General
John F. Keenan, U.S. Judge in Myerson and Marcos Trials, Dies at 94
He was impatient with courtroom theatrics, and the Manhattan trials of the commissioner and ex-beauty queen Bess Myerson and the former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos had plenty.
John F. Keenan, a longtime federal judge in Manhattan who presided over the high-profile trials of Bess Myerson, a popular former cultural-affairs commissioner in New York City and ex-beauty queen, and Imelda Marcos, the extravagant former first lady of the Philippines, died on Sunday at his home in the Bronx. He was 94.
His death was confirmed by Edward Friedland, the district executive of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.
A no-nonsense former prosecutor, Judge Keenan was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.
Five years later, he was presiding in the case of Ms. Myerson, a former Miss America, who was charged with bribing a state judge to reduce the support payments that her lover at the time was making to his estranged wife.
In 1990, Judge Keenan was again on the bench when Ms. Marcos, the widow of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines, stood trial on charges of having joined her husband in stealing more than $200 million from their nation’s treasury and investing much of it in prime Manhattan real estate.
Ms. Marcos, famous for her spendthrift ways, including owning more 1,000 pairs of shoes, had fled to the United States with her husband after popular unrest ended his repressive rule in 1986. Mr. Marcos, also indicted, died before the trial.
