U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, who has endured a rare public censure by the federal judiciary, the threat of impeachment and removal from several cases for questionable conduct, now faces demands to account for $5 million or more in apparently missing trust funds.
Lawyers for rival Filipino groups laying claim to the seized assets of late Philippines Dictator Ferdinand Marcos have petitioned a federal appeals court to demand that Real provide a detailed accounting of $35.3 million entrusted to him nearly a decade ago as U.S. courts were pondering who should receive the money.
The appeal, made public Wednesday, does not allege wrongdoing by Real. Rather, it disparages his single page of cryptically described account activity as raising concerns about whether the full amount and any earned interest has been returned, say lawyers who filed the petition last month with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Real, 85, has been the subject of controversy since shortly after his appointment to the federal bench by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. He imposed a divisive busing program on Pasadena in 1970, took on leading Scientologists in the 1980s and amassed allegations of misconduct and imperiousness in at least 70 rulings in which he refused to explain his decisions.
In November 2006, the 9th Circuit publicly reprimanded Real for improperly seizing control of a bankruptcy case involving a woman whose probation he was supervising. That case prompted a House Judiciary Subcommittee to consider his impeachment. The 9th Circuit has often overturned Real's decisions and has removed at least eight cases from his court amid allegations of bias or misconduct.
In the challenge to his handling of Marcos' funds, Real's vague report on account activity over the past decade referred to $98 million in unspecified security purchases and $118 million in unspecified security sales, despite his own order against trading account assets and a 9th Circuit edict that he refrain from disbursing money until a final court judgment. It was impossible to verify whether the figures provided by Real were accurate or comprehensive.
Real has presided since the early 1990s over the protracted legal battle to recover Marcos' misappropriated public funds.
