Hottest gig in town He owns a Humvee, pays $65,000 for his suits, has 60 houses and loves to rub shoulders with celebrities and politicians . . . but can this man save Schapelle Corby from jail? Cindy Wockner reports 07aug05
THE phone rings. "Hello darling, how are you today?" a male voice purrs down the line. Puzzled by the warm intimacy of the greeting, I ask: "Who is this?" "What, you forget me already? Don't you miss me already? It's Hotman," he says. Of course, it's that Hotman or as his newest client calls him, "One Hot Man". How the hell could I forget him? Only the day before I had met Hotman Paris Hutapea face-to-face for the first time and listened almost agape as he regaled me with not only his legal pursuits and triumphs, but his personal victories as well, his tales of the gorgeous models and beautiful soapie stars he has been "close to". It goes on and on. The year he spent working in a big Sydney law firm, where his first task was to calculate how many beautiful secretaries there must be on the 30-floor firm of 300 lawyers. Then to go after them. It's hard to know whether to take him seriously. I am at a loss as to whether I should laugh or take offence at the stream of brash and politically incorrect comments that flow from him at a rate of knots. "I am not a very good husband, I am not really a loyal husband, like 99 per cent of Indonesians," he tells me. "You know, based on a recent survey, two out of three married men in Indonesia commit adultery. I would say it's more like 2.9 from three. "But I am a very good father," Hotman says seriously, explaining how he always wakes his three children at 5am so they can have breakfast together before he straps on his pistols and fastens on the diamonds for his drive in his Humvee through the "jungle" of Jakarta to the office. "I always check whether they do their homework. I try to come home earlier than 9pm and I check their homework," he says, with one qualification. "But not until after I see my girlfriend." He then goes on to tell me how he comes from a Christian family, was born in North Sumatra 46 years ago, and how important his family is to him. And how he married his wife when he was still a law student, minus the riches he now enjoys. With money and success has come the glitter the soapie stars and models he conducts cases for, before hiring them as his PR assistants. "I am sometimes close to them. Serious," he booms in the authoritative voice he uses to advantage when dealing with the press packs. But Hotman is less forthcoming when it comes to the questions about the 60 houses he is rumoured to own in Jakarta, or the exact number of luxury cars he possesses. Or about how much his trademark diamonds are worth. He cites security reasons for his sudden bout of coyness, then adds: "People will think I am arrogant." Is he mocking himself or what? This is the man who wears gigantic diamonds on his fingers, around his wrist and neck and who speaks with his hands, flashes of silver and diamond articulating every word. Not to mention his office wall, plastered with photographs and newspaper articles of and about himself. He wears a pistol in a holster on his ankle and another on his waist. Hotman is loud, brash, flamboyant, egotistical and politically incorrect, but there is no doubting he is an operator, a Mr Fix-It who has navigated his way spectacularly and very successfully through the maze of Indonesia's historically corrupt legal system. "Making $US100,000 ($A129,600) is easy," Hotman claims. Our next meeting comes one month later, again in Bali, where Hotman has arrived in readiness for representing his newest pro-bono client, Schapelle Corby, at the drugs trial that he managed, in a rare feat, to have re-opened on appeal. Getting out of the car he spots me in the waiting media throng. Cameras whirring, as he well knows, he says unashamedly: "Cindy, you are more beautiful and more slim than before you went to the hospital," referring to my recent bout of illness. I look for the nearest pillar to hide behind as my Indonesian colleagues laugh, most probably at me. The next day it continues, this time outside Kerobokan Jail after he has just been paying a visit to his client. In the middle of a press conference, during which I press him for an answer about the mystery witness he claims wants to confess to putting the drugs in Corby's bag, he pauses, looks at his diamond-encrusted watch and says: "What about 7pm, I buy you dinner wherever you want, then maybe I tell you the answer to your question." It's all part of the Hotman Paris show. His press conferences are peppered with comical comments that he knows will get a laugh and he hopes will endear him to the journalists who are so important to maintaining his public image and to helping his client. This time his client is Western, so he has a new coterie of hacks demanding his time and answers to their questions, and he is loving it. "If the Government won't pay for Australian witnesses to come to Bali to testify for Corby, then I'll sell one of these diamonds and pay for it myself," he says, holding up a hand. The next day it's showtime and a mass of media awaits his arrival at the modest Denpasar District Court. It's a long time since a lawyer wearing a black pin-striped, Italian-made Zegna suit and a matching tie walked confidently through its doors. His tie alone cost the equivalent of what one of the court's judges earns in a whole year. He buys his suits from Rodeo Drive in Hollywood and says he generally pays about $US5000 ($A6480) a tie. Pressed again about the mystery witness, he says: "I can't make love and give birth to a witness." Now he is clearly basking in the spotlight. When he and Erwin Siregar, Corby's Bali-based lawyer, visit Corby in the court's holding cell before the trial starts, he holds her hand and they pose for the media. Again, after the short one-witness trial is over, he hugs the 28-year-old former beauty therapist as the flashbulbs pop, then turns with Corby to satisfy the baying media, which is calling for the pair to hold their pose while turning slightly to the right. Appearing bemused by it all, Corby starts to giggle. It's like showbiz. Whether Hotman's presence in the saga will help Corby remains to be seen. But getting the Denpasar High Court to re-open the case, against all the odds, was an early, if hollow victory. This week it again ended in tears for Corby when judges closed the re-opened hearing, shattering Corby's hopes of release. Hotman's motives, in representing Corby free, are a mystery. He says it's because when it's time to meet his maker he will have repaid some of his debt and will have achieved something good in his life. But the publicity can be doing him no harm. He now has his own firm with 14 lawyers and has become a bigwig in the murky world of commercial litigation and bankruptcy in Jakarta. And he admits that in the past his cases may not have all been won on their legal merits alone. He sends "thank you" presents to judges. But he has said repeatedly that for Corby's case, he is "clean". http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,16175205%255E949,00.html ------------------------ Yahoo! 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