Richard Hirschfeld, Ex-Associate of Muhammad Ali
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Richard Hirschfeld, a colorful confidant of boxing champ Muhammad Ali and a lawyer with a checkered past who implicated ousted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in a plot to regain power, killed himself Tuesday while jailed on federal charges in Miami. He was 57.
Hirschfeld died the same day that final arrangements had been made to move him to Norfolk, Va., for trial. He had been on the lam for more than eight years until his arrest in October at a riverfront home in Fort Lauderdale.
Hirschfeld accompanied Ali to the Middle East in 1985 in a highly publicized attempt to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon. They later had a falling out over the legal rights to Ali’s life story.
Hirschfeld was representing Marcos when he secretly recorded their conversations about the takeover plot and took the tapes to a congressional committee in 1987.
He was convicted in 1991 of securities and tax charges and pleaded guilty to criminal contempt in 1986 in a case involving the Securities and Exchange Commission.
