Monday, Oct. 22, 1990

Business Notes LAWSUITS

Actor George Hamilton scored his biggest film hit in the 1979 vampire spoof Love at First Bite. Now court records in Los Angeles show that Hamilton may have helped former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda bleed their country's treasury. The papers, filed in a Philippine government effort to recover more than $5 billion that the Marcoses are accused of looting from government coffers, indicate that the couple may have funneled some $12 million through the actor's bank accounts.

Hamilton, a close friend of Imelda Marcos' in the 1980s, testified that a Marcos associate gave him $5.5 million in 1983 for an abortive film project. Hamilton returned the money to a Hong Kong bank that proved to have ties to Marcos. In another transaction, a Marcos crony lent Hamilton $6 million, including $4 million that was secured by the actor's Beverly Hills estate. Hamilton later sold the home to a buyer close to Marcos. While Hamilton's lawyer conceded that his client may have been a "tool for someone," he argued that the actor "would not knowingly participate in any transaction that has any taint."