Shadow Billionaire (2009) Movie Script
( Indistinct Radio Chatter )
( Rumbling )
( Crash )
Man: There Was A Scramble
Of Boats Contacting The Navy,
The Air Force Out Of Guam,
Just Trying To Find The Plane.
Newscaster:
After An Entire Day
Of Searching For A Sign
Of The Downed Plane,
Two Private Boats Found
Not What They Were Hoping For,
But What They Feared
The Most--Two Bodies--
The Body Of 52-Year-Old
Robert Long,
The Pilot Of
The Ill-Fated Flight,
And The Body Of Saipan
Congressman Jesus P. Mafnas.
There Still Is No Sign Of
Billionaire Larry Hillblom.
There Is The Faintest Hope
That Larry Hillblom
Might Somehow
Be Out There Alive.
Man: He Was The Founder
Of A Huge Corporation--
Dhl--
And He Was
A Reputed Billionaire.
And He Was A Genius.
If You Took Out The Sexual
Part Of Larry's Life,
He Was A Fascinating
Character,
A Very Interesting Person.
No One Ever Really Got
The Full Picture
Of Who Larry Was
Because Larry Didn't
Reveal His Full Self
To Anyone.
Man: What Came Out
In The Weeks After
His Disappearance
Shocked Even Those
Who Thought They Knew Him.
Larry Hillblom
Was Not Married,
And He Didn't Have
Any Children,
As Far As Anybody Knew.
Trying To Grab A Piece Of It.
Trying To Grab A Piece Of It.
There's A Lot Of Money There.
Larry Cut A Wide Swath
Through The Pacific.
Ha Ha Ha!
What Was It About The Story
That Initially Intrigued Me?
I Determine The Suitability
Of A Subject For A Story
On The Basis
Of The Three Cs--
Cash, Crime, And Cunt.
Those Are The Three Cs.
Uh, Clearly,
The Larry Hillblom Story
Incorporated
All Three Elements.
The Outlines Of The Story
Were Very Clear Going In.
After Larry's Disappearance,
Prostitutes Stepped Forward
On Behalf Of Their Children,
Claiming That They'd Been
Fathered By This Rich American.
And At The Front
Of This Whole Thing,
Is Larry--
The Enigma Of Who
This Person Was.
Because There's Something
Diabolical In This Whole Thing.
This Is It.
Let's See If It's--
Looks Like It's Unlocked.
( Dog Barking )
Wow.
This Is It.
After 13 Years.
What A Shame, Huh?
This Was A Pretty House.
My God.
It Took Him
Seven Or Eight Years
To Build This House.
He Was Really Proud
Of How Cheap It Was.
God, This Is Sad.
Anderson: I Happened To Be Down
At Cocos Island One Time
With My Family,
And People Were
Pointing Him Out,
And They Were Saying,
"You Know Who That Is?"
I Said, "No, Who's That?"
Zoris, Shorts, T-Shirt.
Didn't Look Like One Of
The Wealthiest Businessmen
In The World.
I Found Out That He Was
The "H" In Dhl
It Turns Out That He Was
Living Up On Saipan
Because Of Tax Reasons,
Primarily,
But Also Because
He Just Liked The Lifestyle.
Larry Hillblom Came To Saipan
In The Early 1980S.
Saipan Is Part Of Micronesia.
It Was Given To
The United States Government
As A Trust Territory
After World War Ii.
Today, This Is America's
Farthest Western Outpost.
People Were Mostly
Just Curious About Larry.
He Was A Little Bit
Of A, Uh--
I Don't Want To Say
Eccentric.
But A Little Bit Of
An Unusual Character.
I Think People
Felt Kind Of Good
That He Chose To Live
Out In The Marianas.
There Must Be Going Out Here
That Somebody That Rich--
Who Could Live
Anywhere In The World--
Decided To Live
Out Here With Us.
I Think There Was A Deep
Anarchistic Strain In Larry.
He Knew He Could Get Away
With A Great Deal In Saipan
That He Couldn't
Get Away With In America.
Because There's
No Other Explanation
For Some Of The Truly Strange
Elements Of This Story.
Why, For Example, Did Larry
Never Get A Pilot's License?
He's Flying These Rickety
Old Airplanes.
Micronesia's
Eccentric Billionaire--
Its History Was Really
Larry Hillblom.
Larry Had
A Couple Of Planes,
And He Really
Treated Them Like Cars.
He, Like,
Parked In Your Garage.
It Just Didn't Seem Like
Larry Had A Really Good
Maintenance Program.
( Laughs )
Larry Could Write A Check
For A Learjet.
But Larry Was Interested
In Older Planes As A Hobby.
And He Just
Didn't Think
It Was A Real Risk
To Fly The Plane
From Saipan To The
Neighboring Islands.
I Did. And So Did
Everyone Else. Ha Ha!
Oh, No. I Would Never
Fly With Him.
I Liked To Humor Him,
But Not That Way.
I Would Always Say,
"Never, As Long
As I Live--
I Will Never
Fly With You."
Oh, I Never--
I Never Flew With Him.
Well, That Was
Quite A Landing
Coming In, You Know?
Especially For Someone
That's Had Six Beers
For Breakfast.
Calvo: I Think That,
By Any Standard,
Most People Would Say
That Larry Was Just
A Little Bit Different.
But He Wasn't
Seeing Shadows,
And He Wasn't Doing
Unusually Strange Things,
Other Than, You Know,
The Fact That Maybe
He Never Grew Up.
( Laughter )
He Never Spoke Of His Hometown
Or His Family.
He Didn't Want To Talk
About His Family,
During His Time In Saipan.
Woman: Larry's Dad
And His Mother Helen--
We Were Very Good Friends,
Very Good Friends.
And I Remember
Going Over To The Ranch,
And Larry Was In A Crib,
And He Was So Full Of Energy
That He Had Chewed Off
Clear Around The Top Rung
Of The Crib.
Man: He Looked
Like A Little Kid,
But He Just
Did His Own Thing,
You Know, Somebody Would
Look At Something
And They Would Just
See What's There.
He Would See What
Possibilities Were There.
I'm Sure A Lot Of
People Just Thought,
"Oh, This Guy Is
Somewhere Out There Where
The Buses Don't Go."
He Loved Howard Hughes.
He Thought Howard Hughes
Was A Very Fascinating Person,
And He Liked The Mystery
Of Howard Hughes.
During The Time
We Were Growing Up,
Howard Hughes Was Reclusive.
No One Knew Where He Was At
Or What He Was Doing.
And That Fascinating Larry.
We'd Be Walking
Down The Street,
And He Would Disappear.
Two Or Three Blocks Later,
He'd Show Up.
You'd Never Know
When He Was Gonna Show Up
Or Take Off Or--
When We Were Roommates
In College,
We Wouldn't See Him
For Days.
I Don't Know Where He Went.
Never Did Ask Him. Heh.
Scheline: What Surprised Me
More Than Anything
Was The Fact That,
When He Went Off To Law School,
He Rarely Came Back To Town.
Um, It Almost Was As If
He Had Severed His Ties
With The Community.
Man: I Knew Larry Since He Was
A Second-Year Student Here
In The Late 1960S.
And He Was Always Coming
From A Different Perspective.
He Came From
A Different Wavelength
Than The Other Students.
So, I Sort Of Took To Him,
In Any Event.
I Got To Know Him That Way.
A Lot Of People Thought
He Looked Like A Hick.
He'd Sort Of Slouch
When He Walked,
And He Didn't Care
How He Dressed.
He Had No Money,
Or Very Little.
And, In Order To
Generate Some Income,
He Would Pick Up Documents
That Had To Be Delivered
The Next Day In Los Angeles.
He Would Take The Last Plane
Out Of San Francisco,
Get The First Plane
Back In The Morning,
Get To San Francisco At 8:00,
And Go To Class.
He Did That
Five Nights A Week.
And That's How
He Got The Idea.
I Remember Him Telling Me
That He Was Forming A Company.
I Remember It Very Well.
Take Yourself Back
To The Middle 1960S.
There Were No Faxes,
There Was Certainly No Email.
And If You Had To Have
A Signed Contract,
The Only Way To Get It
Was In The Mail.
There Certainly Wasn't
Federal Express In Those Days.
Dhl Started In 1969.
That Was The Year
Man First Walked On The Moon,
The First 747 Landed...
And Dhl Opened Up
Business Communications
Around The World.
It Didn't Become
An International Company
Right Away.
But Larry Had A Talent
For Business Organization,
And He Was A Major Mover,
If Not The Exclusive Mover
In The Whole Thing.
Corral:
Larry Was 26 Years Old.
He Was A Very Nervous
Type Of A Guy.
Seemed Like
He Was Always Shaking,
And He Was Real, Real Shy.
But He Was
Brilliantly Eccentric.
In The Early Days,
Dhl Had A Tough Time
Selling Their Service
Because People, Number One,
Didn't Believe
We Could Do
What We Were Saying.
I Served As His Courier.
We'd Have Free Tickets--
Two Fo Them.
And We Didn't Do Anything
But Check This Baggage.
At One Point, The Fbi Came In
And Met With Larry
Because They Were Investigating
Why We Were Giving Away
Free Tickets.
So, Then The Fbi Became
Couriers For Us,
You Know, On Their Off Time,
If They Wanted To Go
On Vacation. Ha!
The United States
Postal Service
Started Giving Dhl
Some Trouble,
Alleging That The Documents
That We Were Carrying
Was Really First-Class Mail.
It's Hard To
Understand Today,
But Back Then,
There Was One Mail Service,
And They Had A Monopoly.
Larry Sued The Post Office
And Was Successful
In Breaking The Monopoly
In The United States.
It Was Just Amazing--
Not Only For Dhl, But For
Other Companies As Well.
It Was The Beginning
Of The Transfer
Of What Was Then Documents
Worldwide.
First Honolulu
And San Francisco,
And Then It Expanded
To The Far East
And Places Like Abu Dhabi
And Beirut.
Imagine Opening Up A City
In The Middle East,
And They Have
No Street Addresses,
I Just Think He Saw The World
As Small As It Really Is.
( Crowd Chattering )
You Have To Trace
Today's Globalism--
The Whole Concept Of
Globalism--To Larry Hillblom.
Larry Created An Industry
That Had A Huge Impact
On The World.
( Airplane Engine Roaring )
Manso:
So, What We're Talking About
Is A Terribly Inventive Guy,
A Terribly Ambitious Guy.
You Would Expect A Very
A Carefully Drawn-Up Will--
All The Is Dotted,
The Ts Crossed, And So Forth--
And That Appears
Not To Have Been The Case Here.
Larry Hillblom's Estate
Was Not In Tip-Top Shape
At The Time Of His Death.
The Lion's Share Of The Money
Was Left To Medical Research.
But There Were Holes
In This Thing.
It Said Nothing
About Any Kids.
The Only Surprising Thing Was
That Larry Was An Attorney,
And Yet Larry Left Out
The Possibility Of
Any Progeny In His Will.
Any Attorney Will Tell You
That If You Put Progeny,
Or The Possibility Of
Offspring, In The Will,
And Then Either
Give Them Nothing
Or Give Them Very Little,
You've Covered
That Possibility.
Larry Just Didn't Do That.
And That's When
The Trouble Started.
Good Evening,
And Thank You
For Joining Us.
I'm Travis Kauffman.
And I'm Debra Lee.
An 11-Year
Palauan Boy
Is Claiming To Be
The Sole Heir
To The Hillblom
Empire.
Today In Superior Court,
The Child's Mother,
Kaelani Kinney,
Claims She Had
Sexual Relations
With Larry Hillblom.
She Got Pregnant
And Had A Child.
His Name Is
Junior Larry Hillbroom.
He's 11 Years Old.
Kaelani Kinney Claims
He Was Actually
Hillblom's
Illegitimate Son.
If They Can
Prove That In Court,
He Would Become One Of
The Richest Little Boys
In The Entire World.
Manso: The Claimants
Were Going Up
Against The Representatives
Of The Estate.
Larry's Business Lawyer,
Donnici,
Was Running The Trust
For Medical Research.
Chairman Of The
Charitable Trust,
Peter Donnici,
Propelled The Image
Of A Money-Grubbing
Woman Out On The Take,
To Take Advantage Of
A Dead Man's Estate.
And Larry Had Signed
The Bank Of Saipan
As The Executor,
Or The Manager, Of His Assets.
The Bank's Front Guy
Was Joe Waechter.
Joe Waechter,
Executor Of The Estate,
Denied Larry Hillblom
Had Illegitimate
Children.
I Don't Know Whose Kid This Is,
But It's Definitely Not
Larry Hillblom's.
The Responsible Thing
Would've Been To Turn
To The Claimants
And Say,
"Look, Maybe They Are,
Maybe They Aren't Larry's Kids.
Let's Find Out."
That Would've Been The Correct
Response For Them To Make.
They Didn't Want To Do It.
Joe Waechter Was
A Longtime Friend
And Business Manager
For Larry.
Waechter Had Started With Dhl
Early In The Dhl Days,
Ran Dhl United States
For A While.
And Peter Donnici Had
Helped Out Larry Tremendously
In The Early Days Of Dhl.
Donnici Pretty Much Became
The Lawyer For Dhl.
There Was No Direct Gift
To Joe Waechter
Or Pete Donnici.
So, I'm Sure There Was
Jealousy And Resentment.
Why Should These Women
Make So Much Money,
Yet They Get Nothing?
It Was Altogether
In Their Interest
To Preserve That Money,
Because The Trustees
Are Legally Entitled
To A Percent Of Income
Generated By Assets.
If You're Administering
A Billion-Dollar Trust,
This Is Not Small Potatoes
Where I Come From.
This Is Real Money.
Good Evening.
Welcome To Island Focus.
I'm Grace Lee.
In A Way, The Death
Of Late Billionaire
Larry Hillblom
Remains Open-Ended,
His Body Never Recovered.
And So It Is
With The Court Case
Over The Distribution
Over His Massive Estate.
There Is An Ongoing Battle
To Keep The Kids From
Getting Any Money.
The Hinge On Which
The Whole Drama Turned
Is The Entry Of Lujan.
I Came Into The Case
To Represent Junior Hillbroom.
I've Never
Held Myself Up As A--
As An Intellectual Lawyer.
Give Me The Facts,
And I'll Argue.
If It's Red, And You Want It
To Look Green,
Then, You Know,
We'll Make It Look Green.
The Hillblom Case Was
My First Big Public Case.
And David Asked If
I Would Be Interested
In Coming Into The Case.
And I Said
That I Was, For Sure.
David Told Me
It Was Larry's Kid,
And I Believe Him.
Newscaster: Donnici Called
Junior Larry Hillbroom's
Attorneys "Greedy Lawyers,
Trying To Line
Their Pockets With The Late
Billionaire's Money."
Probably This Is
An Attempt To Extort
From An Estate,
Trying To Force Us
To Settle
So That They Can Get
Some Money Quickly,
Without Working
For It.
Lujan: I Saw It, As A Lawyer,
That I Was Representing
Someone Who Was, Frankly,
A Helpless Kid.
Lujan Is David Going Up
Against A Goliath.
You Have
The San Francisco People
Thinking That, You Know,
They'll Be Able
To Do What They Want
In Saipan.
There Was No One
To Stop Them
Or Stand In Their Way.
Dotts: There's Actually Always
Been A History Of That,
That The People On The Island
Sleep Under Coconut Trees
And Really Don't Know
Anything About The Law.
So, Quite Often,
Attorneys Arrive
From Off-Island
To Kind Of Teach Us
The Way Things Work.
The Worst Thing
Anyone Can Do In Battle
Is To Think, You Know,
That You're Smarter
Than The Other Guy.
The Whole Case Gets Chaotic.
It Goes Back To, You Know,
The Very Fugitive Nature
Of Larry's Existence.
Why Didn't Larry Leave
A Very Tidy Estate?
There Are Mysteries
To This Story That
Do Not Go Away.
Larry Was Scared Of Dying.
Larry Didn't Want To Die
At A Young Age,
And He Deliberately
Was Careful
About The Food He Ate,
And He Would Eat
All Sorts Of Things
To Lower Cholesterol,
And He Would Not Smoke.
And When He Reached
The Age Of 51, I Think It Was,
He Said, "You Know,
I've Reached The Magic Age.
"A Lot Of Men Die Before
They Get To This Age
"From Strokes
And Heart Attacks.
"And If You Can Get
To This Age,
You'll Probably Live
To Be An Old Man."
Larry Was Not
A Daredevil At All,
Except Flying Airplanes.
It Was A Test
That Wasn't Passed.
Well-Known Businessman
Larry Hillblom
Was Trying Out A New Engine
On His Airplane.
Something Went Wrong
Just Before It Crashed
On Tinian
Yesterday Afternoon.
Although There Were
Deep Gashes To His Face,
Hillblom Suffered
No Brain Damage.
However, He Will
Need Major Facial
Reconstructive Surgery.
Man: Larry Was Certainly
Conscious When He Arrived.
He'd Obviously Had
A Lot Of Facial Asymmetry
Because Of The Injuries,
Which Were Primarily On
The Right Side Of His Face.
Basically--
And This Is A Human Skull--
It Involved This Part
Of The Face.
The Scrub Nurse--
The Person Who Hands You
Your Instruments--
Said, "I Don't Think
I've Ever Seen Anybody
Have This Many Plates
And Screws In Them
In My Life."
We Had That Many Fractures
To Put Back Together.
The Healing Proceeded
Perfectly Normally.
So, What Happened
And When It Happened--
We Can Never
Put It Together.
We Realized He Wasn't
Seeing In The Right Eye.
It Was Very--
It Was A Huge Disappointment
To Both Of Us--
I'm Sure Particularly
To Larry.
Man:
The Reconstructive Surgery
Made His Face Look
A Little Bit Unreal.
Regarding
That Accident,
Has There Been
Any Follow-Up
With The F.A.A.
About Your
Licensability To
Fly In That Plane?
Yeah, But That Had
Nothing To Do With
The Accident.
The Accident Is
An Accident Question,
And I Don't Think
The F.A.A. Ever
Found The Cause.
I Mean, We're Pretty Sure
What Happened Was That, Uh,
The Carburetor--
Something Was Wrong
With The Carburetor,
And It Came Out
At 200 Feet.
And Actually, What I Heard
From The F.A.A.
Is I Did Everything Right.
I Shut The Fuel Off,
I Shut The Master Switch Off.
It Was A Pretty Good
Crash Landing, As Far As
Crash Landings Go.
That Covers
The Accident.
How About The
Question Of Whether
You Were Licensed
To Be Flying The Plane
At The Time?
Has There Been Any
Follow-Up On That?
Well, There Hasn't
Been Any Follow-Up Now,
But There Is No Follow Up.
I Mean, You--
When You're Not Licensed,
You're Not Supposed To Fly,
But That's It.
I Mean, Uh...
The Sort Of Bittersweet Comment
That Stuck In My Mind--
Larry Says, "Well,
Now I Never Have To Worry
About Another Airplane Crash,
"Because The Odds Of Getting
Into Two Airplane Crashes
In One's Lifetime
"Is So Remote
That It's Never Gonna Happen.
It's Never Anything
I Have To Worry About."
When I Was First Approached
About The Case,
I Had A--
You Know, I Had An Idea
About This Claim.
When Larry Was Alive,
I Would Run Into Larry
All The Time.
Everyone Would Tease Larry
In Front Of Me,
That He's Got A Kid.
And Of Course
I Just Kept My Mouth Shut.
You Know, But My Mind's
Registering All This.
Larry Denied It.
But When He Would Leave,
I Would Ask, "Is That True?"
And They'd Say, "Yeah,
He's Got A Boy Down There."
Dotts:
There's Always Been A Rumor
About The Boy From Palau.
Larry Had Been In Palau,
And He Had Met
Kaelani Kinney,
And They Had Had Basically
A One-Night Relationship.
Lujan: And The Boy Grew Up
In His Grandmother's House.
With A Picture Of Larry.
"That's Your Father."
"He's Not My Kid.
It Belongs To Somebody Else."
He And I Were Good Friends,
And One Day I Did Ask Him.
I Said, "Larry,
Just Between You And Me--
"I Promise I Won't
Tell Anybody--
Are You His Father?"
I Promised I Wouldn't
Tell Anyone.
( Laughs )
In The Old Days,
Guess What
The Best Proof Was?
Bringing The Child In
And Showing The Judge
How The Boy Looks--
You Know, Spitting Image
Of The Father.
Jones:
It Was An Odd Situation
In That There Was No Body
Found For Larry To Obtain Dna.
Larry Just Disappeared.
He Only Body
That Wasn't Found Was Larry's.
You Would Think
That Someone Like Him--
When This Guy Fosset
Disappeared,
They Searched Everywhere.
They Spent A Fortune
Looking For Him.
When Larry Disappeared,
The Search Was Stopped
Very Quickly.
I Think They Didn't
Want To Find His Body
Because They Knew That
There Was A Child Out There.
You Find The Body,
You Find Dna.
Dotts: That Day, Larry Was
Flying To The Northern Islands.
So, They Were Not
That Far Away.
And No Word Came From Them,
No Cell Phone Calls,
Not Distress Beacon,
Nothing.
First Of All, We Had
To Prove That The Boy
Was Hillblom's Child.
Right? So, That Was
Goal Number One.
The Obvious Way
To Solve The Case
Is To Get Blood Samples
From Hillblom's Relatives.
That Would've Had
A Good Chance Of
Solving The Problem,
You Know, In Two Days.
They Refused,
And There Was No Way
To Force Them To Do It.
In A Case, What You
Have To Hope For
Is That You Can Find Some
Biological Material
That The Circumstances
Would Suggest
Are From The Person
You're Interested In--
Hair Or Blood,
Or Maybe Semen.
That Kind Of Evidence
Can Be Found In Residences
Where People Live.
Newscaster: The Attorney
For Junior Larry Hillblom
The Court Last Week
Ordered The Estate Executor,
Joe Waechter,
Not To Clean Or Disturb
Anything In The House.
Lujan: We Went And Searched
Hillblom's House For The Dna.
There's Not A Single Thing.
Not A Picture,
Not A Comb, Not An Underwear--
Nothing Of Larry Hillblom's.
I Was Surprised
That Everything
Seemed To Be Very Clean
At That Time.
There Was No Dirty Clothes
In The Corner.
It Seemed Like A Place
That Had Been Maintained
In A Very Neat And Clean
State All The Time.
It Didn't Bode Well
For Finding The Kind Of
Evidence We Were Looking For.
We Dug Through
Bathtub Drains
And Sink Drains,
And Typically, Hair Gets
Caught Up In Those Things.
It's The Cleanest Pipe
He's Ever Seen In His Life.
I Remember Him Telling Me
He Was Looking Around
His Bathroom As He Was--
You Know, How Clean
Bathrooms Are Normally
In Hotels,
Because Every Day,
They Clean It.
He Said Hillblom's Pipe
Was Cleaned.
But That's What
An Investigation
Is All About.
There Are More False Trails
In Any Investigation
Than There Are
Fruitful Ones.
Um...What We
Found Out Later About
What Happened Was...
You Know, Sort Of--
It Made A Lot Of Sense.
But I Wasn't Suspicious,
Really, Before That
That Anything Strange
Had Gone On.
All My Instincts
As A Criminal Lawyer--
You Know, The Radars,
Everything, Red Flags,
You Know--
Are Flying All Over.
At The Time Of
Hillblom's Death,
Larry Was Living With A Girl
Named Josephine Norcasa.
She Was Larry's
Live-In Girlfriend,
And She Had Made A Claim
Also Against The Estate.
O'connor: I Was With Him
When He Met Josephine,
And He Was Just Instantly
Smitten With Josephine.
I Couldn't See Why,
Because Josephine
Didn't Speak Much English,
And All She Said Was,
"No. No. No."
Every Question--"No."
( Laughs )
And I Thought, "Jeez, Larry,
Why Are You Wasting Your Time
With This Girl?"
But There Was
Something About Her
That Just Struck Him,
And They Were
Instantly Inseparable.
Always Held Her
In A Higher Level
Than The Other Girls.
I Even Told Josephine,
"You're One Of A Kind
That I Think Larry
Has Feelings For."
And She Even Told Me--
She Said, "Really?"
I Said, "I Absolutely Believe
That There's Something
That Clicked
With You And Larry."
She Was Jealous,
And She Suspected Larry
Of Seeing Women
Behind Her Back.
So, She Used A Black Marker,
And She Wrote "Josephine"
On All Of His Underwear.
So, He Had Underwear
That Said "Josephine".
( Laughs )
Larry Actually Had
A Couple Of Passports.
So, The Passport
That She Would Look At
When He Got Back On Saipan
Wasn't The Passport
He Was Using
To Check Into Different Ports
Of The World.
It's Not Wise
On A Small Island To Cheat.
So, That Was The Reason
Not To Go Out To The Bars
On Saipan.
Anderson: He Liked To Travel
Around To The Hotspots Of Asia.
He Enjoyed
Having A Good Time.
After Larry's
First Accident,
Josephine
Wrote Up A Will,
And She Tried To Get
Larry To Sign It.
That If He Signed The Will,
Then She Might Want Him Dead,
And He Wanted Her
To Be Concerned
About His Well-Being,
And So He Refused
To Sign The Will.
After Larry Disappeared,
She Was Still Living
In The House.
She Was Very Broken Up.
She Didn't Know What To Do.
She Lived With Larry
For Ten Years,
But She Really Had
No Money Of Her Own.
She Knew All Of
Larry's Friends,
And Joe Waechter Was
A Close Friend Of Larry's.
What I Was Hearing
From Joe Waechter
Is That They Were Gonna
Do The Right Thing
By Josephine,
That I Shouldn't Worry,
They Were Gonna Do
The Right Thing By Josephine.
But Nothing Ever Happened.
I Got Involved
Representing Josephine,
And I Started Hearing,
"Josephine's Just A Maid.
"She's Got A Contract
Approved By The Department
Of Labor.
She's Just
The Housekeeper."
Anderson: Josephine--
That Was A Real Tragedy.
She Was The One Who Was
Suddenly Left With Nothing.
And I Think People On Saipan
Actually Felt Sorry For Her.
It Was Kind Of--
"Ignore Reality,
Create A Story,
And Then Sell The Story."
So, The Story Is,
Josephine's A Maid,
These Are Prostitutes
Who Are Making It Up.
It Wasn't Really Larry
They Had Been With.
Manso: Young Girls--
Most Of Them Filipinos--
Claiming That Larry Was
The Father Of Their Children--
Were Poor, Uneducated,
And Rootless,
With No Connections.
And They Simply Didn't Have
Many Options.
There Was Kind Of
An Elitist,
And Also, To A Degree,
Racist Attitude.
A Poor Lady
From The Philippines--
Why In The World
Would She Need $40 Million?
Why Should We Give
Somebody Like This
So Much Of The Money?
Calvo: The Heir Claimants
Had Everything To Fight For,
One Of Those Kids Was
Sleeping In A Cardboard Box.
Dotts: In The Philippines,
There Is A Very Big Divide
Between People
Who Have Money
And People Who
Don't Have Money.
The Poor People
In The Philippines
Tend To Be Very Poor,
To The Point Where
There's Still Starvation,
There's Serious Malnutrition,
Children Don't Go To School.
So, What Often Happens
In The Philippines Is,
Some Daughters Will Work
For The Bar Industry
To Help Provide Money
To The Family.
Jones: As Far As I Know,
When They Get To Be
The Age Of Physical Consent--
I Don't Know Legally.
These Girls Were
13, 14 Years Old.
I Think Probably
The Proper Term Is "Puberty".
The Parents Would Sell Them
To Some Agent,
Who Would Bring Them
To A Bar
To Work And Make Money
As Prostitutes.
I Don't Remember
Anybody Ever Saying,
"What Can We Do
For These Children?
How Can We Do The Right Thing
For The Kids?"
No One Ever Said That.
People Thought
That These Kids
Didn't Deserve
Any Of The Money.
We Had People
Tell Us That, You Know,
"Why Should
A Filipino Kid Be Rich
"Because Of Larry Hillblom,
When We're Going To Spend
The Money On The Noble Cause
Of Medical Research?"
Lujan:
"Wouldn't This Money
Be Better Served
"By Being Spent
In The United States?
Why Should They Get
All Of This Money?"
My Answer Was Simply,
"Because They're
Hillblom's Kids."
As Simple As That.
The Law Allows It.
( Children Chattering )
Israel: And I Don't Think
That They Really Looked
Upon These Kids
As Real People.
In That Part Of The World,
People Take Care Of
Their Families.
If They Can't
Take Care Of A Kid,
They'll Ask Another Relative
To Take Care Of The Child.
After The Rumors
Started Surfacing
About Junior Hillbroom,
Peter Donnici Advised Larry
On Numerous Occasions--
"You've Got To Revise
Your Will."
And He Refused.
Dotts: There Was
Some Speculation
That Larry Knew
That He Had Kids,
And He Meant Not To Have
His Kids Disinherited.
Larry Himself,
In His Role As Special Judge
In The Saipan High Court,
Participated In Writing
An Opinion
Which Firmly
Established As Law
The Inheritance Rights Of
Children Born Out Of Wedlock.
I Mean, It's Almost
As If He Were Writing Law
That Addressed
His Particular Situation.
Lujan: I Have To Believe
That He Didn't Want To
Disinherit His Kids,
At Least Not
Then And There.
The People
On The Other Side,
They Said They Had
To Find Another Way
I'll Tell You Why I Really
Went After Them, Okay?
'Cause They Treated Me
Like Shit.
We Had A Meeting
In San Francisco,
And We Were
At Peter Donnici's Office.
We Came To An Agreement
That, On The Following Week,
They'll Give Us An Offer
In Writing.
And I Remember Going
Up To Saipan On Monday.
And After The Hearing,
I Asked, "Do You Think
I Should Fly Home
Or Just Stay Here
And Wait For The Offer?"
He Says, "Dave,
Why Don't You Hang Around?
The Offer's Coming."
Tuesday, Called Him Up.
"The Offer Here?"
"No."
So, Wednesday--No Offer.
Thursday--
I Said,
"I'd Better Go Home,
And I Can Come Back
When You Have It."
He Said, "No, Dave,
Why Don't You Hang Around?"
"Okay."
"Joe Waechter's
Coming In This Evening."
So, Friday Morning,
I Go Out There At About 10:00.
He Sent His Associate Partner,
One Of Them,
Who Came Out And Said,
"Oh, We Decided
There's No Offer."
So, I Said, "Okay."
And I'll Tell You This--
I Swear To God--
That's What This Is--
Personally, For Me,
That's What
This Was All About.
Just For That.
That's When
I Went After Them.
And I Said,
"I'll Teach Them A Lesson."
They Should've
Given Me The Offer.
I Would've Been Lazy.
( Chuckles )
Newscaster: The Attorney
For Would-Be Heir,
Junior Larry Hillbroom,
Questions The Motives
Of Executor Joe Waechter,
Hillblom Trust Chairman
Peter Donnici,
And He Started
Picking Apart
The Way Joe Waechter
Got Control Of The Estate.
I Asked The Judge
For Them To Produce
Certain Things.
So, They Stood Up And Said,
"Oh, Your Honor, No Problem.
We'll Give It To Him
Tomorrow."
There Was A Stack This High
Of Documents, You Know?
All These Loan Agreements
And Mortgages And Everything.
So, They Said,
"Here It Is, Dave.
"You Know, It's A Lot."
"So, What Do You
Want To Do?"
I Said,
"I'll Tell You What--
"Why Don't You
Just Leave It,
And We'll Meet Back Here
At 4:00."
He Says,
"Oh, You're Gonna Go?"
I Said, "No, I'm Gonna
Stay Here And Read It."
And I Remember--
Because I With Joe Hill,
And Joe Hill
Told Me Afterwards,
"You Should've
Seen Their Face."
Because Joe Believed
They Never Expected
That I Would Sit Down
And Read Everything,
Which I Did.
I Read Everything
That I Could, You Know?
And The Next Day,
I Went To Court
And Told The Judge,
"Guess What, Judge?
They're Stealing.
They're Engaging
In All Kinds Of Conflicts."
Manso: Right After
Larry's Disappearance,
Donnici And Waechter
Swoop In
And Take Over
The Bank Of Saipan,
Which Larry Had Assigned
To Oversee His Estate.
It's The Most
Extraordinary Thing.
It Happened
With Such Alacrity
They Borrowed Money
From The Estate
To Pay For The Stock
In The Bank,
And That Is Wrong On
So Many Different Levels.
But That's What They Did.
So, I Come To You,
And I Say,
"Let Me Buy 40% Of You,
But Lend Me The Money
To Buy It From You."
Okay? Because That's
Exactly What Happened.
The Plan Clearly Was
To Take Over The Bank,
Which Would
Then Allow Them To
Take Over The Assets.
Newscaster: The Judge's
Order To Kick Joe Waechter
Off The Hillblom Case--
Waechter Was Managing
The Affairs Of
The Hillblom Estate
Until The Bank
Was Suspended.
Without Lujan,
They Probably Would Have
Gotten Away With It.
We Thought We Were
Being Retained
To Prove That Junior
Was Larry's Son.
But When We Saw
What Was Going On,
We Realized That We
Had To Function
As The Executor
And Save The Assets.
The Way Hillblom Did Business
Was Very Convoluted.
In Vietnam,
He Put All That Money In,
And His Name Wasn't
On Any Documents.
He Put In About 102 Million
Into Vietnam.
I've Been Through
All The Corporate Records
Of The Company In Vietnam.
I've Been Through
The Minutes Of Every Meeting,
Going Back To 1992.
We Know He Was There.
But His Name Doesn't
Appear In Any Document.
He Had To Do It That Way
Because He Was There
Pre-Embargo.
Americans Weren't Allowed
To Invest Money In Vietnam.
The Justice Department
Sent Him A Letter,
Asking To Know What
He Was Doing In Vietnam,
And He Wrote "Fuck You"
On The Letter
And Sent It Back
To The Attorney General.
Just A Week Ago, I Found Out
There's Another $40,000
That Belongs To The Estate
In Hong Kong.
It Just Keeps Coming Up.
When He Died, I Found Out
That He Had Left
A $3 Million Apartment Complex
On Saipan In My Name.
So, I Could've Said,
"I'm Keeping It.
It's In My Name."
But I Didn't.
I Gave It Back To Them.
The One Important Ingredient,
In Part,
To Keeping His Estate Together,
Uh, Was Larry.
No One Else Could've Done It.
There Was No Rhyme Or Reason
To The Empire That He Built.
Hillblom And His Friends
Was Like An Octopus,
And Larry Was The Head.
And All These Guys
That Worked For Him
Were Nothing But Tentacles.
And When Larry Died,
You Know,
It Was Like The Head
Had Been Cut Off,
O'connor: He Was Careful
With His Friends.
So, Most Of The People
Who Were Friends With Larry
Were Friends
Inside Of A Box.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To A Federal
Takeover Issue.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To Taxation.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To Chasing Girls.
He Didn't Want People
To Have A Good Handle On Him.
He Recognized People Thought
He Was Crazy And Unpredictable,
That That Gave Him
An Advantage.
He Truly Enjoyed His Privacy.
He Had People Work For Him
That Were On The Cover
Of Forbes,
But It Was Never Him.
He Liked His Anonymity.
I Think He Was Counting
On The Fact
That Nobody Really Knew
Who He Was.
( Water Splashes )
After Waechter Is Tossed
Off The Estate,
After The Ploy That He
Attempted To Pull Off
With The Bank--
The Takeover Of The Bank--
Somehow,
The State Attorney General
From California
Gets Pulled Into The Case
To Reinforce Donnici
And Waechter.
God Knows What
The Back Channels
Might Have Been.
There Was So Much Money
In Larry's Estate,
And There Were, Um--
The Lifestyles Of The People
That Made Claims
Were Such That, Uh...
Anything That They Could
Shake Out Of An Estate
As Large As This
Would Be
A Great Boon To Them.
There Was A Great Deal
Of Opportunism There.
Why Would The Attorney
General Of California
Get Involved
With This Thing?
Well, The University
Of California
Had Been Designated
In Larry's Will
As The Beneficiary
Of Larry's Estate.
There's A Billion Dollars
Riding On This Thing.
When Peter Donnici
Reached Out To The Attorney
General Of California,
We Thought That
We Could Just Go In
And Educate Them That--
"Look, If There's All This
Wrongdoing Going On,
"You Guys Are
On The Wrong Side Here.
"We're Trying
To Protect The Assets,
And You Ought To Be
In There Helping Us."
Well, That Was
Completely Naive,
Because Of The State
Of California's Financial
Interest In The Estate.
The Reaction Was,
"What's Next?"
Manso: Then It Became
A Frenzied Fight To
Hang On To Something.
The Lawyers Then Descended.
Peter Donnici Went
And Hired A Big-Time
Law Firm
To Represent
The Hillblom Trust.
And Then
The Assets Themselves--
They Hired
Their Own Lawyers--
Law Firms From California,
L.A., New York.
Dotts: It Turned
Into A Real Circus,
With Dozens Of Attorneys
And Hearings
Several Times A Week.
Israel: It Overwhelmed
Our Judicial System.
This Was The Biggest Thing
That's Ever Happened
In Saipan, For Sure.
Some Of These Law Firms
Were Billing The Estate
1 Million A Month.
1 Million A Month.
Imagine That.
( Chuckles )
They Came To This Tiny Island
In The Middle Of The Pacific
Involving Lawyers That
Were Not Of Their Ilk.
We Had A Very,
Very Colorful
Opposing Counsel,
By The Name Of
Mr. Lujan.
I Remember
His First Appearance.
I Was Watching Him--
"This Man Reminds Me
Of A Snake."
And We Know What To Do
With Snakes In Guam.
We Cut Their Head Off
With Machetes.
He And I Butted Heads
At Every Turn.
A Criminal Lawyer
Learns To Utilize
Theatrics.
That's Why I Call Him
The Rooster.
The First Meeting
With Mr. Lujan
Was In Some Very Provocative
Court Appearance,
Where He Filed A Challenge
Suggesting That The Judge
Himself Might Have
Illegitimate Children
And Shouldn't Sit
In The Case.
And I At Least Had Never
Accused A Judge,
Without
Supporting Evidence,
Of Having
Illegitimate Children,
And I Realized I Was Now
In A Different Jurisdiction.
One Of The Trust Lawyers
One Day, You Know,
Was Wandering Around
The Courtroom,
And He Was Kind Of
A Corpulent Guy,
And He Had His Stomach
In Between David Lujan
And David's Line Of Vision
In Cross-Examining A Witness.
So, David Stood Up And,
In His Very Courtly
Courtroom Tone, Said...
"Your Honor,
He's Doing It Again.
"His Big Stomach
Is Blocking Me.
Can You Tell Him To
Remove That Big Stomach?"
Things Aren't Always
What They Appear To Be.
We Got Some Background
Materials About
Larry Hillblom
As We Dug Deeper
And Deeper,
And It Became
Very Fascinating.
And...
We Had An Interesting
Time With It,
Given The Facts
Surrounding Larry's Life.
Larry Was A Colorful
And Interesting Character.
He Found Adventure
In Places Where
Few Of Us Look For It.
Kennedy: A Local Counsel
In The Philippines
Gave Me A Tour Of
Larry Hillblom's Manila.
The Clubs Were Unbelievable.
300 Or 400 Or 500 Women
In Them
Who Were Classified Either
As "Dancers", "Nude Dancers",
Or "Guest Relations Officers"--
G.R.O.'S--
Which I Thought Was
The Most Formalistic Title
I'd Ever Heard For A Hooker.
Apallas: When I Interviewed
One Of The Ladies
In Charge Of A Bar
That He Frequented,
She Told Me,
When Larry Would Come In,
She Would Arrange Young Girls,
Ten Across.
Larry Would Look
At The Young Ladies And...
Either Choose One
Or Decline The Entire Line,
And Then They Would
Step To The Back,
And A New Line
Would Come Up.
He Was Always Interested
In Young Ladies
That Were From The Farm,
People From The Back Parts
Of The Philippines Or Palau--
Virgins.
And I Asked The Mama-San,
"How Could He Possibly
Know That?"
She Said, "Well, He Would
Take Them To The Hotel
And Show Them To The Shower."
( Elevator Dings )
If, In Fact, They Knew
How To Operate A Shower,
He Knew That They Obviously
Were In The Facility--
Or A Facility Similar
To That--Before.
So, Therefore,
He Would Eliminate Them.
Choper: He Told Me About
His Relationships With Women,
And He Explained That
He Would Only Have Sex
With Virgins
Because He Didn't Want
To Get Aids.
So, He Went Into
A Long Explanation
Of The Millions Of Dollars
That This Had Cost Him.
I Forget The Details,
But I Know He Said "Millions".
In One Of The Depositions,
I Understand,
One Of The Young Ladies
Testified
About How Larry Would
Take A Spoonful Of Iodine
Or Some Other...
Um, Chemical...
And Would Pour It
Down His...
Penis...
In Order To Kill Any Germs
That He Might--
He Never--
He Never, I Am Told,
Enjoyed Sex
With A Prophylactic,
And Therefore He Had To Take
Certain Precautions
To Prevent From
Getting A Disease.
It Was The Philippines
That Really Bothered Me
With Up-Front Exposure
To What Poverty
Requires People To Do
And The Just Plain
Sinfulness
Of Westerners
Taking Advantage Of That.
It's Appalling.
We're Talking About People
Who Are Living By Something
Other Than A 20Th Century
American Morality.
It All Was
Kind Of Shocking.
Uh...
( Laughs )
I Have A Lot Of
Newspapers,
Do You? No.
Everybody Makes
A Mistake.
You Would Hear Things,
And None Of It Was Good.
I Was A Little Puzzled,
Uh...
That He Had That Need.
Uh, He Had A Girlfriend--
Josephine--
And She Was Very Attractive.
I Just Couldn't Understand
Why He'd Be Off Somewhere Else
When She Was There At Home.
And, Uh...
Dotts: He Didn't Cover Up
His Lifestyle.
I Remember Him Talking
To An Executive With
Continental Airlines
About How Many
Girlfriends He Had,
And The Guy Should Consider
Doing The Same Thing--
"Come On To The Philippines.
I'll Introduce You.
We Can Find You
A Girlfriend, No Problem."
And The Guy Was
Just So Uncomfortable
With The Conversation,
And Larry Kept Going
Just, I Think,
To Goad The Guy.
Those Of Us Who Are Educated
And, You Know, Comfortable
In This Country
Affect Great Shock
That American Business
In The Philippines
Are Being Serviced
In Precisely The Same Way,
With The Encouragement
Of Local Officials,
Businesspeople,
And Government Officials.
It Is Not An Unusual Thing.
The System Is There--
Was There Before
He Came Along,
Is There After He's Gone.
And There's Still
Thousands Of Girls
Working In Dingy
Little Brothels,
Trying To Work Off Money
That Was Given To
Their Parents.
Dotts: The First Bit
Of Paranoia--
One Of The Mothers
In The Philippines
One Day Disappeared.
There Were People
Who Were Looking
For Potential Heirs
That They Could
Represent In Saipan.
Private Detectives
Were Hired,
And The Word Was Put Out.
They Went To Bars
And Posted Sign That--
If You Know This Man,
You Might Get A Lot Of Money.
One Of The Investigators
Found Mercedes,
Who Was, At The Time,
Pregnant.
Dotts:
The Private Investigator
Was Holding Her Hostage.
Manlapaz:
This Was Just A 14-Year-Old.
She Was Eight Months Pregnant
At The Time.
They Wanted Her To Be
Brought To Saipan.
But, Before Doing That,
The Child Was Asked To Undergo
A Caesarian Operation
Instead Of Going
Through A Normal Delivery.
There Was A Deadline
Coming Up For Claims,
And They Wanted
The Baby Born Before
The Deadline.
They Wanted To Make Sure
That The Kid That She Was
Carrying At The Time
Would, You Know, Have
These Caucasian Features,
Or At Least
Look Like Larry.
We Were Able
To Rescue Her
From That House.
She Wasn't Even Aware
That Larry Was Dead
At That Time.
And, According To Her,
She Was Waiting
For Larry,
Because Larry Promised
To Come Back
And, According To Her,
Marry Her.
So, We Asked Her If She
Was Really Carrying
The Child Of Larry,
And She Said
She Was Positive.
We Also Felt
Threatened.
You're Just In Time
For The Most Informative
Half-Hour Of Your Day.
Here's What's Ahead.
With His Claim Against
The Hillblom Estate,
Junior Larry Hillbroom
Will Have Quite A Tale
To Tell His Own Kids.
But, For All The Arguing,
All The Hearings,
All The Publicity,
Not One Shred Of Evidence
Has Been Put Before The Court
To Prove These Children
Either Are Or Are Not
Children Of Larry Hillblom.
At That Point,
The Only Thing We Had Done
Is Preserve The Assets.
We Had Made No Progress
In Demonstrating Paternity.
And Then, Out Of Nowhere,
Pops Up Larry Hillblom Dna.
Someway, Somehow,
We Found Out
That There Was A Mole
That Was Excised
From Larry's Face
When He Had Some
Reconstructive Surgery.
Now, What Happened
To That Mole
Is Another Story.
We Knew That That Was
An Important Piece Of Evidence
That Could Either
Make Or Break The Case
Of The Children--
Alleged Children.
Agreed That We Would
Try To Dna Out Of It.
Israel: The Deposition
Was Scheduled,
And The Doctor Walked In.
He Reached Into His Pocket
And Threw It On The Table.
It Was Like
It Wasn't Even Real,
Like It Was A Joke.
Every Time We Turned Around,
There Was Somebody With
A Conflict Of Interest
Working Against Us.
The Davies Medical Center
Stood To Benefit
From The Money Coming
Out Of The Foundation.
You Know, For All We Know,
They'll Put Someone In There,
So That Way, For Sure,
It's Gonna Come Up
That They Don't Match.
Was That Their Motivation?
I Don't Know.
But It Sure
Looked Like It To Us.
So, Of Course We Were
All Suspicious.
We Were Scared Of That.
( Laughs )
We Didn't Want Anything
To Do With It.
So, It Was Never Opened.
I'm Just A Naive Scientist.
I Don't Understand
All These, Uh...
Derring-Do Plots
And Intrigues.
You Couldn't Help
But Be Angry
Because Of The Constant
Assault, You Know?
They Were Constantly,
Constantly,
Trying To Screw You.
They Wake Up One Morning,
And There's A New Law In Place.
It Was Known As
The "Hillblom Law",
And This Law
Was Very Simple.
It Disinherited
Illegitimate Children.
And The Whole Thing
Had Been Engineered
By Donnici And Company.
Newscaster:
The Former Executor
Of The Hillblom Estate
Admitted From The Start
That The Bill To Change
The Probate Law
Began With Him.
The Hillblom Law
Was Checkmate
For The Children,
And It Applied
Retroactively.
It's Unprecedented.
We're Talking About
A Whole Bunch Of Things
That Never Happened Before
In The History Of The World,
Including Anything
Like The Hillblom Law.
Everything Is Not
Surprising...
Everything Is Possible
In Saipan.
...And Possible
In Saipan.
Dotts: There Were
Suspicions That Perhaps
The Hillblom Bill
Passed By Bribery.
At That Time, There Were
Promises Of Donations
By The Trust,
Raising Red Flags.
An Enormous Setback
To The Plaintiffs.
Pete Donnici,
Joe Waechter--
They Were So Taken Up
With The Fight
Which Really Means,
"How Can We Disinherit
Larry's Son?"
Which Is Not
The Right Thing To Do.
Disinheriting Children
Is Not The Right Thing.
I Don't Think That
Larry's Friends Looked At What
The Implications Would Be
Of Some Law Like That
For Other People On The Island.
What We're Talking About
Is The Phenomenon Of
The Ugly American.
I Mean, Americans
Taking Advantage Of Locals.
With Our Money,
With Our Clout,
We've Got The Power,
They Don't Have Anything. Boom.
You Know, I've Represented
Murderers And Rapists And...
All Kinds Of, You Know,
People Accused Of...
Various, You Know,
Heinous Crimes.
I Just Thought
These People Were Worse.
Because These Are Supposedly
Intelligent People,
And People, You Know,
That Were Businessmen,
People That Are Held Up
As Upright Members
Of The Community
And All Those Things.
You Know,
It Was Disgusting.
How Do You Overcome This?
Here, By This Time,
We're Into It Pretty Deeply,
And We Were Pretty Much
Out Of Money.
( Gavel Pounds )
Lujan Should Have
Lost It All,
But These Guys Simply
Won't Take No For An Answer.
It Was Kind Of
The Final Straw, I Suppose.
It Was Thermonuclear War
After That.
I Went After Them
With A Vengeance.
( Train Horn Sounds )
Dotts: There Was A Rumor
That Larry's Mother
Had Been Hospitalized
Because Of High
Blood Pressure,
And A Nurse Had
Come Into Her Room
And Taken A Swab Of
The Inside Of Her Cheek.
And Then She Later
Asked Somebody,
"Why Did They Do That?"
And They Checked
The Records,
And There Was No Record
Of Any Nurse Having
Come Into Her Room
And Taken A Sample Of
The Inside Of Her Cheek.
Taking A Sample Of
The Inside Of The Cheek
Is A Very Typical Way
Of Getting A Dna Sample,
It's A Very Easy Way
To Get A Dna Sample.
And It Was David--
The One Who Was Accused--
The Group Of David Lujan--
Who Was Accused Of Doing That.
But, Of Course,
They Denied It.
There's Some
Accusations Made.
Shortly After
That Incident Happened,
David Lujan Announced
That--
That He Knew,
To A Scientific Certainty,
That Junior
Was Larry's Child.
But He Refused
To Say How He Knew.
I Felt That
We Could Win This,
No Matter What
The Inheritance Law Said.
We Wanted To Pound Them,
Beat Them, Destroy Them,
So That They're
Crawling To Come To
The Bargaining Table.
Lujan Pricks
The Interest Of Nbc,
And Dateline Does A Story
On The Case.
Businessman Larry Hillblom,
Who Was Killed
In A Plane Crash,
Left The Bulk Of His Estate--
Hundreds Of Millions
Of Dollars--
To Medical Research,
But There Are Those
Who Say He Left
Something Else Behind.
Junior,
What's Your Name?
Larry Hillbroom, Jr.
This Palauan Boy,
Called Junior Larry,
Was Born Nine Months
After Larry Hillblom
Had Visited Palau.
Kaelani,
How Old Were You
When You Met
Larry Hillblom?
Is It Possible
That He Slept With
Kaelani Kinney?
Anything Is Possible.
Do You Think He Did?
I Don't Know. Um...
It Doesn't Seem Like
She Would've Been
Larry's Type.
With The Dateline Exposure,
Donnici Can No Longer Hide
In The Shadows Of
Saipan And The Philippines.
It Forced Donnici
To Speak.
This Is Not About
Trying To Keep Money
Away From Children
Who May Be Larry's.
This Is About
Greedy Lawyers.
Donnici Really Feared Badly
In That Interview.
These Are Not The
Innocent Young Virgins.
These Are Experienced
Bar Girls.
There's Filipina Bar Girl
Mercedes Feliciano.
Mercedes Was
Introduced To Hillblom
In One Of Those Bars,
Who She Says Supported
Her And Her Family
Until She Had
Her First Period.
Then He Paid Her $2,000
For Her Virginity.
He Was The Only Man?
That's When I Believe
The Tide Started To Change.
What You Have
Is A National Tv Show
Where The Truth
Is Emerging.
And Then There Was Another
Bizarre Turn Of Events.
Everyone Should Go
To The David Lujan School
Of How To Prepare A Bill,
You Know, Bills That Include
Their Time Charges,
And They Include
Their Receipts
For Whatever They Spent
During That Month.
And David Is The One Who Found
The Muriatic Acid Bill,
Which Was Huge.
The Estate Lawyers
Submit To The Estate
A Series Of
Expense Accounts,
And Included Here--
There It Is.
Muriatic Acid?
Muriatic Acid That Had Been
Poured Down The Drains
To Destroy Evidence.
Lujan--
He'd Meticulously Go
Through Bill After Bill
After Bill.
Well...
The Devil Really Is
In The Details,
And David
Really Knew That.
Of Course, We Were
So Angry When We
Learned About It,
Because We Spent
A Lot Of Money
Trying To Prove
That These Kids
Are Larry's Kids.
These Guys--
Waechter And Donnici--
Want You To Believe That
It's Just A Probate Case.
It's Not A Probate Case.
It's A Criminal Case.
I Mean, If Nothing Else,
We're Talking About An Attempt
To Defraud
On A Massive Scale.
This Is A Felony.
You Go To Jail
For 15 Or 20 Years
For This Kind Of Behavior.
Israel: Clearly,
When They Poured Acid
In The Drains,
They Knew That There Was
A Child Out There.
Otherwise, Why Would
They Have Done It?
Where Big Money
Is Concerned,
People Do Funny Things.
It Was Just
A Matter Of Time
Before What Happened
To Larry's Clothes
Was Discovered
Josephine Says,
"Guess What, Guys?
Get A Backhoe
And Dig A Hole Out Behind
Larry's Old House."
Josephine Had Been Asked
By The Executor
To Destroy Evidence,
And This Was At A Time
Before I Represented Her.
She Was Basically Asked
To Take All Of Larry's
Belongings--
Hairbrushes,
Toothbrushes, Clothing,
Anything That
Would Have Dna--
And Burn It.
When Joe Waechter
Called Her Up
And Asked Her To Do This,
Josephine Kind Of
Realized This May Not Be
The Right Thing To Do.
So, Instead Of Burning
The Clothes,
And Then She Reported
Back To Joe Waechter
That Everything Was Gone.
Newscaster:
According To Norcasa,
The Same Man Who Denied
Larry Hillblom Had
Illegitimate Children
Was Scrambling
To Get Rid Of Evidence
That There Were Any.
However, Waechter Testified
That It Was Norcasa
Who Called Him,
Asking If She Could
Get Rid Of The Belongings.
Waechter Testified
Norcasa Got Rid Of
The Belongings
As Part Of Some
Filipino Ritual.
( Both Laugh )
So, We Did What Was
The Practical Thing To Do--
We Hired A Backhoe Operator,
We Wandered Around
This Big, Huge,
Beautiful Property
Overlooking The Bay.
And We Had This Guy Dig
In All These Different Places,
All Of Us Standing Around
In The Tropical Sun,
And We Weren't Finding It.
And So, Finally,
This Backhoe Operator--
Said, "Well, You Want To Know
Larry's Clothes Are Buried?"
And We Said, "Well, Yeah."
And He Said, "Well, I Know,
Because I Buried Them."
And So, You Know,
I Thought, "Well, God...
There Probably Is Only
One Backhoe Operator
In Saipan."
He Went Right To The Place.
He Dug Them Up.
The Clothes, The T-Shirts,
Jeans, Hairbrushes,
Toothbrushes.
And, You Know,
It Was Just This Kind Of
Real Moment Of Sadness,
That, You Know,
This Man Was Walking Around
With These Clothes.
He Was A Real Alive Person.
We're Out Here,
A Bunch Of--
Like Myself, Nothing But
A Criminal Lawyer--
We Were Able To
See Through Them
And Beat Them
Simply Because, You Know--
It's Not That I'm Smarter.
It's That They Were Dumber.
It Was Exhilarating
That, After Several Years
Of Fighting
And Hundreds Of Lawyers
From Big Cities,
Against All The Odds,
Against Every Odd
That You Can Think Of,
Our Client Was Now Going
To Be Acknowledged
As Larry's Son.
And The Whole World
Was Going To Open Up To Him
In A Way That Most Of Us
Can Never Experience.
And We Demonstrated That
We Belonged In That Courtroom.
It Was A Mountain
That Needed To Be Climbed.
And, You Know,
I Wasn't About To Give Up
Until I Raised That Flag
On The Top Of That Mountain.
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't Be Blue
Always...
It's Kind Of Ironic
That, Ultimately,
With All The Hue And Cry
Over Larry's Dna
And The Hiding Of It,
And The Accusations About It,
You Know, It Never Really
Was Necessary.
We Have A Whole
Bunch Of Kids
That Claim To Have
The Same Father.
So, Why Don't We Test
The Children Themselves?
And So,
That's The Testing
That Showed Junior,
Two Filipino Kids,
And A Child In Vietnam,
Have The Same Father.
We Used To Call It
"The Lucky Sperm Club".
We Became Friends
With David
When We Got
The Results,
The Dna Cross-Testing
Results.
He Called Us Up
And Said,
"We're A Family."
I Wanted To Go
With His Mother
And See The Children.
I Said, "Why Don't You
And I Just Take A Trip
And See The Children?
I Think You--"
I Thought
She Would Be Anxious.
But She Didn't.
She, Uh, Refused
To Believe It, Really.
I Don't Know What It Was
With Him Emotionally
That He Was In Such Denial,
Because They've Proven Now
There Is At Least Four--
Maybe More--Kids.
That Part Of Him,
I Can't Understand.
The Possibility Exists
That He Had Set
This Whole Thing Up.
Larry Would've Loved
The Hillblom Estate
Litigation.
He Liked Lawsuits,
He Liked The Battle.
He Was Always Getting
Involved In Cases
And Lawsuits
And Plotting Strategies.
And If He Could've--
If He Can Sit In Heaven
And Look Down On
The Hillblom Proceedings,
He Probably Would've
Enjoyed It Immensely--
The Battle That Raged
Because Of How His Will
Was Unclear
And The Body Was Not Found.
Who Knows?
The Fact Is, People Say
He Might Still Be Alive.
Who Knows, You Know?
That's Larry. He Might
Show Up Somewhere.
( Laughs )
...Be Blue Always
'Cause The Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That's Sun's
Gonna Shine
On My Backdoor
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday
( Rumbling )
( Crash )
Man: There Was A Scramble
Of Boats Contacting The Navy,
The Air Force Out Of Guam,
Just Trying To Find The Plane.
Newscaster:
After An Entire Day
Of Searching For A Sign
Of The Downed Plane,
Two Private Boats Found
Not What They Were Hoping For,
But What They Feared
The Most--Two Bodies--
The Body Of 52-Year-Old
Robert Long,
The Pilot Of
The Ill-Fated Flight,
And The Body Of Saipan
Congressman Jesus P. Mafnas.
There Still Is No Sign Of
Billionaire Larry Hillblom.
There Is The Faintest Hope
That Larry Hillblom
Might Somehow
Be Out There Alive.
Man: He Was The Founder
Of A Huge Corporation--
Dhl--
And He Was
A Reputed Billionaire.
And He Was A Genius.
If You Took Out The Sexual
Part Of Larry's Life,
He Was A Fascinating
Character,
A Very Interesting Person.
No One Ever Really Got
The Full Picture
Of Who Larry Was
Because Larry Didn't
Reveal His Full Self
To Anyone.
Man: What Came Out
In The Weeks After
His Disappearance
Shocked Even Those
Who Thought They Knew Him.
Larry Hillblom
Was Not Married,
And He Didn't Have
Any Children,
As Far As Anybody Knew.
Trying To Grab A Piece Of It.
Trying To Grab A Piece Of It.
There's A Lot Of Money There.
Larry Cut A Wide Swath
Through The Pacific.
Ha Ha Ha!
What Was It About The Story
That Initially Intrigued Me?
I Determine The Suitability
Of A Subject For A Story
On The Basis
Of The Three Cs--
Cash, Crime, And Cunt.
Those Are The Three Cs.
Uh, Clearly,
The Larry Hillblom Story
Incorporated
All Three Elements.
The Outlines Of The Story
Were Very Clear Going In.
After Larry's Disappearance,
Prostitutes Stepped Forward
On Behalf Of Their Children,
Claiming That They'd Been
Fathered By This Rich American.
And At The Front
Of This Whole Thing,
Is Larry--
The Enigma Of Who
This Person Was.
Because There's Something
Diabolical In This Whole Thing.
This Is It.
Let's See If It's--
Looks Like It's Unlocked.
( Dog Barking )
Wow.
This Is It.
After 13 Years.
What A Shame, Huh?
This Was A Pretty House.
My God.
It Took Him
Seven Or Eight Years
To Build This House.
He Was Really Proud
Of How Cheap It Was.
God, This Is Sad.
Anderson: I Happened To Be Down
At Cocos Island One Time
With My Family,
And People Were
Pointing Him Out,
And They Were Saying,
"You Know Who That Is?"
I Said, "No, Who's That?"
Zoris, Shorts, T-Shirt.
Didn't Look Like One Of
The Wealthiest Businessmen
In The World.
I Found Out That He Was
The "H" In Dhl
It Turns Out That He Was
Living Up On Saipan
Because Of Tax Reasons,
Primarily,
But Also Because
He Just Liked The Lifestyle.
Larry Hillblom Came To Saipan
In The Early 1980S.
Saipan Is Part Of Micronesia.
It Was Given To
The United States Government
As A Trust Territory
After World War Ii.
Today, This Is America's
Farthest Western Outpost.
People Were Mostly
Just Curious About Larry.
He Was A Little Bit
Of A, Uh--
I Don't Want To Say
Eccentric.
But A Little Bit Of
An Unusual Character.
I Think People
Felt Kind Of Good
That He Chose To Live
Out In The Marianas.
There Must Be Going Out Here
That Somebody That Rich--
Who Could Live
Anywhere In The World--
Decided To Live
Out Here With Us.
I Think There Was A Deep
Anarchistic Strain In Larry.
He Knew He Could Get Away
With A Great Deal In Saipan
That He Couldn't
Get Away With In America.
Because There's
No Other Explanation
For Some Of The Truly Strange
Elements Of This Story.
Why, For Example, Did Larry
Never Get A Pilot's License?
He's Flying These Rickety
Old Airplanes.
Micronesia's
Eccentric Billionaire--
Its History Was Really
Larry Hillblom.
Larry Had
A Couple Of Planes,
And He Really
Treated Them Like Cars.
He, Like,
Parked In Your Garage.
It Just Didn't Seem Like
Larry Had A Really Good
Maintenance Program.
( Laughs )
Larry Could Write A Check
For A Learjet.
But Larry Was Interested
In Older Planes As A Hobby.
And He Just
Didn't Think
It Was A Real Risk
To Fly The Plane
From Saipan To The
Neighboring Islands.
I Did. And So Did
Everyone Else. Ha Ha!
Oh, No. I Would Never
Fly With Him.
I Liked To Humor Him,
But Not That Way.
I Would Always Say,
"Never, As Long
As I Live--
I Will Never
Fly With You."
Oh, I Never--
I Never Flew With Him.
Well, That Was
Quite A Landing
Coming In, You Know?
Especially For Someone
That's Had Six Beers
For Breakfast.
Calvo: I Think That,
By Any Standard,
Most People Would Say
That Larry Was Just
A Little Bit Different.
But He Wasn't
Seeing Shadows,
And He Wasn't Doing
Unusually Strange Things,
Other Than, You Know,
The Fact That Maybe
He Never Grew Up.
( Laughter )
He Never Spoke Of His Hometown
Or His Family.
He Didn't Want To Talk
About His Family,
During His Time In Saipan.
Woman: Larry's Dad
And His Mother Helen--
We Were Very Good Friends,
Very Good Friends.
And I Remember
Going Over To The Ranch,
And Larry Was In A Crib,
And He Was So Full Of Energy
That He Had Chewed Off
Clear Around The Top Rung
Of The Crib.
Man: He Looked
Like A Little Kid,
But He Just
Did His Own Thing,
You Know, Somebody Would
Look At Something
And They Would Just
See What's There.
He Would See What
Possibilities Were There.
I'm Sure A Lot Of
People Just Thought,
"Oh, This Guy Is
Somewhere Out There Where
The Buses Don't Go."
He Loved Howard Hughes.
He Thought Howard Hughes
Was A Very Fascinating Person,
And He Liked The Mystery
Of Howard Hughes.
During The Time
We Were Growing Up,
Howard Hughes Was Reclusive.
No One Knew Where He Was At
Or What He Was Doing.
And That Fascinating Larry.
We'd Be Walking
Down The Street,
And He Would Disappear.
Two Or Three Blocks Later,
He'd Show Up.
You'd Never Know
When He Was Gonna Show Up
Or Take Off Or--
When We Were Roommates
In College,
We Wouldn't See Him
For Days.
I Don't Know Where He Went.
Never Did Ask Him. Heh.
Scheline: What Surprised Me
More Than Anything
Was The Fact That,
When He Went Off To Law School,
He Rarely Came Back To Town.
Um, It Almost Was As If
He Had Severed His Ties
With The Community.
Man: I Knew Larry Since He Was
A Second-Year Student Here
In The Late 1960S.
And He Was Always Coming
From A Different Perspective.
He Came From
A Different Wavelength
Than The Other Students.
So, I Sort Of Took To Him,
In Any Event.
I Got To Know Him That Way.
A Lot Of People Thought
He Looked Like A Hick.
He'd Sort Of Slouch
When He Walked,
And He Didn't Care
How He Dressed.
He Had No Money,
Or Very Little.
And, In Order To
Generate Some Income,
He Would Pick Up Documents
That Had To Be Delivered
The Next Day In Los Angeles.
He Would Take The Last Plane
Out Of San Francisco,
Get The First Plane
Back In The Morning,
Get To San Francisco At 8:00,
And Go To Class.
He Did That
Five Nights A Week.
And That's How
He Got The Idea.
I Remember Him Telling Me
That He Was Forming A Company.
I Remember It Very Well.
Take Yourself Back
To The Middle 1960S.
There Were No Faxes,
There Was Certainly No Email.
And If You Had To Have
A Signed Contract,
The Only Way To Get It
Was In The Mail.
There Certainly Wasn't
Federal Express In Those Days.
Dhl Started In 1969.
That Was The Year
Man First Walked On The Moon,
The First 747 Landed...
And Dhl Opened Up
Business Communications
Around The World.
It Didn't Become
An International Company
Right Away.
But Larry Had A Talent
For Business Organization,
And He Was A Major Mover,
If Not The Exclusive Mover
In The Whole Thing.
Corral:
Larry Was 26 Years Old.
He Was A Very Nervous
Type Of A Guy.
Seemed Like
He Was Always Shaking,
And He Was Real, Real Shy.
But He Was
Brilliantly Eccentric.
In The Early Days,
Dhl Had A Tough Time
Selling Their Service
Because People, Number One,
Didn't Believe
We Could Do
What We Were Saying.
I Served As His Courier.
We'd Have Free Tickets--
Two Fo Them.
And We Didn't Do Anything
But Check This Baggage.
At One Point, The Fbi Came In
And Met With Larry
Because They Were Investigating
Why We Were Giving Away
Free Tickets.
So, Then The Fbi Became
Couriers For Us,
You Know, On Their Off Time,
If They Wanted To Go
On Vacation. Ha!
The United States
Postal Service
Started Giving Dhl
Some Trouble,
Alleging That The Documents
That We Were Carrying
Was Really First-Class Mail.
It's Hard To
Understand Today,
But Back Then,
There Was One Mail Service,
And They Had A Monopoly.
Larry Sued The Post Office
And Was Successful
In Breaking The Monopoly
In The United States.
It Was Just Amazing--
Not Only For Dhl, But For
Other Companies As Well.
It Was The Beginning
Of The Transfer
Of What Was Then Documents
Worldwide.
First Honolulu
And San Francisco,
And Then It Expanded
To The Far East
And Places Like Abu Dhabi
And Beirut.
Imagine Opening Up A City
In The Middle East,
And They Have
No Street Addresses,
I Just Think He Saw The World
As Small As It Really Is.
( Crowd Chattering )
You Have To Trace
Today's Globalism--
The Whole Concept Of
Globalism--To Larry Hillblom.
Larry Created An Industry
That Had A Huge Impact
On The World.
( Airplane Engine Roaring )
Manso:
So, What We're Talking About
Is A Terribly Inventive Guy,
A Terribly Ambitious Guy.
You Would Expect A Very
A Carefully Drawn-Up Will--
All The Is Dotted,
The Ts Crossed, And So Forth--
And That Appears
Not To Have Been The Case Here.
Larry Hillblom's Estate
Was Not In Tip-Top Shape
At The Time Of His Death.
The Lion's Share Of The Money
Was Left To Medical Research.
But There Were Holes
In This Thing.
It Said Nothing
About Any Kids.
The Only Surprising Thing Was
That Larry Was An Attorney,
And Yet Larry Left Out
The Possibility Of
Any Progeny In His Will.
Any Attorney Will Tell You
That If You Put Progeny,
Or The Possibility Of
Offspring, In The Will,
And Then Either
Give Them Nothing
Or Give Them Very Little,
You've Covered
That Possibility.
Larry Just Didn't Do That.
And That's When
The Trouble Started.
Good Evening,
And Thank You
For Joining Us.
I'm Travis Kauffman.
And I'm Debra Lee.
An 11-Year
Palauan Boy
Is Claiming To Be
The Sole Heir
To The Hillblom
Empire.
Today In Superior Court,
The Child's Mother,
Kaelani Kinney,
Claims She Had
Sexual Relations
With Larry Hillblom.
She Got Pregnant
And Had A Child.
His Name Is
Junior Larry Hillbroom.
He's 11 Years Old.
Kaelani Kinney Claims
He Was Actually
Hillblom's
Illegitimate Son.
If They Can
Prove That In Court,
He Would Become One Of
The Richest Little Boys
In The Entire World.
Manso: The Claimants
Were Going Up
Against The Representatives
Of The Estate.
Larry's Business Lawyer,
Donnici,
Was Running The Trust
For Medical Research.
Chairman Of The
Charitable Trust,
Peter Donnici,
Propelled The Image
Of A Money-Grubbing
Woman Out On The Take,
To Take Advantage Of
A Dead Man's Estate.
And Larry Had Signed
The Bank Of Saipan
As The Executor,
Or The Manager, Of His Assets.
The Bank's Front Guy
Was Joe Waechter.
Joe Waechter,
Executor Of The Estate,
Denied Larry Hillblom
Had Illegitimate
Children.
I Don't Know Whose Kid This Is,
But It's Definitely Not
Larry Hillblom's.
The Responsible Thing
Would've Been To Turn
To The Claimants
And Say,
"Look, Maybe They Are,
Maybe They Aren't Larry's Kids.
Let's Find Out."
That Would've Been The Correct
Response For Them To Make.
They Didn't Want To Do It.
Joe Waechter Was
A Longtime Friend
And Business Manager
For Larry.
Waechter Had Started With Dhl
Early In The Dhl Days,
Ran Dhl United States
For A While.
And Peter Donnici Had
Helped Out Larry Tremendously
In The Early Days Of Dhl.
Donnici Pretty Much Became
The Lawyer For Dhl.
There Was No Direct Gift
To Joe Waechter
Or Pete Donnici.
So, I'm Sure There Was
Jealousy And Resentment.
Why Should These Women
Make So Much Money,
Yet They Get Nothing?
It Was Altogether
In Their Interest
To Preserve That Money,
Because The Trustees
Are Legally Entitled
To A Percent Of Income
Generated By Assets.
If You're Administering
A Billion-Dollar Trust,
This Is Not Small Potatoes
Where I Come From.
This Is Real Money.
Good Evening.
Welcome To Island Focus.
I'm Grace Lee.
In A Way, The Death
Of Late Billionaire
Larry Hillblom
Remains Open-Ended,
His Body Never Recovered.
And So It Is
With The Court Case
Over The Distribution
Over His Massive Estate.
There Is An Ongoing Battle
To Keep The Kids From
Getting Any Money.
The Hinge On Which
The Whole Drama Turned
Is The Entry Of Lujan.
I Came Into The Case
To Represent Junior Hillbroom.
I've Never
Held Myself Up As A--
As An Intellectual Lawyer.
Give Me The Facts,
And I'll Argue.
If It's Red, And You Want It
To Look Green,
Then, You Know,
We'll Make It Look Green.
The Hillblom Case Was
My First Big Public Case.
And David Asked If
I Would Be Interested
In Coming Into The Case.
And I Said
That I Was, For Sure.
David Told Me
It Was Larry's Kid,
And I Believe Him.
Newscaster: Donnici Called
Junior Larry Hillbroom's
Attorneys "Greedy Lawyers,
Trying To Line
Their Pockets With The Late
Billionaire's Money."
Probably This Is
An Attempt To Extort
From An Estate,
Trying To Force Us
To Settle
So That They Can Get
Some Money Quickly,
Without Working
For It.
Lujan: I Saw It, As A Lawyer,
That I Was Representing
Someone Who Was, Frankly,
A Helpless Kid.
Lujan Is David Going Up
Against A Goliath.
You Have
The San Francisco People
Thinking That, You Know,
They'll Be Able
To Do What They Want
In Saipan.
There Was No One
To Stop Them
Or Stand In Their Way.
Dotts: There's Actually Always
Been A History Of That,
That The People On The Island
Sleep Under Coconut Trees
And Really Don't Know
Anything About The Law.
So, Quite Often,
Attorneys Arrive
From Off-Island
To Kind Of Teach Us
The Way Things Work.
The Worst Thing
Anyone Can Do In Battle
Is To Think, You Know,
That You're Smarter
Than The Other Guy.
The Whole Case Gets Chaotic.
It Goes Back To, You Know,
The Very Fugitive Nature
Of Larry's Existence.
Why Didn't Larry Leave
A Very Tidy Estate?
There Are Mysteries
To This Story That
Do Not Go Away.
Larry Was Scared Of Dying.
Larry Didn't Want To Die
At A Young Age,
And He Deliberately
Was Careful
About The Food He Ate,
And He Would Eat
All Sorts Of Things
To Lower Cholesterol,
And He Would Not Smoke.
And When He Reached
The Age Of 51, I Think It Was,
He Said, "You Know,
I've Reached The Magic Age.
"A Lot Of Men Die Before
They Get To This Age
"From Strokes
And Heart Attacks.
"And If You Can Get
To This Age,
You'll Probably Live
To Be An Old Man."
Larry Was Not
A Daredevil At All,
Except Flying Airplanes.
It Was A Test
That Wasn't Passed.
Well-Known Businessman
Larry Hillblom
Was Trying Out A New Engine
On His Airplane.
Something Went Wrong
Just Before It Crashed
On Tinian
Yesterday Afternoon.
Although There Were
Deep Gashes To His Face,
Hillblom Suffered
No Brain Damage.
However, He Will
Need Major Facial
Reconstructive Surgery.
Man: Larry Was Certainly
Conscious When He Arrived.
He'd Obviously Had
A Lot Of Facial Asymmetry
Because Of The Injuries,
Which Were Primarily On
The Right Side Of His Face.
Basically--
And This Is A Human Skull--
It Involved This Part
Of The Face.
The Scrub Nurse--
The Person Who Hands You
Your Instruments--
Said, "I Don't Think
I've Ever Seen Anybody
Have This Many Plates
And Screws In Them
In My Life."
We Had That Many Fractures
To Put Back Together.
The Healing Proceeded
Perfectly Normally.
So, What Happened
And When It Happened--
We Can Never
Put It Together.
We Realized He Wasn't
Seeing In The Right Eye.
It Was Very--
It Was A Huge Disappointment
To Both Of Us--
I'm Sure Particularly
To Larry.
Man:
The Reconstructive Surgery
Made His Face Look
A Little Bit Unreal.
Regarding
That Accident,
Has There Been
Any Follow-Up
With The F.A.A.
About Your
Licensability To
Fly In That Plane?
Yeah, But That Had
Nothing To Do With
The Accident.
The Accident Is
An Accident Question,
And I Don't Think
The F.A.A. Ever
Found The Cause.
I Mean, We're Pretty Sure
What Happened Was That, Uh,
The Carburetor--
Something Was Wrong
With The Carburetor,
And It Came Out
At 200 Feet.
And Actually, What I Heard
From The F.A.A.
Is I Did Everything Right.
I Shut The Fuel Off,
I Shut The Master Switch Off.
It Was A Pretty Good
Crash Landing, As Far As
Crash Landings Go.
That Covers
The Accident.
How About The
Question Of Whether
You Were Licensed
To Be Flying The Plane
At The Time?
Has There Been Any
Follow-Up On That?
Well, There Hasn't
Been Any Follow-Up Now,
But There Is No Follow Up.
I Mean, You--
When You're Not Licensed,
You're Not Supposed To Fly,
But That's It.
I Mean, Uh...
The Sort Of Bittersweet Comment
That Stuck In My Mind--
Larry Says, "Well,
Now I Never Have To Worry
About Another Airplane Crash,
"Because The Odds Of Getting
Into Two Airplane Crashes
In One's Lifetime
"Is So Remote
That It's Never Gonna Happen.
It's Never Anything
I Have To Worry About."
When I Was First Approached
About The Case,
I Had A--
You Know, I Had An Idea
About This Claim.
When Larry Was Alive,
I Would Run Into Larry
All The Time.
Everyone Would Tease Larry
In Front Of Me,
That He's Got A Kid.
And Of Course
I Just Kept My Mouth Shut.
You Know, But My Mind's
Registering All This.
Larry Denied It.
But When He Would Leave,
I Would Ask, "Is That True?"
And They'd Say, "Yeah,
He's Got A Boy Down There."
Dotts:
There's Always Been A Rumor
About The Boy From Palau.
Larry Had Been In Palau,
And He Had Met
Kaelani Kinney,
And They Had Had Basically
A One-Night Relationship.
Lujan: And The Boy Grew Up
In His Grandmother's House.
With A Picture Of Larry.
"That's Your Father."
"He's Not My Kid.
It Belongs To Somebody Else."
He And I Were Good Friends,
And One Day I Did Ask Him.
I Said, "Larry,
Just Between You And Me--
"I Promise I Won't
Tell Anybody--
Are You His Father?"
I Promised I Wouldn't
Tell Anyone.
( Laughs )
In The Old Days,
Guess What
The Best Proof Was?
Bringing The Child In
And Showing The Judge
How The Boy Looks--
You Know, Spitting Image
Of The Father.
Jones:
It Was An Odd Situation
In That There Was No Body
Found For Larry To Obtain Dna.
Larry Just Disappeared.
He Only Body
That Wasn't Found Was Larry's.
You Would Think
That Someone Like Him--
When This Guy Fosset
Disappeared,
They Searched Everywhere.
They Spent A Fortune
Looking For Him.
When Larry Disappeared,
The Search Was Stopped
Very Quickly.
I Think They Didn't
Want To Find His Body
Because They Knew That
There Was A Child Out There.
You Find The Body,
You Find Dna.
Dotts: That Day, Larry Was
Flying To The Northern Islands.
So, They Were Not
That Far Away.
And No Word Came From Them,
No Cell Phone Calls,
Not Distress Beacon,
Nothing.
First Of All, We Had
To Prove That The Boy
Was Hillblom's Child.
Right? So, That Was
Goal Number One.
The Obvious Way
To Solve The Case
Is To Get Blood Samples
From Hillblom's Relatives.
That Would've Had
A Good Chance Of
Solving The Problem,
You Know, In Two Days.
They Refused,
And There Was No Way
To Force Them To Do It.
In A Case, What You
Have To Hope For
Is That You Can Find Some
Biological Material
That The Circumstances
Would Suggest
Are From The Person
You're Interested In--
Hair Or Blood,
Or Maybe Semen.
That Kind Of Evidence
Can Be Found In Residences
Where People Live.
Newscaster: The Attorney
For Junior Larry Hillblom
The Court Last Week
Ordered The Estate Executor,
Joe Waechter,
Not To Clean Or Disturb
Anything In The House.
Lujan: We Went And Searched
Hillblom's House For The Dna.
There's Not A Single Thing.
Not A Picture,
Not A Comb, Not An Underwear--
Nothing Of Larry Hillblom's.
I Was Surprised
That Everything
Seemed To Be Very Clean
At That Time.
There Was No Dirty Clothes
In The Corner.
It Seemed Like A Place
That Had Been Maintained
In A Very Neat And Clean
State All The Time.
It Didn't Bode Well
For Finding The Kind Of
Evidence We Were Looking For.
We Dug Through
Bathtub Drains
And Sink Drains,
And Typically, Hair Gets
Caught Up In Those Things.
It's The Cleanest Pipe
He's Ever Seen In His Life.
I Remember Him Telling Me
He Was Looking Around
His Bathroom As He Was--
You Know, How Clean
Bathrooms Are Normally
In Hotels,
Because Every Day,
They Clean It.
He Said Hillblom's Pipe
Was Cleaned.
But That's What
An Investigation
Is All About.
There Are More False Trails
In Any Investigation
Than There Are
Fruitful Ones.
Um...What We
Found Out Later About
What Happened Was...
You Know, Sort Of--
It Made A Lot Of Sense.
But I Wasn't Suspicious,
Really, Before That
That Anything Strange
Had Gone On.
All My Instincts
As A Criminal Lawyer--
You Know, The Radars,
Everything, Red Flags,
You Know--
Are Flying All Over.
At The Time Of
Hillblom's Death,
Larry Was Living With A Girl
Named Josephine Norcasa.
She Was Larry's
Live-In Girlfriend,
And She Had Made A Claim
Also Against The Estate.
O'connor: I Was With Him
When He Met Josephine,
And He Was Just Instantly
Smitten With Josephine.
I Couldn't See Why,
Because Josephine
Didn't Speak Much English,
And All She Said Was,
"No. No. No."
Every Question--"No."
( Laughs )
And I Thought, "Jeez, Larry,
Why Are You Wasting Your Time
With This Girl?"
But There Was
Something About Her
That Just Struck Him,
And They Were
Instantly Inseparable.
Always Held Her
In A Higher Level
Than The Other Girls.
I Even Told Josephine,
"You're One Of A Kind
That I Think Larry
Has Feelings For."
And She Even Told Me--
She Said, "Really?"
I Said, "I Absolutely Believe
That There's Something
That Clicked
With You And Larry."
She Was Jealous,
And She Suspected Larry
Of Seeing Women
Behind Her Back.
So, She Used A Black Marker,
And She Wrote "Josephine"
On All Of His Underwear.
So, He Had Underwear
That Said "Josephine".
( Laughs )
Larry Actually Had
A Couple Of Passports.
So, The Passport
That She Would Look At
When He Got Back On Saipan
Wasn't The Passport
He Was Using
To Check Into Different Ports
Of The World.
It's Not Wise
On A Small Island To Cheat.
So, That Was The Reason
Not To Go Out To The Bars
On Saipan.
Anderson: He Liked To Travel
Around To The Hotspots Of Asia.
He Enjoyed
Having A Good Time.
After Larry's
First Accident,
Josephine
Wrote Up A Will,
And She Tried To Get
Larry To Sign It.
That If He Signed The Will,
Then She Might Want Him Dead,
And He Wanted Her
To Be Concerned
About His Well-Being,
And So He Refused
To Sign The Will.
After Larry Disappeared,
She Was Still Living
In The House.
She Was Very Broken Up.
She Didn't Know What To Do.
She Lived With Larry
For Ten Years,
But She Really Had
No Money Of Her Own.
She Knew All Of
Larry's Friends,
And Joe Waechter Was
A Close Friend Of Larry's.
What I Was Hearing
From Joe Waechter
Is That They Were Gonna
Do The Right Thing
By Josephine,
That I Shouldn't Worry,
They Were Gonna Do
The Right Thing By Josephine.
But Nothing Ever Happened.
I Got Involved
Representing Josephine,
And I Started Hearing,
"Josephine's Just A Maid.
"She's Got A Contract
Approved By The Department
Of Labor.
She's Just
The Housekeeper."
Anderson: Josephine--
That Was A Real Tragedy.
She Was The One Who Was
Suddenly Left With Nothing.
And I Think People On Saipan
Actually Felt Sorry For Her.
It Was Kind Of--
"Ignore Reality,
Create A Story,
And Then Sell The Story."
So, The Story Is,
Josephine's A Maid,
These Are Prostitutes
Who Are Making It Up.
It Wasn't Really Larry
They Had Been With.
Manso: Young Girls--
Most Of Them Filipinos--
Claiming That Larry Was
The Father Of Their Children--
Were Poor, Uneducated,
And Rootless,
With No Connections.
And They Simply Didn't Have
Many Options.
There Was Kind Of
An Elitist,
And Also, To A Degree,
Racist Attitude.
A Poor Lady
From The Philippines--
Why In The World
Would She Need $40 Million?
Why Should We Give
Somebody Like This
So Much Of The Money?
Calvo: The Heir Claimants
Had Everything To Fight For,
One Of Those Kids Was
Sleeping In A Cardboard Box.
Dotts: In The Philippines,
There Is A Very Big Divide
Between People
Who Have Money
And People Who
Don't Have Money.
The Poor People
In The Philippines
Tend To Be Very Poor,
To The Point Where
There's Still Starvation,
There's Serious Malnutrition,
Children Don't Go To School.
So, What Often Happens
In The Philippines Is,
Some Daughters Will Work
For The Bar Industry
To Help Provide Money
To The Family.
Jones: As Far As I Know,
When They Get To Be
The Age Of Physical Consent--
I Don't Know Legally.
These Girls Were
13, 14 Years Old.
I Think Probably
The Proper Term Is "Puberty".
The Parents Would Sell Them
To Some Agent,
Who Would Bring Them
To A Bar
To Work And Make Money
As Prostitutes.
I Don't Remember
Anybody Ever Saying,
"What Can We Do
For These Children?
How Can We Do The Right Thing
For The Kids?"
No One Ever Said That.
People Thought
That These Kids
Didn't Deserve
Any Of The Money.
We Had People
Tell Us That, You Know,
"Why Should
A Filipino Kid Be Rich
"Because Of Larry Hillblom,
When We're Going To Spend
The Money On The Noble Cause
Of Medical Research?"
Lujan:
"Wouldn't This Money
Be Better Served
"By Being Spent
In The United States?
Why Should They Get
All Of This Money?"
My Answer Was Simply,
"Because They're
Hillblom's Kids."
As Simple As That.
The Law Allows It.
( Children Chattering )
Israel: And I Don't Think
That They Really Looked
Upon These Kids
As Real People.
In That Part Of The World,
People Take Care Of
Their Families.
If They Can't
Take Care Of A Kid,
They'll Ask Another Relative
To Take Care Of The Child.
After The Rumors
Started Surfacing
About Junior Hillbroom,
Peter Donnici Advised Larry
On Numerous Occasions--
"You've Got To Revise
Your Will."
And He Refused.
Dotts: There Was
Some Speculation
That Larry Knew
That He Had Kids,
And He Meant Not To Have
His Kids Disinherited.
Larry Himself,
In His Role As Special Judge
In The Saipan High Court,
Participated In Writing
An Opinion
Which Firmly
Established As Law
The Inheritance Rights Of
Children Born Out Of Wedlock.
I Mean, It's Almost
As If He Were Writing Law
That Addressed
His Particular Situation.
Lujan: I Have To Believe
That He Didn't Want To
Disinherit His Kids,
At Least Not
Then And There.
The People
On The Other Side,
They Said They Had
To Find Another Way
I'll Tell You Why I Really
Went After Them, Okay?
'Cause They Treated Me
Like Shit.
We Had A Meeting
In San Francisco,
And We Were
At Peter Donnici's Office.
We Came To An Agreement
That, On The Following Week,
They'll Give Us An Offer
In Writing.
And I Remember Going
Up To Saipan On Monday.
And After The Hearing,
I Asked, "Do You Think
I Should Fly Home
Or Just Stay Here
And Wait For The Offer?"
He Says, "Dave,
Why Don't You Hang Around?
The Offer's Coming."
Tuesday, Called Him Up.
"The Offer Here?"
"No."
So, Wednesday--No Offer.
Thursday--
I Said,
"I'd Better Go Home,
And I Can Come Back
When You Have It."
He Said, "No, Dave,
Why Don't You Hang Around?"
"Okay."
"Joe Waechter's
Coming In This Evening."
So, Friday Morning,
I Go Out There At About 10:00.
He Sent His Associate Partner,
One Of Them,
Who Came Out And Said,
"Oh, We Decided
There's No Offer."
So, I Said, "Okay."
And I'll Tell You This--
I Swear To God--
That's What This Is--
Personally, For Me,
That's What
This Was All About.
Just For That.
That's When
I Went After Them.
And I Said,
"I'll Teach Them A Lesson."
They Should've
Given Me The Offer.
I Would've Been Lazy.
( Chuckles )
Newscaster: The Attorney
For Would-Be Heir,
Junior Larry Hillbroom,
Questions The Motives
Of Executor Joe Waechter,
Hillblom Trust Chairman
Peter Donnici,
And He Started
Picking Apart
The Way Joe Waechter
Got Control Of The Estate.
I Asked The Judge
For Them To Produce
Certain Things.
So, They Stood Up And Said,
"Oh, Your Honor, No Problem.
We'll Give It To Him
Tomorrow."
There Was A Stack This High
Of Documents, You Know?
All These Loan Agreements
And Mortgages And Everything.
So, They Said,
"Here It Is, Dave.
"You Know, It's A Lot."
"So, What Do You
Want To Do?"
I Said,
"I'll Tell You What--
"Why Don't You
Just Leave It,
And We'll Meet Back Here
At 4:00."
He Says,
"Oh, You're Gonna Go?"
I Said, "No, I'm Gonna
Stay Here And Read It."
And I Remember--
Because I With Joe Hill,
And Joe Hill
Told Me Afterwards,
"You Should've
Seen Their Face."
Because Joe Believed
They Never Expected
That I Would Sit Down
And Read Everything,
Which I Did.
I Read Everything
That I Could, You Know?
And The Next Day,
I Went To Court
And Told The Judge,
"Guess What, Judge?
They're Stealing.
They're Engaging
In All Kinds Of Conflicts."
Manso: Right After
Larry's Disappearance,
Donnici And Waechter
Swoop In
And Take Over
The Bank Of Saipan,
Which Larry Had Assigned
To Oversee His Estate.
It's The Most
Extraordinary Thing.
It Happened
With Such Alacrity
They Borrowed Money
From The Estate
To Pay For The Stock
In The Bank,
And That Is Wrong On
So Many Different Levels.
But That's What They Did.
So, I Come To You,
And I Say,
"Let Me Buy 40% Of You,
But Lend Me The Money
To Buy It From You."
Okay? Because That's
Exactly What Happened.
The Plan Clearly Was
To Take Over The Bank,
Which Would
Then Allow Them To
Take Over The Assets.
Newscaster: The Judge's
Order To Kick Joe Waechter
Off The Hillblom Case--
Waechter Was Managing
The Affairs Of
The Hillblom Estate
Until The Bank
Was Suspended.
Without Lujan,
They Probably Would Have
Gotten Away With It.
We Thought We Were
Being Retained
To Prove That Junior
Was Larry's Son.
But When We Saw
What Was Going On,
We Realized That We
Had To Function
As The Executor
And Save The Assets.
The Way Hillblom Did Business
Was Very Convoluted.
In Vietnam,
He Put All That Money In,
And His Name Wasn't
On Any Documents.
He Put In About 102 Million
Into Vietnam.
I've Been Through
All The Corporate Records
Of The Company In Vietnam.
I've Been Through
The Minutes Of Every Meeting,
Going Back To 1992.
We Know He Was There.
But His Name Doesn't
Appear In Any Document.
He Had To Do It That Way
Because He Was There
Pre-Embargo.
Americans Weren't Allowed
To Invest Money In Vietnam.
The Justice Department
Sent Him A Letter,
Asking To Know What
He Was Doing In Vietnam,
And He Wrote "Fuck You"
On The Letter
And Sent It Back
To The Attorney General.
Just A Week Ago, I Found Out
There's Another $40,000
That Belongs To The Estate
In Hong Kong.
It Just Keeps Coming Up.
When He Died, I Found Out
That He Had Left
A $3 Million Apartment Complex
On Saipan In My Name.
So, I Could've Said,
"I'm Keeping It.
It's In My Name."
But I Didn't.
I Gave It Back To Them.
The One Important Ingredient,
In Part,
To Keeping His Estate Together,
Uh, Was Larry.
No One Else Could've Done It.
There Was No Rhyme Or Reason
To The Empire That He Built.
Hillblom And His Friends
Was Like An Octopus,
And Larry Was The Head.
And All These Guys
That Worked For Him
Were Nothing But Tentacles.
And When Larry Died,
You Know,
It Was Like The Head
Had Been Cut Off,
O'connor: He Was Careful
With His Friends.
So, Most Of The People
Who Were Friends With Larry
Were Friends
Inside Of A Box.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To A Federal
Takeover Issue.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To Taxation.
They Were His Friend
With Regard To Chasing Girls.
He Didn't Want People
To Have A Good Handle On Him.
He Recognized People Thought
He Was Crazy And Unpredictable,
That That Gave Him
An Advantage.
He Truly Enjoyed His Privacy.
He Had People Work For Him
That Were On The Cover
Of Forbes,
But It Was Never Him.
He Liked His Anonymity.
I Think He Was Counting
On The Fact
That Nobody Really Knew
Who He Was.
( Water Splashes )
After Waechter Is Tossed
Off The Estate,
After The Ploy That He
Attempted To Pull Off
With The Bank--
The Takeover Of The Bank--
Somehow,
The State Attorney General
From California
Gets Pulled Into The Case
To Reinforce Donnici
And Waechter.
God Knows What
The Back Channels
Might Have Been.
There Was So Much Money
In Larry's Estate,
And There Were, Um--
The Lifestyles Of The People
That Made Claims
Were Such That, Uh...
Anything That They Could
Shake Out Of An Estate
As Large As This
Would Be
A Great Boon To Them.
There Was A Great Deal
Of Opportunism There.
Why Would The Attorney
General Of California
Get Involved
With This Thing?
Well, The University
Of California
Had Been Designated
In Larry's Will
As The Beneficiary
Of Larry's Estate.
There's A Billion Dollars
Riding On This Thing.
When Peter Donnici
Reached Out To The Attorney
General Of California,
We Thought That
We Could Just Go In
And Educate Them That--
"Look, If There's All This
Wrongdoing Going On,
"You Guys Are
On The Wrong Side Here.
"We're Trying
To Protect The Assets,
And You Ought To Be
In There Helping Us."
Well, That Was
Completely Naive,
Because Of The State
Of California's Financial
Interest In The Estate.
The Reaction Was,
"What's Next?"
Manso: Then It Became
A Frenzied Fight To
Hang On To Something.
The Lawyers Then Descended.
Peter Donnici Went
And Hired A Big-Time
Law Firm
To Represent
The Hillblom Trust.
And Then
The Assets Themselves--
They Hired
Their Own Lawyers--
Law Firms From California,
L.A., New York.
Dotts: It Turned
Into A Real Circus,
With Dozens Of Attorneys
And Hearings
Several Times A Week.
Israel: It Overwhelmed
Our Judicial System.
This Was The Biggest Thing
That's Ever Happened
In Saipan, For Sure.
Some Of These Law Firms
Were Billing The Estate
1 Million A Month.
1 Million A Month.
Imagine That.
( Chuckles )
They Came To This Tiny Island
In The Middle Of The Pacific
Involving Lawyers That
Were Not Of Their Ilk.
We Had A Very,
Very Colorful
Opposing Counsel,
By The Name Of
Mr. Lujan.
I Remember
His First Appearance.
I Was Watching Him--
"This Man Reminds Me
Of A Snake."
And We Know What To Do
With Snakes In Guam.
We Cut Their Head Off
With Machetes.
He And I Butted Heads
At Every Turn.
A Criminal Lawyer
Learns To Utilize
Theatrics.
That's Why I Call Him
The Rooster.
The First Meeting
With Mr. Lujan
Was In Some Very Provocative
Court Appearance,
Where He Filed A Challenge
Suggesting That The Judge
Himself Might Have
Illegitimate Children
And Shouldn't Sit
In The Case.
And I At Least Had Never
Accused A Judge,
Without
Supporting Evidence,
Of Having
Illegitimate Children,
And I Realized I Was Now
In A Different Jurisdiction.
One Of The Trust Lawyers
One Day, You Know,
Was Wandering Around
The Courtroom,
And He Was Kind Of
A Corpulent Guy,
And He Had His Stomach
In Between David Lujan
And David's Line Of Vision
In Cross-Examining A Witness.
So, David Stood Up And,
In His Very Courtly
Courtroom Tone, Said...
"Your Honor,
He's Doing It Again.
"His Big Stomach
Is Blocking Me.
Can You Tell Him To
Remove That Big Stomach?"
Things Aren't Always
What They Appear To Be.
We Got Some Background
Materials About
Larry Hillblom
As We Dug Deeper
And Deeper,
And It Became
Very Fascinating.
And...
We Had An Interesting
Time With It,
Given The Facts
Surrounding Larry's Life.
Larry Was A Colorful
And Interesting Character.
He Found Adventure
In Places Where
Few Of Us Look For It.
Kennedy: A Local Counsel
In The Philippines
Gave Me A Tour Of
Larry Hillblom's Manila.
The Clubs Were Unbelievable.
300 Or 400 Or 500 Women
In Them
Who Were Classified Either
As "Dancers", "Nude Dancers",
Or "Guest Relations Officers"--
G.R.O.'S--
Which I Thought Was
The Most Formalistic Title
I'd Ever Heard For A Hooker.
Apallas: When I Interviewed
One Of The Ladies
In Charge Of A Bar
That He Frequented,
She Told Me,
When Larry Would Come In,
She Would Arrange Young Girls,
Ten Across.
Larry Would Look
At The Young Ladies And...
Either Choose One
Or Decline The Entire Line,
And Then They Would
Step To The Back,
And A New Line
Would Come Up.
He Was Always Interested
In Young Ladies
That Were From The Farm,
People From The Back Parts
Of The Philippines Or Palau--
Virgins.
And I Asked The Mama-San,
"How Could He Possibly
Know That?"
She Said, "Well, He Would
Take Them To The Hotel
And Show Them To The Shower."
( Elevator Dings )
If, In Fact, They Knew
How To Operate A Shower,
He Knew That They Obviously
Were In The Facility--
Or A Facility Similar
To That--Before.
So, Therefore,
He Would Eliminate Them.
Choper: He Told Me About
His Relationships With Women,
And He Explained That
He Would Only Have Sex
With Virgins
Because He Didn't Want
To Get Aids.
So, He Went Into
A Long Explanation
Of The Millions Of Dollars
That This Had Cost Him.
I Forget The Details,
But I Know He Said "Millions".
In One Of The Depositions,
I Understand,
One Of The Young Ladies
Testified
About How Larry Would
Take A Spoonful Of Iodine
Or Some Other...
Um, Chemical...
And Would Pour It
Down His...
Penis...
In Order To Kill Any Germs
That He Might--
He Never--
He Never, I Am Told,
Enjoyed Sex
With A Prophylactic,
And Therefore He Had To Take
Certain Precautions
To Prevent From
Getting A Disease.
It Was The Philippines
That Really Bothered Me
With Up-Front Exposure
To What Poverty
Requires People To Do
And The Just Plain
Sinfulness
Of Westerners
Taking Advantage Of That.
It's Appalling.
We're Talking About People
Who Are Living By Something
Other Than A 20Th Century
American Morality.
It All Was
Kind Of Shocking.
Uh...
( Laughs )
I Have A Lot Of
Newspapers,
Do You? No.
Everybody Makes
A Mistake.
You Would Hear Things,
And None Of It Was Good.
I Was A Little Puzzled,
Uh...
That He Had That Need.
Uh, He Had A Girlfriend--
Josephine--
And She Was Very Attractive.
I Just Couldn't Understand
Why He'd Be Off Somewhere Else
When She Was There At Home.
And, Uh...
Dotts: He Didn't Cover Up
His Lifestyle.
I Remember Him Talking
To An Executive With
Continental Airlines
About How Many
Girlfriends He Had,
And The Guy Should Consider
Doing The Same Thing--
"Come On To The Philippines.
I'll Introduce You.
We Can Find You
A Girlfriend, No Problem."
And The Guy Was
Just So Uncomfortable
With The Conversation,
And Larry Kept Going
Just, I Think,
To Goad The Guy.
Those Of Us Who Are Educated
And, You Know, Comfortable
In This Country
Affect Great Shock
That American Business
In The Philippines
Are Being Serviced
In Precisely The Same Way,
With The Encouragement
Of Local Officials,
Businesspeople,
And Government Officials.
It Is Not An Unusual Thing.
The System Is There--
Was There Before
He Came Along,
Is There After He's Gone.
And There's Still
Thousands Of Girls
Working In Dingy
Little Brothels,
Trying To Work Off Money
That Was Given To
Their Parents.
Dotts: The First Bit
Of Paranoia--
One Of The Mothers
In The Philippines
One Day Disappeared.
There Were People
Who Were Looking
For Potential Heirs
That They Could
Represent In Saipan.
Private Detectives
Were Hired,
And The Word Was Put Out.
They Went To Bars
And Posted Sign That--
If You Know This Man,
You Might Get A Lot Of Money.
One Of The Investigators
Found Mercedes,
Who Was, At The Time,
Pregnant.
Dotts:
The Private Investigator
Was Holding Her Hostage.
Manlapaz:
This Was Just A 14-Year-Old.
She Was Eight Months Pregnant
At The Time.
They Wanted Her To Be
Brought To Saipan.
But, Before Doing That,
The Child Was Asked To Undergo
A Caesarian Operation
Instead Of Going
Through A Normal Delivery.
There Was A Deadline
Coming Up For Claims,
And They Wanted
The Baby Born Before
The Deadline.
They Wanted To Make Sure
That The Kid That She Was
Carrying At The Time
Would, You Know, Have
These Caucasian Features,
Or At Least
Look Like Larry.
We Were Able
To Rescue Her
From That House.
She Wasn't Even Aware
That Larry Was Dead
At That Time.
And, According To Her,
She Was Waiting
For Larry,
Because Larry Promised
To Come Back
And, According To Her,
Marry Her.
So, We Asked Her If She
Was Really Carrying
The Child Of Larry,
And She Said
She Was Positive.
We Also Felt
Threatened.
You're Just In Time
For The Most Informative
Half-Hour Of Your Day.
Here's What's Ahead.
With His Claim Against
The Hillblom Estate,
Junior Larry Hillbroom
Will Have Quite A Tale
To Tell His Own Kids.
But, For All The Arguing,
All The Hearings,
All The Publicity,
Not One Shred Of Evidence
Has Been Put Before The Court
To Prove These Children
Either Are Or Are Not
Children Of Larry Hillblom.
At That Point,
The Only Thing We Had Done
Is Preserve The Assets.
We Had Made No Progress
In Demonstrating Paternity.
And Then, Out Of Nowhere,
Pops Up Larry Hillblom Dna.
Someway, Somehow,
We Found Out
That There Was A Mole
That Was Excised
From Larry's Face
When He Had Some
Reconstructive Surgery.
Now, What Happened
To That Mole
Is Another Story.
We Knew That That Was
An Important Piece Of Evidence
That Could Either
Make Or Break The Case
Of The Children--
Alleged Children.
Agreed That We Would
Try To Dna Out Of It.
Israel: The Deposition
Was Scheduled,
And The Doctor Walked In.
He Reached Into His Pocket
And Threw It On The Table.
It Was Like
It Wasn't Even Real,
Like It Was A Joke.
Every Time We Turned Around,
There Was Somebody With
A Conflict Of Interest
Working Against Us.
The Davies Medical Center
Stood To Benefit
From The Money Coming
Out Of The Foundation.
You Know, For All We Know,
They'll Put Someone In There,
So That Way, For Sure,
It's Gonna Come Up
That They Don't Match.
Was That Their Motivation?
I Don't Know.
But It Sure
Looked Like It To Us.
So, Of Course We Were
All Suspicious.
We Were Scared Of That.
( Laughs )
We Didn't Want Anything
To Do With It.
So, It Was Never Opened.
I'm Just A Naive Scientist.
I Don't Understand
All These, Uh...
Derring-Do Plots
And Intrigues.
You Couldn't Help
But Be Angry
Because Of The Constant
Assault, You Know?
They Were Constantly,
Constantly,
Trying To Screw You.
They Wake Up One Morning,
And There's A New Law In Place.
It Was Known As
The "Hillblom Law",
And This Law
Was Very Simple.
It Disinherited
Illegitimate Children.
And The Whole Thing
Had Been Engineered
By Donnici And Company.
Newscaster:
The Former Executor
Of The Hillblom Estate
Admitted From The Start
That The Bill To Change
The Probate Law
Began With Him.
The Hillblom Law
Was Checkmate
For The Children,
And It Applied
Retroactively.
It's Unprecedented.
We're Talking About
A Whole Bunch Of Things
That Never Happened Before
In The History Of The World,
Including Anything
Like The Hillblom Law.
Everything Is Not
Surprising...
Everything Is Possible
In Saipan.
...And Possible
In Saipan.
Dotts: There Were
Suspicions That Perhaps
The Hillblom Bill
Passed By Bribery.
At That Time, There Were
Promises Of Donations
By The Trust,
Raising Red Flags.
An Enormous Setback
To The Plaintiffs.
Pete Donnici,
Joe Waechter--
They Were So Taken Up
With The Fight
Which Really Means,
"How Can We Disinherit
Larry's Son?"
Which Is Not
The Right Thing To Do.
Disinheriting Children
Is Not The Right Thing.
I Don't Think That
Larry's Friends Looked At What
The Implications Would Be
Of Some Law Like That
For Other People On The Island.
What We're Talking About
Is The Phenomenon Of
The Ugly American.
I Mean, Americans
Taking Advantage Of Locals.
With Our Money,
With Our Clout,
We've Got The Power,
They Don't Have Anything. Boom.
You Know, I've Represented
Murderers And Rapists And...
All Kinds Of, You Know,
People Accused Of...
Various, You Know,
Heinous Crimes.
I Just Thought
These People Were Worse.
Because These Are Supposedly
Intelligent People,
And People, You Know,
That Were Businessmen,
People That Are Held Up
As Upright Members
Of The Community
And All Those Things.
You Know,
It Was Disgusting.
How Do You Overcome This?
Here, By This Time,
We're Into It Pretty Deeply,
And We Were Pretty Much
Out Of Money.
( Gavel Pounds )
Lujan Should Have
Lost It All,
But These Guys Simply
Won't Take No For An Answer.
It Was Kind Of
The Final Straw, I Suppose.
It Was Thermonuclear War
After That.
I Went After Them
With A Vengeance.
( Train Horn Sounds )
Dotts: There Was A Rumor
That Larry's Mother
Had Been Hospitalized
Because Of High
Blood Pressure,
And A Nurse Had
Come Into Her Room
And Taken A Swab Of
The Inside Of Her Cheek.
And Then She Later
Asked Somebody,
"Why Did They Do That?"
And They Checked
The Records,
And There Was No Record
Of Any Nurse Having
Come Into Her Room
And Taken A Sample Of
The Inside Of Her Cheek.
Taking A Sample Of
The Inside Of The Cheek
Is A Very Typical Way
Of Getting A Dna Sample,
It's A Very Easy Way
To Get A Dna Sample.
And It Was David--
The One Who Was Accused--
The Group Of David Lujan--
Who Was Accused Of Doing That.
But, Of Course,
They Denied It.
There's Some
Accusations Made.
Shortly After
That Incident Happened,
David Lujan Announced
That--
That He Knew,
To A Scientific Certainty,
That Junior
Was Larry's Child.
But He Refused
To Say How He Knew.
I Felt That
We Could Win This,
No Matter What
The Inheritance Law Said.
We Wanted To Pound Them,
Beat Them, Destroy Them,
So That They're
Crawling To Come To
The Bargaining Table.
Lujan Pricks
The Interest Of Nbc,
And Dateline Does A Story
On The Case.
Businessman Larry Hillblom,
Who Was Killed
In A Plane Crash,
Left The Bulk Of His Estate--
Hundreds Of Millions
Of Dollars--
To Medical Research,
But There Are Those
Who Say He Left
Something Else Behind.
Junior,
What's Your Name?
Larry Hillbroom, Jr.
This Palauan Boy,
Called Junior Larry,
Was Born Nine Months
After Larry Hillblom
Had Visited Palau.
Kaelani,
How Old Were You
When You Met
Larry Hillblom?
Is It Possible
That He Slept With
Kaelani Kinney?
Anything Is Possible.
Do You Think He Did?
I Don't Know. Um...
It Doesn't Seem Like
She Would've Been
Larry's Type.
With The Dateline Exposure,
Donnici Can No Longer Hide
In The Shadows Of
Saipan And The Philippines.
It Forced Donnici
To Speak.
This Is Not About
Trying To Keep Money
Away From Children
Who May Be Larry's.
This Is About
Greedy Lawyers.
Donnici Really Feared Badly
In That Interview.
These Are Not The
Innocent Young Virgins.
These Are Experienced
Bar Girls.
There's Filipina Bar Girl
Mercedes Feliciano.
Mercedes Was
Introduced To Hillblom
In One Of Those Bars,
Who She Says Supported
Her And Her Family
Until She Had
Her First Period.
Then He Paid Her $2,000
For Her Virginity.
He Was The Only Man?
That's When I Believe
The Tide Started To Change.
What You Have
Is A National Tv Show
Where The Truth
Is Emerging.
And Then There Was Another
Bizarre Turn Of Events.
Everyone Should Go
To The David Lujan School
Of How To Prepare A Bill,
You Know, Bills That Include
Their Time Charges,
And They Include
Their Receipts
For Whatever They Spent
During That Month.
And David Is The One Who Found
The Muriatic Acid Bill,
Which Was Huge.
The Estate Lawyers
Submit To The Estate
A Series Of
Expense Accounts,
And Included Here--
There It Is.
Muriatic Acid?
Muriatic Acid That Had Been
Poured Down The Drains
To Destroy Evidence.
Lujan--
He'd Meticulously Go
Through Bill After Bill
After Bill.
Well...
The Devil Really Is
In The Details,
And David
Really Knew That.
Of Course, We Were
So Angry When We
Learned About It,
Because We Spent
A Lot Of Money
Trying To Prove
That These Kids
Are Larry's Kids.
These Guys--
Waechter And Donnici--
Want You To Believe That
It's Just A Probate Case.
It's Not A Probate Case.
It's A Criminal Case.
I Mean, If Nothing Else,
We're Talking About An Attempt
To Defraud
On A Massive Scale.
This Is A Felony.
You Go To Jail
For 15 Or 20 Years
For This Kind Of Behavior.
Israel: Clearly,
When They Poured Acid
In The Drains,
They Knew That There Was
A Child Out There.
Otherwise, Why Would
They Have Done It?
Where Big Money
Is Concerned,
People Do Funny Things.
It Was Just
A Matter Of Time
Before What Happened
To Larry's Clothes
Was Discovered
Josephine Says,
"Guess What, Guys?
Get A Backhoe
And Dig A Hole Out Behind
Larry's Old House."
Josephine Had Been Asked
By The Executor
To Destroy Evidence,
And This Was At A Time
Before I Represented Her.
She Was Basically Asked
To Take All Of Larry's
Belongings--
Hairbrushes,
Toothbrushes, Clothing,
Anything That
Would Have Dna--
And Burn It.
When Joe Waechter
Called Her Up
And Asked Her To Do This,
Josephine Kind Of
Realized This May Not Be
The Right Thing To Do.
So, Instead Of Burning
The Clothes,
And Then She Reported
Back To Joe Waechter
That Everything Was Gone.
Newscaster:
According To Norcasa,
The Same Man Who Denied
Larry Hillblom Had
Illegitimate Children
Was Scrambling
To Get Rid Of Evidence
That There Were Any.
However, Waechter Testified
That It Was Norcasa
Who Called Him,
Asking If She Could
Get Rid Of The Belongings.
Waechter Testified
Norcasa Got Rid Of
The Belongings
As Part Of Some
Filipino Ritual.
( Both Laugh )
So, We Did What Was
The Practical Thing To Do--
We Hired A Backhoe Operator,
We Wandered Around
This Big, Huge,
Beautiful Property
Overlooking The Bay.
And We Had This Guy Dig
In All These Different Places,
All Of Us Standing Around
In The Tropical Sun,
And We Weren't Finding It.
And So, Finally,
This Backhoe Operator--
Said, "Well, You Want To Know
Larry's Clothes Are Buried?"
And We Said, "Well, Yeah."
And He Said, "Well, I Know,
Because I Buried Them."
And So, You Know,
I Thought, "Well, God...
There Probably Is Only
One Backhoe Operator
In Saipan."
He Went Right To The Place.
He Dug Them Up.
The Clothes, The T-Shirts,
Jeans, Hairbrushes,
Toothbrushes.
And, You Know,
It Was Just This Kind Of
Real Moment Of Sadness,
That, You Know,
This Man Was Walking Around
With These Clothes.
He Was A Real Alive Person.
We're Out Here,
A Bunch Of--
Like Myself, Nothing But
A Criminal Lawyer--
We Were Able To
See Through Them
And Beat Them
Simply Because, You Know--
It's Not That I'm Smarter.
It's That They Were Dumber.
It Was Exhilarating
That, After Several Years
Of Fighting
And Hundreds Of Lawyers
From Big Cities,
Against All The Odds,
Against Every Odd
That You Can Think Of,
Our Client Was Now Going
To Be Acknowledged
As Larry's Son.
And The Whole World
Was Going To Open Up To Him
In A Way That Most Of Us
Can Never Experience.
And We Demonstrated That
We Belonged In That Courtroom.
It Was A Mountain
That Needed To Be Climbed.
And, You Know,
I Wasn't About To Give Up
Until I Raised That Flag
On The Top Of That Mountain.
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't Be Blue
Always...
It's Kind Of Ironic
That, Ultimately,
With All The Hue And Cry
Over Larry's Dna
And The Hiding Of It,
And The Accusations About It,
You Know, It Never Really
Was Necessary.
We Have A Whole
Bunch Of Kids
That Claim To Have
The Same Father.
So, Why Don't We Test
The Children Themselves?
And So,
That's The Testing
That Showed Junior,
Two Filipino Kids,
And A Child In Vietnam,
Have The Same Father.
We Used To Call It
"The Lucky Sperm Club".
We Became Friends
With David
When We Got
The Results,
The Dna Cross-Testing
Results.
He Called Us Up
And Said,
"We're A Family."
I Wanted To Go
With His Mother
And See The Children.
I Said, "Why Don't You
And I Just Take A Trip
And See The Children?
I Think You--"
I Thought
She Would Be Anxious.
But She Didn't.
She, Uh, Refused
To Believe It, Really.
I Don't Know What It Was
With Him Emotionally
That He Was In Such Denial,
Because They've Proven Now
There Is At Least Four--
Maybe More--Kids.
That Part Of Him,
I Can't Understand.
The Possibility Exists
That He Had Set
This Whole Thing Up.
Larry Would've Loved
The Hillblom Estate
Litigation.
He Liked Lawsuits,
He Liked The Battle.
He Was Always Getting
Involved In Cases
And Lawsuits
And Plotting Strategies.
And If He Could've--
If He Can Sit In Heaven
And Look Down On
The Hillblom Proceedings,
He Probably Would've
Enjoyed It Immensely--
The Battle That Raged
Because Of How His Will
Was Unclear
And The Body Was Not Found.
Who Knows?
The Fact Is, People Say
He Might Still Be Alive.
Who Knows, You Know?
That's Larry. He Might
Show Up Somewhere.
( Laughs )
...Be Blue Always
'Cause The Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That's Sun's
Gonna Shine
On My Backdoor
Someday
Trouble In Mind
I'm Blue
But I Won't
Be Blue Always
'Cause That Sun's
Gonna Shine
In My Back Door
Someday