Ex-Imelda lawyer can’t leave RP

ANGELES CITY — Last January, American lawyer Benjamin Cassiday III, who had worked with Jerry Spence on cases of former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos in the United States, was arrested here on estafa charges.

Now out on bail, Cassiday, 52, however, cannot leave the country. He is in the hold departure list of the immigration bureau.

The estafa case, pending with Judge Lourdes Gatbalite of the Regional Trial Court Branch 58 here, however, had nothing to do with Mrs. Marcos.

His ordeal though stemmed from a saga as dramatic as Mrs. Marcos’ — the search for the heirs of Larry Hillblom, founder of DHL Worldwide Express who upon his death in a plane crash in the Pacific on May 22, 1995, left an estimated $1-billion estate.

Hillblom died a bachelor. His fondness for Asian women, however, triggered a hunt for children he could have sired across Asia, especially in the Philippines, his favorite destination.

In June 1996, Cassiday sought the help of Filipino trader Jose Marfori in the search. Marfori, exhausting his personal funds and with promise of remuneration, succeeded, locating four of Hillblom’s children — siblings Honelyn, Alexandra and Jeril Nonan and Mercedita Feliciano.

Hillblom had three other children — Jellian Cuartero, also with a Filipina; Junior Larry Hillblom of Saipan, and Nguyen De Jong of Vietnam.

Estafa case

Marfori, in filing the estafa case, has accused Cassiday of using for his own benefit huge sums intended for the Nonan siblings.

Soon after Hillblom’s death, the probate court of Saipan, one of the US trust territories in the Northern Pacific where Hillblom had based the Asian operations of DHL, decided to award about $100 million to each of the possible heir-claimants.

The court later recognized the five Filipino children and the two others from Saipan and Vietnam as legitimate claimants. Since they were below five years old then, they were represented in court by lawyers and their guardians.

The $100-million award, however, had a condition — the claimants had to undergo DNA tests. Since Hillblom’s body was never found and his personal effects which could provide samples for the tests mysteriously disappeared after his death, the Saipan court ruled that sibling relationship among the claimants could be established through DNA analysis.

By this time, Cassiday had convinced former Vice President Salvador Laurel to act as official guardian of the three Nonan children. On Sept. 11, 1996, Cassiday, Laurel and Marfori signed an agreement stipulating their roles in the Nonans’ claim — Laurel as guardian, Marfori as custodian and Cassiday as counsel — and their share from the sum that the court would award.

No to DNA tests

For some reasons, Cassiday, reportedly in consultation with Laurel and Marfori, declined DNA tests for the Nonan children. This, despite the fact that of Hillblom’s women, the children’s mother, Jocelyn Nonan, was the only one the DHL founder had carried an affair with and had supported financially for eight years. Jocelyn was a 14-year-old waitress in an eatery near a bus terminal in Baguio City when she met Hillblom in December 1988.

In March 1999, Cassiday, with the help of a Saipan lawyer, won a petition with the Superior Court of the Northern Mariana Islands that compelled the other claimants to sign a "limited option agreement," otherwise entitlements from the Hillblom estate would be scrapped altogether.

Under the court-prescribed formula, the other claimants were obligated to shell out $1,150,000 each out of their $100-million inheritance for the three Nonan children — or a total of $4,600,000.

Marfori said the entire amount had been turned over to Cassiday and Laurel as early as two years ago. Yet, apart from the $120,000 he had received as reimbursement for his expenses in tracking down the Nonan children, Marfori said he still has to get his 10 percent share from the gross amount, as his agreement with Cassiday and Laurel had stipulated.

Status report

Last December, Marfori filed a petition with the Angeles RTC to require a "status report of settlement payments and disbursement of the Hillblom funds due to the Nonan heirs."

Laurel did so last Feb. 15, reporting that a total of P961,658 or $19,233 had been turned over to the Nonan children since 2000 for allowances, subsistence, matriculation fees and the purchase of a washing machine and a television set.

Cassiday, for his part, in a letter to Laurel dated last Jan. 25, said he had disbursed $750,000 as payments to other lawyers and Marfori’s reimbursement, excluding his fees as attorney of $405,000.

Angeles City assistant prosecutor Ruben Hilario noted that Cassiday allegedly received $1,150,000 from the inheritance of Junior Larry Hillblom in February 2000 but did not remit the amount to Laurel, the Nonan children’s guardian.

Hilario said Cassiday deposited the money in his personal account in a bank here but he closed the account two months later. This, he said, "constitutes grave misconduct and a serious breach of his (Cassiday’s) fiduciary obligation" to Laurel, as guardian, and to the Nonan children.

Marfori also questioned Cassiday’s fund disbursements, saying he allegedly made it appear that he hired different lawyers to whom he had made staggering payments.

Barred from leaving the country, Cassiday, according to Marfori, has remained in Angeles, living a lavish lifestyle and frequenting nightspots.

Until now, Marfori said he continues to be hounded by people who had helped track down Jocelyn Nonan in a nightspot in Marilao, Bulacan where she performed to support her three children with Hillblom.