SUMMARY EXECUTION-Michael Withey

it up against such powerful and ruthless adversaries. In Summary Execution, attorney and author Michael White describes his ten year battle for justice for Domingo and Veroness that he fought because they killed my friends. Fall along as he embarks on the long and dangerous investigation and into the court room to obtain convictions of three hitmen and then prove a U S. Federal court that Marcos was behind the assassinations.

If so, it would be the first time in U S history that a foreign head of state would be held liable for the murder of American citizens on U S soil. However, to accomplish this, with the and his r legal team working with the victims, families and friends, would have to defeat concerted efforts by the murderers and those who hired them to cover up their crimes and

obstruct justice. Then they'd have to overcome numerous obstacles, including exposing the perjured eyewitness testimony of an FBI informant, uncovering the brutal murder of an accomplice who was being sought to turn state's evidence, and working around the failure by local authorities to prosecute the Marcos operative who planned the murders. The book they were featuring this evening is Summary Execution the Seattle Assassinations of Silne Domingo and Jean Verenes, by

my special guest attorney and author, Michael Withe. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.

marcos So. Then you introduce the secretary treasurer still May, Domingo Bacher, Jean Verness. So tell us what they were recently elected as, and tell us a little bit about the union that they work in and represent, and a little bit about you mentioned that they don't share Barrusso's politics. So tell us a little bit about as you do in the beginning, and set the stage for this incredible day where they're about to meet activists. Fellow activist David Della.

Alaska seafood industry. And they had decided that they wanted to reform the dispatch out of Local thirty seven from one which is basically kind of based on bribes you have to pay to Tony Baruss or to the foreman, and and just not fair to carry workers who had worked the previous years. So Gene and sell Me and I came up with a reformed dispatch that based on the constitution. Well, both Gene and sell Me were aware that there were forces within the union that, you know,

weren't going to be happy with this dispatch. But on the other hand, and there had been there had been a very kind of scary encounter with Tony Dictata, who was the head of the local Tulisan gang that was a Filipino gang in the International District. And Tony Dictato had wanted some of his boys to be dispatched up to the dilling and camerony at peter Pan in Alaska that weren't dispatched under the new dispatch, So there was

some you know, angry words exchanged. In the meantime, both gene and sell Me, who had just recently been elected to the Union, were seen as kind of a threat to Tony Brusso, who was the Union president, but also a very strong pro Marcos ally, and so Gena and tell Me have been very active in anti Marcos politics,

both in the United States and internationally. And I can go into more detail what Gena tell Me had done which threatened the relationship between Ferdinand Marcos and the labor movement in the Philippines and the opposition in the countryside. But needless to say, they were there on June first, in the context in a vortex of union reform, not you know, Tony Bruso not happy with them. And then they're anti Marcos politics, all of which came into play when the boats start flying in that Union hall.

socialist organization in the US. He was the kind of the mastermind, I think of the strategist. He was a great union organizer. He knew how to talk you know, canary workers into joining the union in an unbelievably great way. And you know, he was a very formidable opponent. He was my best friend and tell me, you know, loan me his car if my family came to town. We shared a lot, and he was just an amazing, amazing, dynamic guy.

you know, help with a community garden for instance. And Jean would be out there in his wheelbarrow whill bearing around doing all the work and sell me in his pump elevator's shoes would be standing on the rock looking like a million bucks kind of directing people. So, you know, Bob Santo's the unofficial mayor of the International District, kind of had that description of him selling the strategists. But Jean got the work done and they were totally inseparable.

They were each other's best friends. And I just think that, you know, it was always Gene and sell Me. You know, it wasn't sell Me did this or Gene in that. It was Gene and sell Me. And unfortunately they died together, but they lived an amazing life. You know. Jane was worked at the canneries, and when I went up there to do organizing, you know, when sell Me walked in, everybody would stop working and they we'd all come up to it, and there would be Gene with his decibel

reader to say, hey, this sees the desibel levels. We gotta you know, we got to get a hold of ocean and stuff. He was. He was just an unbelievably dedicated leader.

cold steel. Terry Mass, the widow of sell Me to Mingo and a Canary worker herself, recalls that Selmy said, the guy is just a cold blooded murder. Bengaloya, on the other hand, was kind of a novice in the gang. I think he was sent as a kind of a decoy because he had been close to sell Me. Sell Me had loaned him money in his youth, and he was recently kind of being recruited into the Tuisson gang. So if you want me to describe the murders and

how they happened, I'd be happy to. But it was Ramil was selected by Dictato to be the gunman and Galoy was the decoy. And then there was another Tulisan gang member named boy Peelai short for Taio Dernico's the mingas and he was the lookout and the also a decoy. And I'll describe how the murders happened, you know, when you want me to.

and you've been involved. But in a few pages you talk about and explain that you were just about to address a large May Day demonstration and militant march of ten thousand people on the streets of Seattle, protesting Ronald Reagan's administration's welfare cutbacks on and their ongoing union bashing. Now and as you explained, you were a private attorney

with a small solo practice. You help fund the Seattle Law Collective with then your then brother in law, Dan Smith, and together you represented protesters, union members, and minorities in a series of controversial cases. And you moved back to Seattle spending about a year in Puerto Rico fighting for

the independence movement there. So now tell us just a little bit more about the KDP in the Union of Democratic Filipinos and your relationship in that organization, and again why these people were your friends but much more your comrades.

we occupied it to create Alcinto Dayla Lasa. Well, were there if we went down to the picket lines surrounding a construction site, there were no people of color on that were building the buildings. People would occupy those spaces, and the African American construction crews were there. So everybody worked with one another. And the Union of Democratic Filipinos was a leading organization in the entire United States. Formed after Marshall Law was declared in the Philippines in nineteen

seventy two, very dynamic leadership, very effective. They helped establish the coalition against the Marcus dictatorship. They were seen is kind of the leftist, more revolutionary elements within the anti Marcos opposition. They sought the overthrow of the Marcos regime. There's also moderate politicians like the Senator Bnino Okino, who were wanted to pursue the electoral path of going back

to the Philippines when democracy eventually was brought back. But genens sell Me where labor leaders within the Union of Democratic Filipinos. The KDP wasn't a union itself, it was a political organization, but they also had members in various unions. Well. The International Longshore and Warehouseman's Union was a very important union on the West Coast. They loaded and unloaded all the commodities that went to and from the Philippines and

Hawaii and the US. So to be officers within the isle WU Local thirty seven gave gene sell Me a lot of cachet and the ability then to go to the Philippines and you know, and meet with the organizations there that were opposed to Marcos. Right, So that's some of the background that comes together here. Dave Della was also a member of the Union of Democratic Filipinos. He was late for the meeting that afternoon because if he had been on time, he probably would have been assassinated as well.

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to maintain the character of the international district. So that was their meeting.

that time, Jimmy Rameil had a brown paper bag. Ben Galoy enters the union hall first, which would kind of put Geene and sell Me off because if Vermeil had walked in, sell Me would have known something was up. So Ben comes in first. Rameal then comes in afterwards. Out of the brown paper bag, pulls out a Mac ten forty five caliber execution piece with a suppressor, points

it at Jane, fires twice. Jean sees him, dies for the floor, and Gene is struck with two bullets tearing into his back and into his heart, killing him instantly. He Rameil then swivels the gun toward sell Me, who's getting starting to get up from his chair, and puts four or four five caliber bullet holes and sell me, believing him dead. Ramil and Gloy then exit the Union hall, put the mac ten back into the paper bag and walk down the alley, which is you know, has walls

on either side at that time. Boy Peli, the third hitman, then is the lookout. He then walked, runs across the street, gets into a black trans dam driven by Tony Dictato and drive off. Now that we didn't know any of this at the time, but that's that's who the hit team was. Four members of the tulis Un gang. Sell Me, with unbelievable courage and bravery, gets out of his chair

with forty five caliber bullet holes in him. Believe you know, drop it, drops of blood across the union floor, goes out into the outside of the Union Hall and collapses on the on the sidewalk, screaming and yelling you know, help me, help me. Believe it or not. There was a fire station a block away and two first responders hear the cries of help. Someone said, hey, someone's been shot, So they went out and sell me was able to. Then the fireman say, what happened? I've been shot? Who

shot you? Rameil and gooy? And so they write the names down, and one of them misspelled the name, said Ramo R A M M O, and sell Me corrected him to R A M I L So boom right then and there sell Me was able to live long enough to name the two people that shot him. So then the fire trucks came, and the meta came, and sell me it was hustled off to the Harbor View

Hospital in a vain attempt to save his life. And then, if I could excuse me, if I could read from the just a real quick passage from the book, here's what else happened, so says the ambulance ward off to Harvardview Medical Center, sirens blaring across the street from the Union Hall. A middle aged man in a gray suit and dark glasses emerged from a telephone booth, looked at the scene in front of the Union and slipped into

his car. As he pulled away from the curb, heading south on Second Avenue, he lifted a Cbee radio to his lips and started to speak, So what I do In the first, very first chapter, of the book introduced the fact that there was someone we didn't know who it was at the time across the street watching all this come down. And I'll explain later how this person's surfaced and how we found out who he was.

great organizing abilities. Selmy was drawn to Terry because she was patient, organized, level headed, and it was a love match because the two of them just really got along well, I mean, like any couples, they went through, you know, some problems, but by the time of the International Longshore Wareshouseman Union Convention in Hawaii that took place about a month before the murders, they had patched the relationship up.

They had two beautiful little daughters three year old Lagaya and then Kylieano was just a few weeks shy of her first birthday. And those two girls were just the love of their lives. So Semmy and Terry were, you know, really living in a very happy situation at the time Selmy was cut down. Now getting by the way, Terry

is also Terry was a union activist too. She was part of the reform movement within Local thirty seven, a cannery worker in her own right, came from a strong working class background.

Jean's dead. Sell Me's in the hospital. We need you to go to the Union Hall and find out what the police are doing. So after all of this happened, there was a vigil up at Harve of You, and the word went out that sell Me's in dire needs. And I mean hundreds and hundreds of people came to the blood bank and they were overflowing and people just wanted to give the blood. That's I'll get a little

emotional still think about how many people responded. But more importantly, at the vigil, sell Me was in surgeries and excuse me. His family was saying, well, wait a minute, where's Tony Brusso, how come he's not here? So he basically had Oddi Domingo, Sellmy's mother call up Tony and say, how come you're

not down here? Oh okay, well I'll come down. So he comes down and what he doesn't know, but what we know because I had been to the Union Hall and found out from the police that Sellmy had named Rameil and Galoi, so we know that the police know that the names of the hitmen. So we confront Brusso and say, okay, do you know the police know who shot him? And he kind of looked startled, Oh no, who are those guys? And we said, well, you know Jimmy Rameil and Ben Galoi And there was this flicker

in his eyes. I don't know those guys. And Msio Domingo Senior said, of course you do. They're cannery workers. You go gamble with them down at the Union Hall. So the fact he denied knowing who Ramel and Goloy was was significant to us. But then in addition, Selmy came to and even of those he's intubated, Terry and ODDI were able to go up and talk to him, where they were able to confirm that yes, Ramel and Galoi had been part of the you know, had been

the hit man. But when Terry asked him, well it was someone else, someone got agitated, nodding his head and he took his right finger index finger like a gun and pointing it to his leg and but Terry couldn't figure it out you've been shot in the leg and he goes no, no, no, and nobody could figure it out until later that evening we realized that boy Peli, the third hit man, had been shot earlier and was had a limp, and Peli means limp or someone who

limps into golic, So then we kind of put it together. So it was it. Basically, it was at that vigil before Selmy passed that we kind of came to the understanding that there was more involved than just romealing Galoy and we immediately suspected Bruso because the murder took place in his union hall and he was close to at least we knew to boy P, and so we started putting we started our our investigation right then and there.

recommended we do target practice, you know. So we were bulletproof vests for the first six months of this investigation and packed firearms because the Tulissan was still out there. But anyway, we started piecing this together and realizing, well, what it didn't make sense to dispute over dispatch because two weeks after the murders, the Tulisan gang would have gotten most of their people up to the canries. So the whole theory of the prosecution had a hole in it,

and we started looking for deeper relationships. So to do that, we traced Jim excuse me, Jeans trip Gen had always wanted to visit his family in the Philippine. His uncle Mariano lived there, his dad had passed away. Felix, but he went through the Bay area and stopped at the Union Democratic Filipino headquarters, which at the time we didn't

know at the time, but we found out later. At the time, the Naval Intelligence Investigative Service out of Alameda County Air Station had an informants within the Union of Democratic Filipinos. Pursuing to an executive order signed by President Gerald Ford, they were able to legally infiltrate a domestic organization. So jan goes through the Bay Area and then goes to the Philippines. He's bringing with him two hundred and ninety twenty nine hundred dollars in monies to provide to

the religious order there that was supporting the opposition. Okay, So Jean went went to the countryside to visit his family, but also visited the New People's Army in the countryside, kept the journal, and then toward the end of his journey he went and met with the head of the May First Movements, the large anti Marcos union federation that had been outlawed under the Marcos regime. I mean there were shootings that picket lines. Their leadership had been arrested

and charged with sedition. They were really one of Marcos's biggest the thorns in Marcos aside. Well, Jane was able to meet with the head of that union. So it's Berto Alalia who was later arrested in charged with subversion. Alalia was and get from Alalia the conditions that faced the Filipino workers, particularly in the export industry, were large US multinationals operated and paid people very little without any

union protections. So Jane then took this information and a letter from Felix Berto Alalia to the International Longshore and Warehouseman Union International Convention, which happened to be in Hawaii, and they were at the Sheraton Waikiki. Sell Me joined Gene and many a couple of the other KDP activists in Hawaii, and they engineered the passage of the resolution, which for the first time put a mainstream US union on record as concerned about Marcus's treatment of the labor.

Even Csar Shavez's United farm Workers never took a position against Marcos. This wasn't so much a condemnation of Marcus as it was the key cutting edge thing was a was to dispatch an investigative team to go to the

Philippines and look into the poor conditions facing Philipino workers. Then, in the process of trying to get this pass anti I mean pro Marcos elements within the large Union in Hawaii, Local one forty two took the floor to condemn the resolution, saying it lied about this and light about that, and the conditions aren't so bad. And so we could tell they could tell that the local Consul General Trinidad I'll can Sell of the Marcos government was involved in providing

efforts to try to stop this resolution. Well, Jenns tell me had done their homework and they knew that once Local one forty two, the large Hawaiian local came out in favor of the resolution, it was going to pass. So on the floor, Tony Barusso, who's the head of the delegation from Local thirty seven, takes the floor and says, well, I support this resolution and I've been on all these

trade delegations of the Philippines, et cetera. So what Barusso did was basically realized it was going to pass anyway. He comes out and tries to pitch the International to point him as the head of the delegation rather than Gene and Sell.

isn't a condemnation of Marcos. We just want to go to the Philippines and have a look sie and report back at the next convention. So the resolution passed because of the incredibly great political strategy and work that Gene and sell Me brought to bear. So then, believe it or not, that delegation never took place, because within a month both of them lied, you know, were murdered by the tulis On gang.

had book on them. So what happened was they then get rest warrants for Remeal and Galoi and the rest Remealingloy, and that puts then pressure on the higher ups because people are saying, well, what if Ramel and Gloy named Tony Diccato or they were willing to implicate Tony Bruso. So when Rameil and Gloy got arrested, the Tony Barruso still comes into the union hall and we have a big union meeting and Terry Mask confronts him saying, you

know you're not going to run this union anymore. You know, he was trying to take credit for some of the reform reforms of that Gene and Selmy brought about, and slapped her hand down on the desk. You know, when I saw that happen, I said, I'm going to follow that woman anywhere, because here she is in Tony Bruso's union confronting him saying we need a fair dispatch. Three people came forward to be the dispatch. We got bulletproof windows on the dispatch office, and nobody could dispatch other

than these three. Well, Tony breus So dispatch boy plai up to Dillingham, Alaska, to peter Pan, where the foreman of the peter Pan Cannery, guy named Robert sim Pablo, had heard about the murders about to happen. He didn't think it was going to happen, but he was internal to the murder conspiracy. So the police are interested in all of this. But what happened was Brusso is under

a lot of pressure. Little did we know it. But what happened was Tony Diccato gets the mac ten murder weapon away from Themeil and he he planted in a dumpster in West Seattle. And Rudy Schultz, who was a guy that likes to go work, you know, look through dumpsters, founds the murder weapon and gives it to the police. Well gets to the murder. Weapon is registered to Dan Tony Barrusso. So I get a call. I get a call,

you know, by from John Botman in mid July. This is like a five weeks after the murder, saying what's Tony Brusso's full name? I said, Constantine Baruso. And he goes, okay, that matches. I said, what do you got? He goes, you know, sit tight, I'll get back to you in a little bit. So what happens is they go do great police work. They go to Bruso's home. They said, we'd like you to come down to the station. Sure, Sure, he comes down to the station and he and he's

shown the mac ten. They just pull it out of the bag and say what's this. He goes, I've never seen that before. Well then why is this gun registered? Do you? Oh? Oh, well, yeah, that gun there I never saw it got stolen from me. I claimed it on my insurance and the policeman said, well, who's your

insurance agent? Luco Sing? He's up in Capitol Hill. So of course they send the police up there, and Lucio Sing said, well, Tony Bruso did claim some weapons were stolen from his car, but he never claimed this weapon, so his alibi was broken in, you know, in the first half an hour. So they arrest him. We go to the prosecute attorney says, this is great, you got Barrusso. There were some rumors that he had paid money to

the Tulistan gang to get this. These murders happened. You got to arrest Tony Brusso and Norm Mailing the proscuity attorney and join Maita. Let Barruso out of jail, and we go crazy saying how could you do that? His gun's a murder weapon. Any rate, They don't charge Bruso and we're pretty upset with that. But in the meantime, the ramil In Gloy trial is scheduled for September and we're all The Committee for Justice for Domingo and Variance was formed. Elaine co and Bob Santos were co chairs.

I was heading up the legal team. I got my legal team together, John Coughlin, Jim Douglas, Liz shot. That was the legal team that saw this case through for ten years. And the Committee for Justice was so well organized. We had huge memorials for Gene and Semmy we had a march through the International District turned anguish to anger. Thousands of people came forward and we were a movement that was going to seek justice, you know, no matter

who it led to. So the hitman trials coming up, we are filling the courtrooms for the hearings, and then uh Selmy's dying declaration naming the hit men is admitted into evidence. So we're pretty convinced about a conviction for Rameal and Galoy. A witness had come forward. That's Jamie Malabu who saw Remeal and Galoi walking down the alley, Remeal with a brown paper bag getting into their car

right at the time of the murders. So what happened you want me to I'm going to tell you this story about this mystery witness if that's okay now, sure, sure, absolutely, So the evidence is going in well, Johann Maida was doing a great job trying Remeal in Galoi. They had this lay mass out by that. Oh they were gambling, doing a dealing in the Union, I mean in the gambling halls in the International District. So they have a bunch of their gambling buddies come in saying oh no, no,

he was dealing for me. He wasn't shooting anybody, so nobody believed that. But then a mystery witness came forward, and Jim Grubb, who was a lawyer for Ramil, said, the honor of this guy just came forward to my office. He said he had seen pictures of the hit men in the newspapers and he was there. He was at the scene of the murders and those weren't the guys that went into the Union hall, and prosecutor goes crazy.

the courtroom's totally packed. I was sitting next to Cindy and this guy said, well, I'm a construction contractor in Alaska and I just happened to be down in your square and I was trying to find the address of my architect, Alex Bertulius, and I tried calling him up, but he's not in And then I see this guy. One guy goes into the this union hall, kind of this rinky dick union hall across the street, and then he comes out really fast and gets into a green

car and drives away. And then this guy comes out of the union hall hollering and yelling and he collapses. And I said, oh my god, this guy looks like he's been shot. So I ran across the street. What happened? I'd been shot? Who shot you? And the man said, I don't know. And Sidney's fingernails dug into my I'll never forget this into my leg saying what the and so the guy said, I went, I had a CB radio in my car, said, I went over to my car and tried to get nine to one one, but

there was any reception. So I drove around the block trying to get reception. And know nobody was walking down the alley, So I drove up the alley, but there wasn't anybody there, and when I got there, I could see a fireman's helping. I didn't want to get involved, so I left and went back to my home in Port Orchard. Do you see the man that walked into the union hall with you know, with something under his arm. You see him in the corn. No, he's not there,

mister Romeo, stand up, William. Mister Forsyth's name was Levane Malveson Forsyth. Is this the man you saw walking? No, didn't look anything like him. So mister Galois stayed up. Was this the man who walked in there? No, didn't look anything like him. So we're just sitting there saying, oh my god, who is this guy? We have a Committee for Justice meeting that night, and we had the scenarios. One, Forsight's a martian. Two he's a publicity seeker. Three he's

a paid witness. Well, the prosecution used the fact that Forsyth's actually had worked for Howard Hughes and knew about this Mormon will Melvin Dumar. If everybody seen that movie about the Will that supposedly Howard us had given to this guy Forsyth to deliver to Melvin Dumar in the desert. So it sounded like the guy was a total coop, right, That's the way the prosecution presented it, and they didn't

believe him. Well, we ended up taking his deposition. The guy was an FBI informant and a formant for the FBI. And we only discovered dan about two months ago that the FBI in Seattle has twelve hundred and fifty six pages of documents related to this guy's work as an FBI in formant for the Seattle office. In his deposition, he admitted being an FBI informant, admitted he knew Robert

Mayhew out of the Howard Hughes Empire. The guy the Kennedy administration used the contact of mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro. He was a deep us black bag job. He had done a lot of deliveries at any rate. We found all this out, but he never admitted he was an agent. He was operating out of Seattle. He said he was operating out of southern California. So that's who this So we we had to look at it and say, okay, that means the FBI and someone in the FBI knew

this was going to happen. I asked him what was his modus operande? What did you do for the FBI? I said, well, I'd be given a phone call. I would be told to go to a certain location, observe what happened, and write a report. I said, well, did you write a report on June first about the murders. He goes, yeah, well then, and he actually had a copy of the report. I said, well, who did you send it to? He said, I'm not trying real hard to remember. But he never admitted he was operated out

of the Seattle FBI office. And we've now got a Freedom of Information Act request of the FBI to give us those documents, and they're stonewalling us. They're not giving us a single Document's been almost three years. Wow. So that was the that was the That was our understanding then when we're looking at this guy coming forward that oh, there's very powerful interest that don't want Ramel and Gloyd

to get convicted. They don't want this to go up the chain and start, you know, look looking at the higher levels, which by that time we suspected included the Marcos regime and that so we then, well, the prosecution brought uh prosecution not only against Ramel and Gloyd, but

against Tony Dictato. In the meantime, boy Plai had absconded, he was gone, So they got Dictato convicted, and then we had to turn to our own civil lawsuit in order to get additional discovery because it was clear to us that the prosecuting attorneys.

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But we were able to talk very briefly to Robert san Pablo and after that visit, sam Pablo then decides to turn state's evidence and talks to the Seattle Police Department that he overheard a conversation in which Dictata was saying, uh, you know, we're going to kill Verness and that beat boy Plai told him that if he turns state evidence, he's going to kill him and blow up his car.

I'm not sure in which order. So that that made sam Pablo decide to seek protection from the police department, and he became a very key witness in the convictions of Rameio, Gloy and Dictato. And we credit Robert sam Pablo with having, you know, uncovered and provided very valuable information. But Simpablo also testify that Pili told him he was that they were to be paid five thousand dollars by Barrusso for the hit.

up your assertions, aren't you? And you find with this that at some point the prosecution and you are not in agreement.

ladder to Tony Brusso. So what we did is, you know, we had Genen sellmy was were beloved in the community. So through Angel Don Diego, Lynn Domingo, sell Me's sister Sidney Domingo, through our contact Dave Dell and others, we put the word out through a call for Justice that anybody with any information about this murder should come forward. And that's what got us Jamim Malabo because he was a kid, he was like eighteen years old. He was really afraid and his mother said, you got to go

to the police. You got to go to the police. And Lynn Domingo encouraged him to go to the police, but he didn't want to go. But finally he screwed his courage to the sticking post and thank you Jamie Malabo for coming forward. But and he came forward and testified he saw Rameil and Gooy coming down the alley, very important witness. So we did provide the context in detail to the prosecution and witnesses, I mean, you know,

all the members of the reform movement. Emily van Bronkhors, another true heroine in this saga, said that she saw Tony Dictato meeting with Brusso on the thirtieth of May, but right before the murders. So uh, don't turn over to the prosecution attorney the pursuit of justice. But then we met a brick wall when it came to the higher ups. And that's what frustrated us the most, both with you know, with what happened to boy Pelai sometime later,

but also principally with Baruso. So we I put together a twelve page memo here's the evidence against Bruso, and gave it to the prosecuting attorney all the people who would testify. For instance, on the murder weapon, Bruso claimed he had never seen it, but Dave Della said that he had. He had shown people that mac Tan the Christmas before the murders and sell me believe it or not, said today, boy, I don't want to be on the

other end of that piece. So that was very vivid testimony that that would be something you don't forget, right, and so that we did everything we could to knock down Bruso's alibi, and it just they just never they didn't charge. They didn't charge him until way later. But then getting into the boy Pelai story, is that okay now to talk a little bit about him.

Marcos dictatorship and the US involvement. US government intelligence was involved in backing the Marcos regime. And our basic theory was that Marcos had sent his spies to the US to monitor and operate against the US based anti Marcos leadership, including the Democratic Filipinos including Gene Selmy and others. You're not supposed to have spies military attache is attached to

the consulate or identified. Well, we sue Marcos and we get him served in Maryland, I mean in DC at a national when he is here for a state visit with Ronald Reagan. We had an investigator who as a former Jesuit priest who had a collar, and so he's waiting for Marcos at the National Press Club, looking very you know, obscure, and Marcos kind of walks, believe it or not, was walking down the hall. He sees here's

his father, just you know, Catholic priests. He says, well, hello father, and Bill Davis walks up to Marcus, says here, I have something for you and serves them with the papers. Well,

we were celebrating. We had a big press conference that was covered that we had served Marcus with the murders of US citizens, even though by that time we you know, we had some evidence, but we didn't have as much as we eventually got so, I'll I'm staying in Maryland, and believe it or not, I just said, you know what, someone said, boy Pelei was in Maryland. I look up at the Maryland phone book and in southern Maryland, near DC Tero de Rico Domingus. I look up the Domingo's name.

There wasn't any tayaror Dericos, but there was dimingas there was three of them. I call the first number and say, hi, is boy Peli there? And the woman in the end of the line says, oh, he just left. Who's calling. I couldn't believe my luck. It was a simple phone book, a simple phone call. We now know where Peli is. Excuse me. So I called the proscuing attorney, Joanna. I said, I found Pelai. What where are you? I've been Maryland. So she takes three or four weeks, gets the Maryland

State Patrol swat team to surround the house. A young man walks out of the house, gets in his car, and drives away. The swat team then raids it. Well, that was Peli that walked out, and the excuse for not arresting him was while we didn't think he had a limp. We we thought that Peli had a limp, and we didn't want to have a shootout in the neighborhood in case any rate, so plai then we lose him. Well, then about three months later we hear that he's in

the International District at the gambling halls again. So I, my investigator, and I Christopher Hershey, get a room in the Bush Hotel in the International District overlooking these gambling halls down you know, from six floors up. We do a steak at him and we find we we see Peli and believe it or not, I took a picture of him from the from the Bush Hotel and there he was in front of a car later identified the next day is Tony Brusso's car. So I go to

the prosecutor, said, we've got Peli. Oh okay, great, all right, well we'll we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll arrest them. You just stay, you know, stay off the streets. You're you're in danger down there. I have my bulletproof vest I was packing a forty five, but I wasn't on the streets. I was up and I was up in the Bush Hotel, right. So then we heard we had it foremant within the gambling halls. I'm not going to name that person. But the guy calls us and says, Okay, you guys aren't

gonna believe this. But two six foot two white guys in gray suits and thin ties walk into the six h nine last night the gambling hall and asked, does anybody know what boy Peterli is? We're looking for him. I go, you're kidding me. I said, this is horrible. So I called Joeanne up and said, Joe Anne, did you send the FBI in there?

to these people. They had an inside witness, a guy named clevit Er anyway. So we were just outraged that the FBI had tipped off PLI. We shut down the we shut down the uh, you know, the the uh, the little search thing we had from the Bush hotel. And then two weeks later we found out he's there again. So we set up our steak out. We watch him. I see him, see him down there, and I call I. Don't call him, prosecutor, call John Botman, the police Department, the SPD. I said, you want to cuff He says,

you want to get Pelisis. Yeah, I'll cough Peelis. He's down on you know, the sixth and you know, and laying in the in the I D Boom. But within five minutes there's three cop cars arresting p LII. We go to the prosecutor. I said, fantastic, now you've got PLI. Turn PLI. He'll testify against Barusso turn BARUSO. He'll testify against the higher ups. And I told Normili, I said, Norm, if you let Pela out of jail, he's a dead man. Well they held him for seventy two hours and let

him go. A month later, he's got two bullet holes in his head. Convicted of murder was a guy named Val Barbara, and the other guy that was implicated was a guy named Estebana Blanc who would come from the Philippines with hundreds of dollars bills in his pocket and then left and flew back to the Philippines the next day they tried. So the main murder witness to the murders that could have implicated the higher ups, boy to July, was right out of jail, never charged, and then was

found murdered. And we knew then and there that the cover up had won a huge, huge victory and that we had to turn our sites to our civil suit where we had subpoena power and started taking depositions and getting travel documents of Barusso and started, you know, took Foresight's deposition.

was used against the Klan. It was the fact it

was called the Kukux Klan Act. Well, we thought, what better use of this than against the murderous dictatorship of the Philippines, And so we brought the lawsuit against Fernand Marcos, the Republic of the Philippines under the Foreign Sovereigns Immunity Act and against the US government for the fact that we had been told just as a background, we had hired an investigator who had extensive ties in US military intelligence who informed us that the files in the Naval

Investigative Service were starting to be disappearing. We should file Freedom of Information Act requests, but he informed us that Naval Intelligence in the Bay Area had sent to both the FBI and to Marcos Intelligence a memo stating that Jean Verness had come through the Bay Area and was traveling to the Philippines with two hundred and ninety thousand dollars to provide to the anti Marcos movement in in the Philippines. Well, Jane didn't have two hundred and ninety thousand,

he had twenty nine hundred. Someone maybe the informant or Naval intelligence had dropped a decimal point. Well, that obviously would have incurred, as we later found out when we took Marcos's deposition, incurred the intense interests of Marcos Intelligence in the activities of gene fareness, both in the Philippines and in the US. So we thought that US intelligence was complicit with the Marcos regime, and we proved it.

But unfortunately, the first thing that happened in our civil suit is the US government says, no, no, you can't sue Marcos. He's immunity, he's the head of state, and Marcos was dismissed from the lawsuit. They then brought a loss of motion to dismiss the US out of the case, and the judge after six months granted the motion. So the US has gone. All we have is the Republic of the Philippines. The judge allowed us to amend our

complaint to make it more specific. But meantime there was appeals and appeals in Alls we have is the ability to start taking some deposition. So we took. What happened is we took Tony Bruss's deposition. Believe it or not, it was like three days before Peli was rubbed out. We took Brussa's deposition, and we asked him he took the Fifth Amendment on anything having to do with the murders. But he said, I said, well, after the ISLEW convention,

did you go anywhere? He says, No, I didn't go anywhere. I came back to Seattle. Well, did you have any occasion to have any income other than your job is at Boeing? He worked at Boeing and also at the Union. No,

I didn't have any other income. Well, what he didn't know is we had Subpoene in his travel records and Dan the day he got back to Seattle after the ISLEW convention, he booked a flight down to San Francisco on the sixteenth of May to return on the seventeenth of May, and had stayed, according to his credit card, at a hotel within a few blocks of the Philippine Consulate on Sutter in San Francisco. At the time, we

had no idea what this was about. We just knew that he had taken this trip, and then he lied about it and denied it in his deposition, So it was kind of like, all right, you know, put this in a back burner for now. We took Foresight's deposition and we started taking depositions of some of the pro Marcos people in Hawaii. Well, then the face of history occurred and in August of nineteen eighty three, in the

Middle win our lawsuit is still doing discovery. Beninho Akino returns to the Philippines to run against Marcos, and he is on the airplane and five gendarmes when the plane lands come on and haul him off, and he's gunned down before he even touches Philippine soil on the tarmac. And everybody, of course suspects that Marcos in his military

had General of Air were involved. So then that set in motion a chain of events that led to the People's Power Revolution throwing Marcos out of power in February of nineteen eighty six. Our lawsuits still barely of live

right right. But when Marcos is overthrown, we slapped a subpoena on him the day he got off Hiccam Air Force Base and subpoena the US Custom Services because he had brought with him thousands of pages of financial documents with him, because he wanted to know where his billions were stored around the world in his secret bank accounts, because that's what he had done is rip off the Filipino people. He got a percentage of every single contract ever cut in the Philippines for any work of any

substantial nature of it. So we've looked through these documents and it was interesting because in the bundle of documents, there was a two page document that was an itemization of expenditures out of the Mabui Corporation founded on July seventh, nineteen seventy seven. Seven seven seventy seven. Marcus's lucky number was seven. We knew this, and it turned out to

have been on the bottom. It says I acknowledge receiving one million dollars from Philippine National Bank for intelligence purposes under the authority of General Vair, who is Marcos's henchman. And then it has an itemization of expenditures out of this slush fund right well on under special security projects. On May seventeenth, the Dave Barusso had flown down to the Bay area and came back the next day there was an unexplained expenditure of fifteen thousand dollars for a

special security project. We had taken We had taken Burrusso's bank records and you know, went throw him with a fine toooth come between right before the murders and the end of the summer in August, Brusso, believe it or not, had deposited close to ten thousand dollars in cash in his bank account. Go figure, so he has ten thousand of cash deposited into his bank account and pays the

hitman five thousand dollars bingo fifteen thousand dollars. We now have the smoking gun, because it on its face it said this is for intelligence purposes. They also had campaign contributions to Reagan and Carter and Dianne Feinstein, and all of this money that they had gotten from Marcos. Was operated out of this guy named doctor lee Neel Malabed, who was a pro Marcos doctor ally in the Bay Area, who had tried to use the radio station as a

pro Marcos vehicle KJASS but it was shut down. But this was a intelligence slash fund that he operated, and we then had this fifteen thousand dollars payment. So as soon as we get these documents and realized we've got a smoking gun, we take Marcos's deposition, we take Malabid's deposition, and most and they all took the Fifth Amendment as it relates to the murders or any of their finances.

But the beauty of it was that Marcos admitted that if someone like Jean had come to the Philippines to aid the anti Marcos opposition, he would have been surveiled. And we proved that Marcos intelligence picked up the ISLW

resolution and you know, was very upset about it. And our suspicion was that the Counsulate and Marcos had told Baruso get down to the get down to San Francisco because there was a lieutenant colonel in the military whose name we still don't know, who came from the Philippines and met with Baruso and the Consulate General in San Francisco,

and that's where the money changed hands. And so Burrusso then returns to Seattle and realizes that Dictato, the normal person he'd used to do something like this, was also pissed off at Jeranus for not dispatching his boys, and so he concox Us murder conspiracy which included the gang. He provides the gun as security and insurance for the murders that he stood behind it, and he provides the money.

And the only thing, the two things they didn't count on was that Selmy would live and name the hitmen, and that Ciddey Domingo and Terry mast and we would fight a committee for a form a committee for justice and fight on for decades saying it's never over until all people that were responsible for this murder are brought to trial or implicated. And what we did then was ad Marcos back into the lawsuit because he was no longer they head of state. So Marcos was added as

a defendant. Now we're going to try and Ferdinand Marcos personally. We took a videotape perpetuation deposition to Marcos. The play to the jury. Same with a Melba, and same with doctor Malabed, who had just lame excuses. He had no excuse for what the fifteen thousand dollars before. He had no explanation for where this money went.

not answering questions. Tell us about that, right.

vere had had basically operatism. In the US, we had received a Defense Intelligence Agency circular which was Basically, it was leaked to US which identified the two or five Marcos military attichaise attached to the embassy, and they were described as here to monitor and possibly operate against the anti Marcos movement. Well, we know what operate against means that includes use of violence. So US intelligence knew about it. But we used the US intelligence to prove what I

call the Philippine infiltration plan. So with this conspiracy theory, alls we had to do is prove that Marcos was initiated and part of the conspiracy to spy on and operate against his opposition in the United States, including Akino, including members of the Modern Opposition, and certainly including the

Union of Democratic Filipinos. So we didn't have to prove that Marcos signed the death warrant for Gene and Selmy, just that he had this conspiracy and that the overt act of the conspiracy included murdering Benino Aquino on the tarmac, included murdering Gene and Selmy and Seattle. So the beauty of the civil suit was, when you take the Fifth Amendment, the jury can infer from the answers of taking the

Fifth Amendment. The answers would be incriminatory. So we said to Marcos, We asked him, well, Mark, you know I never call him president. I said, mister, Marcos did the did the Mabui Corporation? Was that used to pay for the assassinations of gene Vern and sell me Domingo on June first, I'll take the fifth Amendment. Well, that means the jury could conclude. The answer was, yes, it was. They don't have to conclude that, but they're entitled to it conclude that. So in the criminal case, you can't

comment on someone's taking the Fifth Amendment. You can't say, well, he must be guilty. He took the fifth. In a civil suit, that's exactly what you can do. So that way we were able to get Marcos reinstated on the theory of this conspiracy theory, which was a live theory because it was proven by US government documents. We even

got documents from the State Department. They were extraordinarily helpful, and I was fortunate because I went to Pomona College by international relations mentor and college professor Michael Armacrost left Pomona after I had graduated and became the third in in the Schultz George Schultz's administration at the State Department

under Ronald Reagan. He was in third in charge of the State Department and had been the US Ambassador to the philip This is my friend Michael Armaicoss, So I had gone and visited him, saying, boy, we sure could use some documents from the State Department, and he told me just keep pressing, and we ended up getting a dynamite document in which the ambassadors of the Philippines, the US Ambassador the Philippines confronts Marcos about spies in the

US and saying you can't send your spies here. This is under Carter, President Carter, and then saying bus, you can't be funding he said Ilocanos with American wives. Now Malabed was from Ilocos Norte, which is where Marcos was fun and it was also by the way where Tony Bruce was from the Ilicanos. So Ilakano with American wives described Lionel Maalabed, you can't be giving money to these people because it violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act. You

can't give money for even media propaganda purposes. So the US State Department confronted Marcos on both of the things which are central to our theory both the Baboui corporation as well was the Marcos spies in the us SO armorcaust and a guy named James Nack from the State Department proved very useful for us improving the case against Marcos. But we still needed, you know, expert witnesses to tie

all this together. So we had his expert witnesses, a former Philippine military intelligence officer, Bona Facio Diego, who knew the inner workings of the NISA and the Marcos spy operations, had done papers on it. He connected all the dots about gene travel to the Philippines was picked up. Their work at the isle W Convention was transmitted to General Vair and then the Intelligence flush fund was used to pay for the murders. We had a former CIA agent,

Ralph McGehee testify. We had Richard Falk, professor of international law, testify out the human rights violations of the Philippine dictatorship. So it was quite a trial and it occurred in November of nineteen eighty nine, but about a month or in September before the trial, Marcos passed away. But fortunately we had taken his deposition and were able to play his deposition at the at the trial.

from power. I mean, obviously Terry on a much smaller scale, but still Terry had had was very kind of really empowered, not only because of what she had done, which was tremendously courageous, but also what the People's Power movement had done in the Philippines. So we're we're taking Marcos's deposition and there's Terry confronting the man that had her husband killed essentially right, and it was very tense. But then there came a time that the tension was broken because

I was in the process of asking Marcos. I said, mister Marcus, could you tell the jury, because we had on videotape, tell the jury why you declared martial law? And Marcos expounded, well, the companists were bombing the buildings, there were scales and we had to b And I said, well, isn't the fact that you were under the Philippine Constitution of nineteen thirty six that you were prevented from running for a third term in nineteen seventy two when he

declared martial law? Oh no, no, no, that's not true. And just then one of the we're on his estate on the shore in Oahu, a cockroach, a flying, indestructivele Hawaiian cockroach, flies in the room and lands on his shoulder. I didn't see it, and Marcos didn't see because we're in ten on the question and answer. But the cameraman saw the cockroach. He's going, what is that? So this cockroach is sitting there on his shoulder, and I said,

are you're sure about that that you could? He goes ho default on the phone and the cockroach starts making a move towards Marcos's neck and I call him the cockroach of truth. It's going to bite Marcos in the neck if Marcos doesn't tell the truth. Well, Richard Hyde, Marcos's lawyer, sees his cockroach and he goes boom. He knocks the cockroach off Marcos's neck and without missing a beat, Mark Marcos looks at his lawyer says, was that the wrong answer? And we play for the jury, and the

jury howled. Well, it just broke the tension when that happened. And from then on, you know, even though Marcus continually took the fifth, he gave us very valuable information about his spy agencies, his network of Marcus agents. The fact that if someone like Vernus had he said, if someone like Vernus had come to the Philippines doing what you said he did, his entire government would have spied on him. Well, we thought, we thought that was pretty helpful.

the heart of our case was Leguy and Kyllion. Because Terry was asking for no money for herself. It was all for her daughters. And so what we were able to do was say, what does it mean? How do we place a value, a monetary value on what a parent brings to a three year old and a one year old daughter. That man that cooked the meals for her then was the only one that could make her a birthday cake, Magaya, the man who wouldn't be at her high school graduation, the presence in her life as

she meets and starts dating boys or girls. So how do you place a value on what a parent's worth in our society? Well, what if you paid them minimum wage? Most people would say parents are worth more than minimum wage, particularly if you're a parent. I said, well, if you if you gave sell me, I mean, if you gave these kids damages for the minimum wage that people would have compensated sell me for, then your verdict should be for two million dollars for the lifetime of not having

that parent for each of the child. Well, it's a crude way of kind of putting a monetary value on what parents bring. But it wasn't because of the money. It was because of the character of house Terry and Cindy and the family described Selmy's relationship to his daughters. Jean was not married and didn't have kids, so he was unable to recover any substantial damages other than his future earnings mind us what he would have spent, which is,

you know, not very much. So that's how we presented damages. The defense in the case was the Seattle Police Department saw this murder ten years ago. It was a dispute over dispatch for gambling in Alaska because these du us on gang wanted to gamble run the gambling in Alaska and wanted to get their cut and they weren't able to because Jane and Selly had come up with this fair dispatch thing and they were murdered because of that case closed. It's nothing to do with the Marcos regime.

That's just playing upon your prejudices because Marco has been overthrown. These were people who quote unquote labored in smaller vineyards. Marcos would never have heard of them because they were so unimportant. So we had prepared for that defense and talked about how important that resolution has made the headlines in the Philippines, and how important was that Gina met with the Union of Democratic I mean the large May First movement in the Philippines.

some very bad stuff that you are intelligence. Why why was US intelligence taking the size of Marcos in this situation. Well, they had a large naval base Subic Bay and it all relates to that. But no, we didn't have we didn't have the we didn't have that document. So there was nothing about two hundred ninety thousand dollars, even though it was a crucial aspect of the motive that Marcos had,

it wasn't admitted to evidence. But we used the But but then we even had better evidence, which was the intelligent slush fund used to pay for the murders, so that that came in very handy. But you know what I said in my closing argument was was it was it was made to look like a dispute over dispatch. But as his whole life passed before his eyes and the seconds after that burst of gunfire, SELM. Domingo had one thing in mind. There's one last thing I must do.

My life must not be in vain. The principles and ideals I fought for were worth living for. Because Selmy said to themselves that the perpetrators of this foul crime must be brought to justice. That was his last wish, and we must answer it. That's what I implored the

jury to do. But in that instance, when he said remealing galoy, this murder plot began to unravel, not just for the hitmen, not just for Remealing Galoi, not just for Peli and Dictato, but those who put them up to it, for those who stood in the shadows, who covered their tracks. Because the tracks began to be uncovered,

the gun was planted, fingers began to be pointed. But the other thing the perpetrators of this murder did not count on was the courage and tenacity of Cherry Mass, Cindy Domingo, and Barber vereness and their determination that justice would be done to get to the bottom of these murders. To me, that was the crucial argument where the jury said said, we're with these women, and Linda Barber, who is the jury foreman, that later told me that they

were with them. They were with those women because of the courage that they had had to bring this case against one of the most powerful dictatorships in the world.

wants to see us in chambers. You know, was there a verdict? No, no verdict? I go, oh shit, what the jury has a question. Well, you know, if you're a planist lawyer, Dan, and the jury has a question, you screwed up. You They thought of something that you didn't think of and you should have thought of it as your fault. And I went in there just with my shit on the floor. So I walk into the chambers and you know, there's John Coffee for Marcos and

Katel Fury for Malibed. She was the lawyer for Malabed. And a little smile on Judge Rossin, who is a fantastic federal chrial judge by the way, smile on her face, and she goes the jury has a question. I go, oh my god, what is it. The question of the jury is, can we award more money than the planist lawyer has asked for enclosing argument? Yeah, I just said, oh my god, no, I mean that like never happens,

because I had thought I'd asked for too much. Oh yeah, sure, four million dollars yet And so then we then there we knew we'd won. It was just no matter how much the damages are. And so the judge says, well, I'm gonna answer the question. Yes, we read the instructions. You are the sole determination of damages. You can reward whatever you want. So after the jury verdict came in and there was just tumult in the courtroom, I mean

every single day of the Committee for Justice. This is an eight and a half years after the murders Dan. The courtroom was actually packed with supporters and friends and family, big cheers, The judge that yeah, you know how you see on TV if there's one more outbreak up. But to clear this court room, the judges let it go because there's this pin up, you know, frustration, anger, excitement, and the boom just unleashed and Laguya runs up to

council table. What happened? What happened? We win? Do we win? You know? And Terry s we won? We won? And we talked to Linda Barbera, the fourth person after the jury effect. She came to the victory party and she said, you know, the regret the jury had was we never got a chance to meet Gene and sell Me. You brought him to life through your testimony. And the reason we did what we did was mister White said that if the average parent was worth you know, minimum wage

at the time, then you should award two million. But sell Me was not an average parent. He was far better than that. So they basically doubled what I asked for. And the final award from the jury was fifteen point one million dollars to the estates of Semi Domingo and Gene Bareness. And then that was at the time the

highest personal injury award in Washington. State history, and it was the first and only time any foreign had a state had ever been held liable for the murder of US citizens on US wel and it still is the only time this has ever happened. So it's a huge precedent in international human rights. And we you know, it's all because of the work of the Committee for Justice for Nemingo and Vereness and Terry Maskin Sidney Domingo and

Barbara Verenas that this verdict came about. And it was only after that verdict came that we then went back to the prosecuting attorney's office and said, now you got to charge Brusso and they did charge him with murder on our theory that Marcos had them killed, and he was convicted, sent us to life in prison, as was Taccato Rameil Galois, and Bruso died in prison pretty much a lonely and broken man.

Me Domingo on March twentieth in Seattle. If you're in the Seattle area, come by the Labor Temple twenty eight hundred First Avena. We're going to have a lot of great speakers Jeff Robinson from the CLU who tried the case with me. We'll speak. We have local politicians and people who supported our work speaking as well, so come on by.