King Larry

by James D. Scurlock

  By August 1995, Waechter must have been well aware of at least the possibility of more children in the Philippines and Vietnam. He had, after all, personally witnessed the constant flow of women in and out of the villa in Dalat and had been introduced to two of Larry’s Filipina girlfriends often enough to remember their unlikely names: Angelica and Mercedes—or, as Larry had giddily called her, “the Benz.”

  However, when a reporter for the Guam Business Magazine called Waechter’s office at UMDA later that month for a cover story/eulogy of Micronesia’s most successful businessman, Waechter tried to avoid the subject by waxing sentimental. “We all like to think we’ll make our mark while on this earth and shine bright,” he told the reporter, “but Larry’s star shone much brighter than the rest of us ordinary men.” “Larry was the happiest guy I ever knew,” Waechter continued. “He had two interests in life: business and the law. I got to talk to him a lot about business, but not about the law, over the twenty-three years that I worked for him. It developed into more than a business relationship. Larry became one of my best friends. I thought about that last month when I was in Vietnam. It hit me hard in Vietnam. I was doing that job for Larry. I’ve lost a tremendous friend. To me it’s like losing a brother. He’s someone who’s been there for over twenty-three years through good and bad times. He’s changed my life completely.”

  When the interview turned to Hillblom’s personal life, Waechter equivocated. “I don’t know what you’ve been told,” he said, “but it’s a myth that Larry was with ten girls a day in the Philippines. In reality, Larry had one girlfriend here: Josephine Nocasa, and he was very faithful and loyal when they were together.” Then, addressing rumors of pedophilia, he contradicted himself: “They weren’t twelve or thirteen years old,” Waechter said. “Larry preferred them to be eighteen to twenty. At any time he had three or four girlfriends.” Finally, the reporter brought up rumors of a girlfriend in Vietnam, where Waechter and Hillblom had shared a villa for the last fifteen months. “He had a female friend for several years,” Waechter acknowledged, “but they were never intimate. She was teaching him Vietnamese. He kept thinking that sooner or later, she’d cave in, but . . . he enjoyed the chase more than the conquest.”

  “Shortly after Larry died,” Mike Dotts explains toward the end of our second lunch, “Ted Mitchell tried to get Josephine as a client.” Soliciting his enemy’s girlfriend was such an audacious move that no one, including Dotts, had seen it coming. Nor would anyone have predicted Josephine’s response. She did not say no, though she did not say yes, either. Instead, she told her good friend Annie Waechter, Joe’s wife.

  Dotts received a call from Waechter a short time after that. “Joe asked me if I would talk to Josephine and persuade her not to hire Ted,” he recalls.

  “Well, who is she going to hire?” Dotts replied. As everyone knew, most of the attorneys on Saipan were looking for kids. Hillblom’s probate was already being called a feeding frenzy.

  “No one,” was the reply.

  “Let her hire me then,” Dotts said, though he knew that was easier said than done. First, Bob O’Connor, his boss, had forbidden him to become involved; he didn’t want the pain of Larry’s death lingering around the office. Second, Dotts was a director of the Bank of Saipan, which was legally the executor. The estate would have to waive the obvious conflict of a bank director filing a multimillion-dollar claim against the bank.

  Waechter seemed reluctant to allow anyone to represent Josephine, but he agreed to call Peter Donnici and see if they could work something out. Dotts was convinced that Hillblom would have wanted Josephine to be provided for. He considered her a widow, even if the law might not. Saipan’s marriage statute was a holdover from the Trust Territory days, when the U.S. Navy Administrator had eliminated common-law marriages because several young sailors had attended local ceremonies with their island sweethearts and found themselves unwittingly married. So, even though Josephine and Larry had lived together and traveled together for ten years, Dotts would either have to invalidate the old statute or offer some proof that a marriage ceremony had occurred. This already daunting task was made thornier by the fact that Dotts himself had drawn up the employment contract that defined Josephine as Hillblom’s maid—the contract that had allowed Larry not to marry her.

  At least, Dotts told himself, he would not face opposition from the estate. Both me Donnici and Waechter knew Josephine and they knew Larry’s feelings for her. Dotts told himself that they would do the right thing. As he hopped into his Jeep and navigated the southern tip of the island toward Dandan, Dotts thought his biggest problem would be keeping his new client a secret from his boss.

  Curled up in one of the couches of Larry’s favorite room twenty minutes later, Josephine told Dotts how she had become a recluse, hiding from the press and news of Junior. But he was not her first visitor that week, she said. Joe Waechter had also come by to remove all of Larry’s files and his computer. In total, Josephine estimated that Waechter had made off with thirteen or fourteen boxes, although the computer was broken anyway.

  But later that day, Josephine continued, she had received a call from Waechter. He had decided that removing the files was not enough. He wanted to make sure that she cleaned the house and especially, that she vacuumed the carpet thoroughly. And, he told her, get rid of Larry’s nail cutter and his combs. When she asked why, he explained that Junior’s lawyer was going to come to look for evidence. As she would testify under oath later: “He told me that Junior was going to try and take away Larry’s money. And that it would be wrong for that to happen, because he said that Larry didn’t have a son.” Finally, he asked her to get rid of Larry’s clothes and his personal things. Specifically, Josephine would recall, “He told me to burn them.”

  Their maid had flown home to the Philippines to visit family so Josephine, her brother, and Hillblom’s pool man had teamed up to expunge the last evidence of Larry Hillblom from his home. While she’d gathered his modest wardrobe in large trash bags, the two men had cleaned the yard and the swimming pool. But instead of burning Hillblom’s clothes, Josephine had decided to bury them in the backyard. She’d called up the only equipment rental shop on the island and rented a backhoe for a hundred bucks. She’d directed the driver to come all the way down the driveway to the garage and dig a large hole next to the tennis court. Josephine had chosen a spot that would be overgrown with tangan-tangan within a few days. Since then, she’d fretted over the hundred dollars; that equated to roughly half her monthly salary and, with Larry gone, she had no idea how she would feed herself, her brother, or even her cat.

  A few days later, when Waechter had called back and asked her if she was done cleaning the house, Josephine had simply said yes. And he hadn’t followed up to make certain that the clothes had been burned, so she’d let him believe that she had done as she was told.

  But Waechter had not been the only one on the estate side to contact Josephine in recent days. David Nevitt, the estate’s lead attorney, had taken her to lunch at a resort hotel where he told her that he would do everything he could to make sure that Junior didn’t get a penny of Hillblom’s money. Then he had made her an offer. “He said,” Josephine would remember, “that if I didn’t hire a lawyer, that I’d have a house to live in for the rest of my life.” In addition to the house, Nevitt also promised her $1 million, paid by the Bank of Saipan, on the condition that she not file a claim. Which, he added, was really in her best interests because if she did not hire a lawyer, then she would have all of the money for herself! Of course, the poor girl from the provinces was supposed to be impressed by the white man in the tie and his big number but she wasn’t. Larry had promised her more than that, she told Dotts. He’d told her that she would inherit the house as well as her Toyota MR2 and his stock in UMDA. She had pressed Larry to write down these promises, but he’d refused, joking that she would want him dead if he did. Instead, he’d bought her some land in Manila, an SUV for herself, and a Jeepney for one of her brot
hers.

  Dotts froze. He was now staring at a very long, complicated path to settlement. In the inventory of the estate’s assets that he’d filed with the court, Waechter had estimated Hillblom’s UMDA shares at $50 million. If Nevitt had offered her only a million dollars, Josephine and the estate would start their negotiations tens of millions of dollars apart. To further complicate matters, Josephine had just admitted to destroying evidence. If Junior’s attorneys found out about that, the chances that they would allow a settlement with Josephine were next to nil. They might even go after Dotts for contempt. Or disbarment.

  “The trick”—Dotts smiles—“was not revealing Josephine’s complicity in hiding Hillblom’s personal effects until after a settlement. I had to get lucky and I had to just keep delaying.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Sparring

  By the time a copy of Guam Business landed on Joe Waechter’s desk several weeks later, the cover a watercolor portrait of Hillblom in which he seemed to be either drowning or suspended in an aquamarine haze, Waechter had received more than two dozen claims against the estate. While most would be easy to deal with—a claim for work done on one of Hillblom’s apartment buildings on Saipan, for example—there were a few curveballs, none more perplexing than a malicious prosecution lawsuit demanding $1.5 million from the estate. The lawsuit had been filed by Ted Mitchell, who happened to be quoted at length in the Guam Business article.

  Mitchell’s lawsuit became much more menacing when Waechter received a call from Guy Coombs, the longtime head of DHL’s Philippines subsidiary. Coombs told him about a strange call he’d just received from a man posing as an estate attorney. The man, Coombs said, had asked a lot of questions about Larry—where he’d gotten the cash for his Manila junkets, for example, and what had happened to the condos that he’d purchased there, as well as any personal effects that remained. The caller had seemed especially interested in whether or not Hillblom had owned any property in the Philippines through nominees, as he had on Saipan. When Coombs had become suspicious, the line had suddenly gone dead.

  Waechter thanked Coombs for the information and hung up the phone. If he had not yet appreciated the precariousness of his position, the reality now settled in the pit of his stomach. He was no longer Larry’s fixer. As executor, he was Larry. And so he had just been pulled into the final, and most personal, phase of the Clash of the Titans.

  Monday, September 8, 1995, started hot and stayed that way. In the early afternoon, Mike Dotts rode the escalator down to the first floor of the Nauru Building, traversed the parking lot, and walked the well-worn dirt path to Castro’s courtroom for an emergency hearing inspired by Hillblom’s old nemesis, Ted Mitchell. The last time the two men had sparred, Dotts had enraged the bombastic litigator by yanking Larry out of his deposition. He suspected (based on purely circumstantial evidence, it should be noted) that Mitchell had gotten his revenge by sabotaging Larry’s Cessna shortly thereafter—nearly killing him. Now it appeared that Mitchell had flown to Manila to dig up dirt, which he had neatly sifted and categorized in an emergency pleading to Judge Castro—the emergency being Mitchell’s suspicion that Joseph Waechter was secretly disposing of estate assets in the Philippines. But given the relatively minuscule value of Hillblom’s property there, Mitchell’s emergency seemed like a pretense, one that conveniently allowed him to crucify Larry as a tax evader, a real estate fraudster, and a pedophile.

  Among other things, Mitchell alleged:

  • Hillblom had often “borrowed” cash from the DHL office in Manila for his sex junkets. The revolving loans had been repaid by Donnici’s office in San Francisco. At the time of his death, about $25,000 worth of these loans were outstanding.

  • Hillblom’s studio apartment in Makati, Manila, was inhabited by a “little girl” whom he was sending to school.

  • Waechter had given power of attorney to a DHL lawyer named Domingo Jhocson to dispose of Larry’s assets in the Philippines without court approval. The implications of this were twofold: Waechter was trying to cover Larry’s tracks by immediately clearing out his residences; and Larry had illegally purchased property in the Philippines, where, as on Saipan, foreigners are not allowed to own real estate.

  Dotts took a seat in the courtroom as Waechter and John Osborn crossed the bar. Several feet away, Ted Mitchell, Joe Hill, and a stocky islander dressed in a deafeningly loud aloha shirt took their seats at the opposing table.

  Castro entered in his long black robe and asked for appearances. The only witness that day would be Joseph Waechter, who dutifully slouched to the witness chair and promised to tell the truth. But before Mitchell got his shot at him, the executor was given the opportunity to explain how he had gone about marshaling Hillblom’s assets in the Philippines. Waechter said he had executed the power of attorney with Jhocson—a close associate—only to explore the sale of Hillblom’s Manila condos and certainly not to destroy evidence, as Mitchell’s affidavit had suggested. Of course, Waechter said, he had always planned to come back to the court and obtain its approval if they received any offers, but they hadn’t. In fact, nothing of Hillblom’s had been sold yet.

  Mitchell shifted in his seat, taking notes, or pretending to, as the islander attorney suddenly asked Castro permission to approach the witness. The judge acquiesced with a warm smile.

  The islander attorney’s name was David Lujan, pronounced with a soft “j,” accent on the second syllable (loo-HAN). Physically, he was compact and thick—a bulldog with a mocha complexion—and he moved like a fighter. He was obviously Chamorro. Dotts watched closely as Lujan stood and thanked Castro for allowing him the opportunity to question the witness. But as he turned to face Waechter, Lujan’s smile morphed into a smirk. Then the islander attorney began to pace, waving a thin double-spaced document with his right hand: the power of attorney.

  Lujan rattled off a number of establishing questions: Did Waechter really understand his duties as executor? Did he understand what the power of attorney he’d signed actually meant? Did he get that this was not a limited power of attorney, as he had intimated, but actually a very broad authorization that gave Jhocson not only the power to sell assets himself but also to anoint another attorney with the power to operate as the executor within the Philippines? What exactly was Waechter’s relationship with Jhocson?

  “Sir,” the islander asked Waechter, “are you aware that Mr. Hillblom sometimes buys properties and puts it in other people’s names?”

  “I’m not aware of that,” Waechter replied.

  “The Rooster,” attorney David Lujan. The photo is from an article in GQ magazine on the Hillblom probate. (Courtesy of Robbie McClaran)

  “You’re not aware of it?” Lujan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “No.”

  The attorney turned back to Castro and asked the judge to consider the whopper that had just escaped the lips of one of Hillblom’s closest business associates. Then he swapped the power of attorney for a copy of Mitchell’s affidavit and called Waechter’s attention to Mitchell’s assertion that Guy Coombs, DHL’s manager in the Philippines, had told him that Hillblom owned a house north of Manila that was held in Coombs’s wife’s name.

  “I see that,” Waechter admitted.

  “Are you aware of that?” the attorney asked.

  “I’m not aware of that, no.”

  “You’re not aware of it?”

  They sparred awhile longer before Waechter questioned why they were spending so much time arguing over less than a million dollars. If they went through this exercise for every asset in Hillblom’s estate, he admonished the islander, they would be in court for three years.

  Lujan smirked. Was Waechter blaming him for being suspicious of his actions? he asked.

  John Osborn immediately objected. Overruled.

  Lujan repeated his question, a little more emphatically: “Do you blame me for being suspicious?”

  “Well,” Waechter stammered, “I don’t know what—the word, blame. I don’t kno
w what you mean by ‘blame.’”

  The attorney ignored him. He asked Castro’s permission to delve into something potentially more substantive than the Philippine assets—something that predated his entry into the case but seemed very suspicious: a brand-new entity called Commonwealth Holdings Corporation that now owned the majority of the Bank of Saipan, the estate’s executor. But Castro refused, promising that it could be discussed at a future hearing. Disappointed, Lujan sat down and ceded the floor.

  Attorneys like Dotts are used to the repetitive nature of cross-examinations, but Waechter, an executive used to short meetings and quick decisions, was already flustered. Now Ted Mitchell finally stood up to have his turn. And for several minutes, Mitchell repeated many of the questions that Lujan had already asked, eliciting the same responses in an increasingly agitated tone. When Mitchell inquired as to why Waechter had not consulted with the eminent auction house Sotheby’s before disposing of Hillblom’s television and VCR, Waechter finally lost it.

  “I checked with Sotheby’s about a VCR?” Waechter said, incredulous.

  “Isn’t it,” Mitchell replied, “conceivable that something with Larry Hillblom’s name on it, or a golf bag that has his name on it, or that it belonged to him . . . You laugh? They’re having auctions at Sotheby’s every few days of Elvis Presley’s effects, aren’t they? And other similar celebrity’s effects?”

  “No,” Waechter answered firmly. “It’s not conceivable.”

  “You don’t think that Larry Hillblom’s effects would have any special value?” Mitchell demanded.

  “I think,” Waechter replied, “you’re living in a dream world. That’s not—I don’t believe it’s conceivable.”

  “It is not legal,” Mitchell continued, then paused a moment to rephrase. “Is it your understanding that Mr. Hillblom could legally buy real estate in the Philippines in his own name? What is your understanding?”