, both in the Philippines
Speaker 3: and in the US. So we thought that US intelligence
Speaker 3: was complicit with the Marcos regime, and we proved it.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, the first thing that happened in our civil
Speaker 3: suit is the US government says, no, no, you can't
Speaker 3: sue Marcos. He's immunity, he's the head of state, and
Speaker 3: Marcos was dismissed from the lawsuit. They then brought a
Speaker 3: loss of motion to dismiss the US out of the case,
Speaker 3: and the judge after six months granted the motion. So
Speaker 3: the US has gone. All we have is the Republic
Speaker 3: of the Philippines. The judge allowed us to amend our
Speaker 3: complaint to make it more specific. But meantime there was
Speaker 3: appeals and appeals in Alls we have is the ability
Speaker 3: to start taking some deposition. So we took. What happened
Speaker 3: is we took Tony Bruss's deposition. Believe it or not,
Speaker 3: it was like three days before Peli was rubbed out.
Speaker 3: We took Brussa's deposition, and we asked him he took
Speaker 3: the Fifth Amendment on anything having to do with the murders.
Speaker 3: But he said, I said, well, after the ISLEW convention,
Speaker 3: did you go anywhere? He says, No, I didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: I came back to Seattle. Well, did you have any
Speaker 3: occasion to have any income other than your job is
Speaker 3: at Boeing? He worked at Boeing and also at the Union. No,
Speaker 3: I didn't have any other income. Well, what he didn't
Speaker 3: know is we had Subpoene in his travel records and
Speaker 3: Dan the day he got back to Seattle after the
Speaker 3: ISLEW convention, he booked a flight down to San Francisco
Speaker 3: on the sixteenth of May to return on the seventeenth
Speaker 3: of May, and had stayed, according to his credit card,
Speaker 3: at a hotel within a few blocks of the Philippine
Speaker 3: Consulate on Sutter in San Francisco. At the time, we
Speaker 3: had no idea what this was about. We just knew
Speaker 3: that he had taken this trip, and then he lied
Speaker 3: about it and denied it in his deposition, So it
Speaker 3: was kind of like, all right, you know, put this
Speaker 3: in a back burner for now. We took Foresight's deposition
Speaker 3: and we started taking depositions of some of the pro
Speaker 3: Marcos people in Hawaii. Well, then the face of history
Speaker 3: occurred and in August of nineteen eighty three, in the
Speaker 3: Middle win our lawsuit is still doing discovery. Beninho Akino
Speaker 3: returns to the Philippines to run against Marcos, and he
Speaker 3: is on the airplane and five gendarmes when the plane
Speaker 3: lands come on and haul him off, and he's gunned
Speaker 3: down before he even touches Philippine soil on the tarmac.
Speaker 3: And everybody, of course suspects that Marcos in his military
Speaker 3: had General of Air were involved. So then that set
Speaker 3: in motion a chain of events that led to the
Speaker 3: People's Power Revolution throwing Marcos out of power in February
Speaker 3: of nineteen eighty six. Our lawsuits still barely of live
Speaker 3: right right. But when Marcos is overthrown, we slapped a
Speaker 3: subpoena on him the day he got off Hiccam Air
Speaker 3: Force Base and subpoena the US Custom Services because he
Speaker 3: had brought with him thousands of pages of financial documents
Speaker 3: with him, because he wanted to know where his billions
Speaker 3: were stored around the world in his secret bank accounts,
Speaker 3: because that's what he had done is rip off the
Speaker 3: Filipino people. He got a percentage of every single contract
Speaker 3: ever cut in the Philippines for any work of any
Speaker 3: substantial nature of it. So we've looked through these documents
Speaker 3: and it was interesting because in the bundle of documents,
Speaker 3: there was a two page document that was an itemization
Speaker 3: of expenditures out of the Mabui Corporation founded on July seventh,
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. Seven seven seventy seven. Marcus's lucky number
Speaker 3: was seven. We knew this, and it turned out to
Speaker 3: have been on the bottom. It says I acknowledge receiving
Speaker 3: one million dollars from Philippine National Bank for intelligence purposes
Speaker 3: under the authority of General Vair, who is Marcos's henchman.
Speaker 3: And then it has an itemization of expenditures out of
Speaker 3: this slush fund right well on under special security projects.
Speaker 3: On May seventeenth, the Dave Barusso had flown down to
Speaker 3: the Bay area and came back the next day there
Speaker 3: was an unexplained expenditure of fifteen thousand dollars for a
Speaker 3: special security project. We had taken We had taken Burrusso's
Speaker 3: bank records and you know, went throw him with a
Speaker 3: fine toooth come between right before the murders and the
Speaker 3: end of the summer in August, Brusso, believe it or not,
Speaker 3: had deposited close to ten thousand dollars in cash in
Speaker 3: his bank account. Go figure, so he has ten thousand
Speaker 3: of cash deposited into his bank account and pays the
Speaker 3: hitman five thousand dollars bingo fifteen thousand dollars. We now
Speaker 3: have the smoking gun, because it on its face it
Speaker 3: said this is for intelligence purposes. They also had campaign
Speaker 3: contributions to Reagan and Carter and Dianne Feinstein, and all
Speaker 3: of this money that they had gotten from Marcos. Was
Speaker 3: operated out of this guy named doctor lee Neel Malabed,
Speaker 3: who was a pro Marcos doctor ally in the Bay Area,
Speaker 3: who had tried to use the radio station as a
Speaker 3: pro Marcos vehicle KJASS but it was shut down. But
Speaker 3: this was a intelligence slash fund that he operated, and
Speaker 3: we then had this fifteen thousand dollars payment. So as
Speaker 3: soon as we get these documents and realized we've got
Speaker 3: a smoking gun, we take Marcos's deposition, we take Malabid's deposition,
Speaker 3: and most and they all took the Fifth Amendment as
Speaker 3: it relates to the murders or any of their finances.
Speaker 3: But the beauty of it was that Marcos admitted that
Speaker 3: if someone like Jean had come to the Philippines to
Speaker 3: aid the anti Marcos opposition, he would have been surveiled.
Speaker 3: And we proved that Marcos intelligence picked up the ISLW
Speaker 3: resolution and you know, was very upset about it. And
Speaker 3: our suspicion was that the Counsulate and Marcos had told
Speaker 3: Baruso get down to the get down to San Francisco
Speaker 3: because there was a lieutenant colonel in the military whose
Speaker 3: name we still don't know, who came from the Philippines
Speaker 3: and met with Baruso and the Consulate General in San Francisco,
Speaker 3: and that's where the money changed hands. And so Burrusso
Speaker 3: then returns to Seattle and realizes that Dictato, the normal
Speaker 3: person he'd used to do something like this, was also
Speaker 3: pissed off at Jeranus for not dispatching his boys, and
Speaker 3: so he concox Us murder conspiracy which included the gang.
Speaker 3: He provides the gun as security and insurance for the
Speaker 3: murders that he stood behind it, and he provides the money.
Speaker 3: And the only thing, the two things they didn't count
Speaker 3: on was that Selmy would live and name the hitmen,
Speaker 3: and that Ciddey Domingo and Terry mast and we would
Speaker 3: fight a committee for a form a committee for justice
Speaker 3: and fight on for decades saying it's never over until
Speaker 3: all people that were responsible for this murder are brought
Speaker 3: to trial or implicated. And what we did then was
Speaker 3: ad Marcos back into the lawsuit because he was no
Speaker 3: longer they head of state. So Marcos was added as
Speaker 3: a defendant. Now we're going to try and Ferdinand Marcos personally.
Speaker 3: We took a videotape perpetuation deposition to Marcos. The play
Speaker 3: to the jury. Same with a Melba, and same with
Speaker 3: doctor Malabed, who had just lame excuses. He had no
Speaker 3: excuse for what the fifteen thousand dollars before. He had
Speaker 3: no explanation for where this money went.
Speaker 8: You talk about in this second deposition, which is important
Speaker 8: and now that they're back in this and the climate
Speaker 8: in the entire nation and the world has changed. But
Speaker 8: you say that despite him taking the Fifth Amendment to
Speaker 8: be able to not answer questions, that you still did
Speaker 8: gain valuable information, as you say, from the questions he
Speaker 8: did answer. But you also talk about that there's a
Speaker 8: difference in the civil case versus a criminal case in
Speaker 8: how the jury views people taking the Fifth Amendment and
Speaker 8: not answering questions. Tell us about that, right.
Speaker 3: Well, the beauty of the strategy that we had, if
Speaker 3: I could be so artist, was that Marcos, you know
Speaker 3: he was he was happy to testify about how his
Speaker 3: intelligence agencies were were thorough, they were dedicated. You know,
Speaker 3: we had gotten him to admit that his intelligence agencies,
Speaker 3: including NISA, the National Intelligence Security Authority headed by General
Speaker 3: vere had had basically operatism. In the US, we had
Speaker 3: received a Defense Intelligence Agency circular which was Basically, it
Speaker 3: was leaked to US which identified the two or five
Speaker 3: Marcos military attichaise attached to the embassy, and they were
Speaker 3: described as here to monitor and possibly operate against the
Speaker 3: anti Marcos movement. Well, we know what operate against means
Speaker 3: that includes use of violence. So US intelligence knew about it.
Speaker 3: But we used the US intelligence to prove what I
Speaker 3: call the Philippine infiltration plan. So with this conspiracy theory,
Speaker 3: alls we had to do is prove that Marcos was
Speaker 3: initiated and part of the conspiracy to spy on and
Speaker 3: operate against his opposition in the United States, including Akino,
Speaker 3: including members of the Modern Opposition, and certainly including the
Speaker 3: Union of Democratic Filipinos. So we didn't have to prove
Speaker 3: that Marcos signed the death warrant for Gene and Selmy,
Speaker 3: just that he had this conspiracy and that the overt
Speaker 3: act of the conspiracy included murdering Benino Aquino on the tarmac,
Speaker 3: included murdering Gene and Selmy and Seattle. So the beauty
Speaker 3: of the civil suit was, when you take the Fifth Amendment,
Speaker 3: the jury can infer from the answers of taking the
Speaker 3: Fifth Amendment. The answers would be incriminatory. So we said
Speaker 3: to Marcos, We asked him, well, Mark, you know I
Speaker 3: never call him president. I said, mister, Marcos did the
Speaker 3: did the Mabui Corporation? Was that used to pay for
Speaker 3: the assassinations of gene Vern and sell me Domingo on
Speaker 3: June first, I'll take the fifth Amendment. Well, that means
Speaker 3: the jury could conclude. The answer was, yes, it was.
Speaker 3: They don't have to conclude that, but they're entitled to
Speaker 3: it conclude that. So in the criminal case, you can't
Speaker 3: comment on someone's taking the Fifth Amendment. You can't say, well,
Speaker 3: he must be guilty. He took the fifth. In a
Speaker 3: civil suit, that's exactly what you can do. So that
Speaker 3: way we were able to get Marcos reinstated on the
Speaker 3: theory of this conspiracy theory, which was a live theory
Speaker 3: because it was proven by US government documents. We even
Speaker 3: got documents from the State Department. They were extraordinarily helpful,
Speaker 3: and I was fortunate because I went to Pomona College
Speaker 3: by international relations mentor and college professor Michael Armacrost left
Speaker 3: Pomona after I had graduated and became the third in
Speaker 3: in the Schultz George Schultz's administration at the State Department
Speaker 3: under Ronald Reagan. He was in third in charge of
Speaker 3: the State Department and had been the US Ambassador to
Speaker 3: the philip This is my friend Michael Armaicoss, So I
Speaker 3: had gone and visited him, saying, boy, we sure could
Speaker 3: use some documents from the State Department, and he told
Speaker 3: me just keep pressing, and we ended up getting a
Speaker 3: dynamite document in which the ambassadors of the Philippines, the
Speaker 3: US Ambassador the Philippines confronts Marcos about spies in the
Speaker 3: US and saying you can't send your spies here. This
Speaker 3: is under Carter, President Carter, and then saying bus, you
Speaker 3: can't be funding he said Ilocanos with American wives. Now
Speaker 3: Malabed was from Ilocos Norte, which is where Marcos was
Speaker 3: fun and it was also by the way where Tony
Speaker 3: Bruce was from the Ilicanos. So Ilakano with American wives
Speaker 3: described Lionel Maalabed, you can't be giving money to these
Speaker 3: people because it violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act. You
Speaker 3: can't give money for even media propaganda purposes. So the
Speaker 3: US State Department confronted Marcos on both of the things
Speaker 3: which are central to our theory both the Baboui corporation
Speaker 3: as well was the Marcos spies in the us SO
Speaker 3: armorcaust and a guy named James Nack from the State
Speaker 3: Department proved very useful for us improving the case against Marcos.
Speaker 3: But we still needed, you know, expert witnesses to tie
Speaker 3: all this together. So we had his expert witnesses, a
Speaker 3: former Philippine military intelligence officer, Bona Facio Diego, who knew
Speaker 3: the inner workings of the NISA and the Marcos spy operations,
Speaker 3: had done papers on it. He connected all the dots
Speaker 3: about gene travel to the Philippines was picked up. Their
Speaker 3: work at the isle W Convention was transmitted to General
Speaker 3: Vair and then the Intelligence flush fund was used to
Speaker 3: pay for the murders. We had a former CIA agent,
Speaker 3: Ralph McGehee testify. We had Richard Falk, professor of international law,
Speaker 3: testify out the human rights violations of the Philippine dictatorship.
Speaker 3: So it was quite a trial and it occurred in
Speaker 3: November of nineteen eighty nine, but about a month or
Speaker 3: in September before the trial, Marcos passed away. But fortunately
Speaker 3: we had taken his deposition and were able to play
Speaker 3: his deposition at the at the trial.
Speaker 8: What was it like for people to confront for Marcos
Speaker 8: and see his wife as well, and see them in
Speaker 8: a different light under different circumstances.
Speaker 3: Well, that would be a great question to ask Terry,
Speaker 3: because Terry masked, I mean here, Terry was the widow
Speaker 3: of sell Me. They had launched a recall campaign, which
Speaker 3: was successful, to recall Tony Berusso get him out of office, okay,
Speaker 3: because even if the prosecutor wasn't going to charge him,
Speaker 3: we're going to We're going to get him out of office.
Speaker 3: So he was removed. Then in the Philippines, Quarry Akino,
Speaker 3: the wife and widow of Benino Akino, had removed Marcos
Speaker 3: from power. I mean, obviously Terry on a much smaller scale,
Speaker 3: but still Terry had had was very kind of really empowered,
Speaker 3: not only because of what she had done, which was
Speaker 3: tremendously courageous, but also what the People's Power movement had
Speaker 3: done in the Philippines. So we're we're taking Marcos's deposition
Speaker 3: and there's Terry confronting the man that had her husband
Speaker 3: killed essentially right, and it was very tense. But then
Speaker 3: there came a time that the tension was broken because
Speaker 3: I was in the process of asking Marcos. I said,
Speaker 3: mister Marcus, could you tell the jury, because we had
Speaker 3: on videotape, tell the jury why you declared martial law?
Speaker 3: And Marcos expounded, well, the companists were bombing the buildings,
Speaker 3: there were scales and we had to b And I said, well,
Speaker 3: isn't the fact that you were under the Philippine Constitution
Speaker 3: of nineteen thirty six that you were prevented from running
Speaker 3: for a third term in nineteen seventy two when he
Speaker 3: declared martial law? Oh no, no, no, that's not true.
Speaker 3: And just then one of the we're on his estate
Speaker 3: on the shore in Oahu, a cockroach, a flying, indestructivele
Speaker 3: Hawaiian cockroach, flies in the room and lands on his shoulder.
Speaker 3: I didn't see it, and Marcos didn't see because we're
Speaker 3: in ten on the question and answer. But the cameraman
Speaker 3: saw the cockroach. He's going, what is that? So this
Speaker 3: cockroach is sitting there on his shoulder, and I said,
Speaker 3: are you're sure about that that you could? He goes
Speaker 3: ho default on the phone and the cockroach starts making
Speaker 3: a move towards Marcos's neck and I call him the
Speaker 3: cockroach of truth. It's going to bite Marcos in the
Speaker 3: neck if Marcos doesn't tell the truth. Well, Richard Hyde,
Speaker 3: Marcos's lawyer, sees his cockroach and he goes boom. He
Speaker 3: knocks the cockroach off Marcos's neck and without missing a beat,
Speaker 3: Mark Marcos looks at his lawyer says, was that the
Speaker 3: wrong answer? And we play for the jury, and the
Speaker 3: jury howled. Well, it just broke the tension when that happened.
Speaker 3: And from then on, you know, even though Marcus continually
Speaker 3: took the fifth, he gave us very valuable information about
Speaker 3: his spy agencies, his network of Marcus agents. The fact
Speaker 3: that if someone like Vernus had he said, if someone
Speaker 3: like Vernus had come to the Philippines doing what you
Speaker 3: said he did, his entire government would have spied on him. Well,
Speaker 3: we thought, we thought that was pretty helpful.
Speaker 8: Now, you talk about the that you don't know the
Speaker 8: outcome of this with the jury. You can only feel
Speaker 8: what sort of the mood that that's coming from them.
Speaker 8: But then you have to also pitch damages and explain
Speaker 8: why what these damages are for and the reasons for
Speaker 8: those damages. So tell us about your summation in that regard.
Speaker 3: Well, the summation of course has to start with the
Speaker 3: liability and proving that this dispute over dispatch theory was
Speaker 3: a cover for the deeper motives. But what we always
Speaker 3: wanted to return to was what we call the heart
Speaker 3: of the case. That's the last chapter on the trial
Speaker 3: in the book is the heart of the case, which
Speaker 3: was really about who sell Me and Gene were as
Speaker 3: human beings and as fighters for justice and democracy. But
Speaker 3: more than that, sell Me left two young daughters, and
Speaker 3: the heart of our case was Leguy and Kyllion. Because
Speaker 3: Terry was asking for no money for herself. It was
Speaker 3: all for her daughters. And so what we were able
Speaker 3: to do was say, what does it mean? How do
Speaker 3: we place a value, a monetary value on what a
Speaker 3: parent brings to a three year old and a one
Speaker 3: year old daughter. That man that cooked the meals for
Speaker 3: her then was the only one that could make her
Speaker 3: a birthday cake, Magaya, the man who wouldn't be at
Speaker 3: her high school graduation, the presence in her life as
Speaker 3: she meets and starts dating boys or girls. So how
Speaker 3: do you place a value on what a parent's worth
Speaker 3: in our society? Well, what if you paid them minimum wage?
Speaker 3: Most people would say parents are worth more than minimum wage,
Speaker 3: particularly if you're a parent. I said, well, if you
Speaker 3: if you gave sell me, I mean, if you gave
Speaker 3: these kids damages for the minimum wage that people would
Speaker 3: have compensated sell me for, then your verdict should be
Speaker 3: for two million dollars for the lifetime of not having
Speaker 3: that parent for each of the child. Well, it's a
Speaker 3: crude way of kind of putting a monetary value on
Speaker 3: what parents bring. But it wasn't because of the money.
Speaker 3: It was because of the character of house Terry and
Speaker 3: Cindy and the family described Selmy's relationship to his daughters.
Speaker 3: Jean was not married and didn't have kids, so he
Speaker 3: was unable to recover any substantial damages other than his
Speaker 3: future earnings mind us what he would have spent, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, not very much. So that's how we presented damages.
Speaker 3: The defense in the case was the Seattle Police Department
Speaker 3: saw this murder ten years ago. It was a dispute
Speaker 3: over dispatch for gambling in Alaska because these du us
Speaker 3: on gang wanted to gamble run the gambling in Alaska
Speaker 3: and wanted to get their cut and they weren't able
Speaker 3: to because Jane and Selly had come up with this
Speaker 3: fair dispatch thing and they were murdered because of that
Speaker 3: case closed. It's nothing to do with the Marcos regime.
Speaker 3: That's just playing upon your prejudices because Marco has been overthrown.
Speaker 3: These were people who quote unquote labored in smaller vineyards.
Speaker 3: Marcos would never have heard of them because they were
Speaker 3: so unimportant. So we had prepared for that defense and
Speaker 3: talked about how important that resolution has made the headlines
Speaker 3: in the Philippines, and how important was that Gina met
Speaker 3: with the Union of Democratic I mean the large May
Speaker 3: First movement in the Philippines.
Speaker 8: How kucial was the information that you uncovered or the
Speaker 8: point that you could bring up that he brought twenty
Speaker 8: nine hundred dollars there for this organization, but yet someone
Speaker 8: said and someone thought was two hundred and ninety thousand,
Speaker 8: which makes huge difference in terms of importance.
Speaker 3: You know what. We proved our case without proving anything
Speaker 3: about the two hundred ninety thousand dollars because we tried
Speaker 3: to get those documents from Naval Investigative Service and we
Speaker 3: weren't able to. We got a lot of other great
Speaker 3: documents from Naval Investigative Services, including that they had a
Speaker 3: couple informants within the KDP at this time that they
Speaker 3: had routinely sent their informants reports to Marcos intelligence and
Speaker 3: to the FBI. I mean, this was some this was
Speaker 3: some very bad stuff that you are intelligence. Why why
Speaker 3: was US intelligence taking the size of Marcos in this situation. Well,
Speaker 3: they had a large naval base Subic Bay and it
Speaker 3: all relates to that. But no, we didn't have we
Speaker 3: didn't have the we didn't have that document. So there
Speaker 3: was nothing about two hundred ninety thousand dollars, even though
Speaker 3: it was a crucial aspect of the motive that Marcos had,
Speaker 3: it wasn't admitted to evidence. But we used the But
Speaker 3: but then we even had better evidence, which was the
Speaker 3: intelligent slush fund used to pay for the murders, so
Speaker 3: that that came in very handy. But you know what
Speaker 3: I said in my closing argument was was it was
Speaker 3: it was made to look like a dispute over dispatch.
Speaker 3: But as his whole life passed before his eyes and
Speaker 3: the seconds after that burst of gunfire, SELM. Domingo had
Speaker 3: one thing in mind. There's one last thing I must do.
Speaker 3: My life must not be in vain. The principles and
Speaker 3: ideals I fought for were worth living for. Because Selmy
Speaker 3: said to themselves that the perpetrators of this foul crime
Speaker 3: must be brought to justice. That was his last wish,
Speaker 3: and we must answer it. That's what I implored the
Speaker 3: jury to do. But in that instance, when he said
Speaker 3: remealing galoy, this murder plot began to unravel, not just
Speaker 3: for the hitmen, not just for Remealing Galoi, not just
Speaker 3: for Peli and Dictato, but those who put them up
Speaker 3: to it, for those who stood in the shadows, who
Speaker 3: covered their tracks. Because the tracks began to be uncovered,
Speaker 3: the gun was planted, fingers began to be pointed. But
Speaker 3: the other thing the perpetrators of this murder did not
Speaker 3: count on was the courage and tenacity of Cherry Mass,
Speaker 3: Cindy Domingo, and Barber vereness and their determination that justice
Speaker 3: would be done to get to the bottom of these murders.
Speaker 3: To me, that was the crucial argument where the jury
Speaker 3: said said, we're with these women, and Linda Barber, who
Speaker 3: is the jury foreman, that later told me that they
Speaker 3: were with them. They were with those women because of
Speaker 3: the courage that they had had to bring this case
Speaker 3: against one of the most powerful dictatorships in the world.
Speaker 8: Now you were successful. What was the damages? Any surprises?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we went out. You know, Heybie gave a
Speaker 3: very strong closing argument that was Marcus's lawyer about this
Speaker 3: had already been solved. But we also felt pretty good
Speaker 3: about the evidence we put in. So we waited and
Speaker 3: you sweat a jury, and believe me, the word sweat
Speaker 3: is not is not a hyperbole. And we're there for
Speaker 3: about a day and Hybie had broken camp and gone
Speaker 3: back to d C. But he had a guy named
Speaker 3: John Coffee that was sitting in for him. And we
Speaker 3: got a word from the from the core. The judge
Speaker 3: wants to see us in chambers. You know, was there
Speaker 3: a verdict? No, no verdict? I go, oh shit, what
Speaker 3: the jury has a question. Well, you know, if you're
Speaker 3: a planist lawyer, Dan, and the jury has a question,
Speaker 3: you screwed up. You They thought of something that you
Speaker 3: didn't think of and you should have thought of it
Speaker 3: as your fault. And I went in there just with
Speaker 3: my shit on the floor. So I walk into the
Speaker 3: chambers and you know, there's John Coffee for Marcos and
Speaker 3: Katel Fury for Malibed. She was the lawyer for Malabed.
Speaker 3: And a little smile on Judge Rossin, who is a
Speaker 3: fantastic federal chrial judge by the way, smile on her face,
Speaker 3: and she goes the jury has a question. I go,
Speaker 3: oh my god, what is it. The question of the
Speaker 3: jury is, can we award more money than the planist
Speaker 3: lawyer has asked for enclosing argument? Yeah, I just said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, no, I mean that like never happens,
Speaker 3: because I had thought I'd asked for too much. Oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: four million dollars yet And so then we then there
Speaker 3: we knew we'd won. It was just no matter how
Speaker 3: much the damages are. And so the judge says, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna answer the question. Yes, we read the instructions.
Speaker 3: You are the sole determination of damages. You can reward
Speaker 3: whatever you want. So after the jury verdict came in
Speaker 3: and there was just tumult in the courtroom, I mean
Speaker 3: every single day of the Committee for Justice. This is
Speaker 3: an eight and a half years after the murders Dan.
Speaker 3: The courtroom was actually packed with supporters and friends and family,
Speaker 3: big cheers, The judge that yeah, you know how you
Speaker 3: see on TV if there's one more outbreak up. But
Speaker 3: to clear this court room, the judges let it go
Speaker 3: because there's this pin up, you know, frustration, anger, excitement,
Speaker 3: and the boom just unleashed and Laguya runs up to
Speaker 3: council table. What happened? What happened? We win? Do we win?
Speaker 3: You know? And Terry s we won? We won? And
Speaker 3: we talked to Linda Barbera, the fourth person after the
Speaker 3: jury effect. She came to the victory party and she said,
Speaker 3: you know, the regret the jury had was we never
Speaker 3: got a chance to meet Gene and sell Me. You
Speaker 3: brought him to life through your testimony. And the reason
Speaker 3: we did what we did was mister White said that
Speaker 3: if the average parent was worth you know, minimum wage
Speaker 3: at the time, then you should award two million. But
Speaker 3: sell Me was not an average parent. He was far
Speaker 3: better than that. So they basically doubled what I asked for.
Speaker 3: And the final award from the jury was fifteen point
Speaker 3: one million dollars to the estates of Semi Domingo and
Speaker 3: Gene Bareness. And then that was at the time the
Speaker 3: highest personal injury award in Washington. State history, and it
Speaker 3: was the first and only time any foreign had a
Speaker 3: state had ever been held liable for the murder of
Speaker 3: US citizens on US wel and it still is the
Speaker 3: only time this has ever happened. So it's a huge
Speaker 3: precedent in international human rights. And we you know, it's
Speaker 3: all because of the work of the Committee for Justice
Speaker 3: for Nemingo and Vereness and Terry Maskin Sidney Domingo and
Speaker 3: Barbara Verenas that this verdict came about. And it was
Speaker 3: only after that verdict came that we then went back
Speaker 3: to the prosecuting attorney's office and said, now you got
Speaker 3: to charge Brusso and they did charge him with murder
Speaker 3: on our theory that Marcos had them killed, and he
Speaker 3: was convicted, sent us to life in prison, as was
Speaker 3: Taccato Rameil Galois, and Bruso died in prison pretty much
Speaker 3: a lonely and broken man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we didn't We don't have time to get into it.
Speaker 8: But for those readers that you're going to see some incredible,
Speaker 8: uh sir again, very visual testimony from Dictado at the
Speaker 8: trials and what he has to say when he is
Speaker 8: now in an unenviable position and situation. Yeah, very very interesting. Yes,
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much, Michael Withy for
Speaker 8: coming on and talking about summary execution, the Seattle assassinations
Speaker 8: of sell Me Domingo and gene Areness. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: I want to know this.
Speaker 8: This is a Wild Blue Press release. Tell us how
Speaker 8: people might contact you or find out about this work.
Speaker 8: Facebook page, tell us about anything like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Great. To get the book comes out February twentieth,
Speaker 3: you can go to my website www. Michaelwy dot com,
Speaker 3: Michael the name and with the wit H e y
Speaker 3: dot com. You can also go to www wildbluepress dot
Speaker 3: com all one word and you'll be able to get
Speaker 3: the book on Like I said, February twentieth, I think
Speaker 3: we're about to be up and running in terms of
Speaker 3: pre orders. But I'd love it if you read the book.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing story. We're having a launch a commemoration
Speaker 3: of the lives and work of gene Vierness and sell
Speaker 3: Me Domingo on March twentieth in Seattle. If you're in
Speaker 3: the Seattle area, come by the Labor Temple twenty eight
Speaker 3: hundred First Avena. We're going to have a lot of
Speaker 3: great speakers Jeff Robinson from the CLU who tried the
Speaker 3: case with me. We'll speak. We have local politicians and
Speaker 3: people who supported our work speaking as well, so come
Speaker 3: on by.
Speaker 8: Well that's great. Congratulations on this and very very important
Speaker 8: legal victory, and congratulations on this incredible story and bringing
Speaker 8: it to life and bringing all the major players and
Speaker 8: the memory of Selmy Domingo and Jeane Verness definitely resonates
Speaker 8: this book. I want to thank you very much for
Speaker 8: this interview.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dan, that's
Speaker 3: who we wrote it for. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 8: You have a great evening.
Speaker 3: Good night, all right, good night,