Richard Hibey, defense lawyer in cases of international intrigue, dies at 82
Richard Hibey, a Washington defense lawyer whose courtroom flair and international expertise attracted clients of infamy and intrigue, including ousted Philippines autocrat Ferdinand Marcos and Jonathan Pollard,the Navy intelligence analyst who leaked U.S. secrets to Israel, died Feb. 19 at his home in Washington. He was 82.
His son David Hibey confirmed the death but gave no specific cause.
Hibey (pronounced HIGH-bee) built a reputation as an artful legal strategist in high-profile cases that were tried as much before jurors as in the court of public opinion.
During the 1980s and ’90s, he was drawn into some of the biggest international dramas, including Pollard’s espionage case and allegations that Marcos and wife, Imelda, looted a fortune from the Philippines. He also represented Clair E. George, a former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service who was accused of making false statements to Congress about the Iran-contra scandal, which involved covert American arm sales to Iran to fund anti-leftist rebels in Nicaragua.
In the American Bar Association journal Litigation in 1991, Hibey described himself as a legal “gunslinger.” That kind of confidence, he said, was what his clients needed.
“The administration of justice in this country is predicated on an adversary process,” he said. “I figure if I do my end well, then justice will be served. I think that is a moral position and it allows me to be able to represent people who are considered by others to be among the sleaze bags of the 20th century.”
Hibey never adopted the public swagger of some other big-name defense lawyers such as F. Lee Bailey or William Kunstler. Instead, Hibey cautiously discussed the facts of a case with journalists and meticulously avoided comments that he felt could give the prosecution an edge.
“I have no deep ideological convictions that bring me here,” he once said. “I view myself, first and foremost, as a trial lawyer.”
During the 1992 trial of George, Hibey tried to portray the chief witness, another ex-CIA official, as the real concealer of facts from the Reagan-era operation.
Alan Fiers had pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress.
Wasn’t that lying? Hibey asked Fiers on the witness stand in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“It was not a true statement,” he said.
“It was, therefore, a lie,” Hibey pressed.
“It was not a true statement,” Fiers repeated.
Hibey snapped back: “Do you have difficulty with the word ‘lie’?”
The trial ended in a hung jury in August 1992. On retrial, George was convicted but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush before sentencing. (Also pardoned were Fiers, former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and several others implicated in Iran-contra.)
During the legal saga with the Marcoses — who fled the Philippines in 1986 after an uprising brought Corazon Aquino to power — Hibey represented the couple while lawyers for the new Philippine government probed allegations of massive personal graft during two decades of Marcos rule.
In a 1986 deposition at the Marcos villa in Honolulu, Ferdinand Marcos replied 197 times: “I claim the right against selfincrimination and the right to remain silent.” In a rare bit of out-of-court showmanship, Hibey sometimes wore floral Hawaiian shirts during meetings with reporters.
Marcos and his wife were indicted in 1988 on racketeering charges by a federal grand jury in New York, accused of siphoning more than $100 million in cash and assets from the Philippines. The disgraced Philippine leader died in September 1989 before standing trial.
As the trial for Imelda Marcos approached in 1990, Hibey withdrew from the case over possible conflicts of interest. Prosecutors planned to call one of his legal partners, Stanton Anderson, as a witness over taped phone calls with a Marcos associate. Imelda Marco was acquitted in July 1990.
With Pollard, Hibey negotiated a guilty plea for the former Navy counterterrorism analyst, who was arrested in 1985 on charges of passing secrets to Israel that included details on people who had cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies. Under the plea deal, Pollard was to receive a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperating with investigators.
Pollard, however, repeatedly violated the arrangement by making public statements, including granting interviews to Israeli media and others. His then-wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, told “60 Minutes” that the couple had no regrets about passing classified documents to Israel.
“I was really apoplectic,” Hibey recalled in a 2023 oral history for the D.C. District Court’s historical society, “because it had undone what was to be at the essence of my plea for mercy.”
Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in March 1987. (Henderson-Pollard received two concurrent five-year prison sentences.) Pollard was released from custody in 2015, and he immigrated to Israel five years later. While in prison, Pollard filed court papers asserting that Hibey provided “inadequate and unprofessional handling” of the sentencing phase.
Among Hibey’s other clients was CBS producer Mary Mapes during an independent investigation into documents used in a “60 Minutes Wednesday” report in September 2004 on whether President George W. Bush fulfilled his Texas Air National Guard obligations during the Vietnam War. The report, which prompted Mapes’s dismissal, said the “60 Minutes” team failed to authenticate the documents. The story also led to correspondent Dan Rather’s resignation.
The 2015 movie “Truth” starred Cate Blanchett as Mapes and Robert Redford as Rather. Hibey was played by the Australian actor Andrew McFarlane.
The film begins with the line: “Mr. Hibey will see you now.”
LEGAL AID BEGINNINGS
Richard Anthony Hibey was born in Utica, N.Y., on June 20, 1941. His father was a salesman, and his mother did occasional work as a bookkeeper.
He graduated in 1962 from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and received a law degree three years later from Georgetown University’s law school. After a fellowship, he joined a public defender agency in Washington representing indigent criminal defendants.
He shifted in 1968 to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. In late 1969, he led the prosecution of Billie Austin Bryant, who escaped from federal prison in Virginia and was charged with killing two FBI agents while on the run.
During the trial, Hibey remembered a detail from investigators. Bryant, when handed the pistol allegedly used in the killings, spun the gun around his trigger finger. Hibey gave the handgun to Bryant on the witness stand. He did the same cocky twirl in full sight of the jury. Bryant was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences.
In 1972, Hibey entered private practice and was a partner in several law firms. Hibey was lead counsel for a U.S. Olympic Committee probe into the alleged bribery in the awarding of the 2002 Winter Games to Salt
Lake City. A report in 1999 led to the expulsion of six International Olympic Committee members. Hibey retired in 2017.
In addition to his son David, survivors include Hibey’s wife of 56 years, the former Mary Ellen Leary; another son, Justin; a sister; two brothers; and three grandchildren.
Hibey described his legal approach as trying to pare a case down to its simplest terms: disregarding the ideology and background of a client and figuring out what could be done within the law.
“An unpopular client,” he said, “nonetheless deserved the best representation that could be given in the circumstances.”