Hatsy Heep

Harriett "Hatsy" Heep was a Richmond, Virginia interior designer who was engaged to Ronald A. Tamol, a 30-year research executive with Philip Morris. In 1996, after prolonged a fight with Mr. Tamol, Ms. Heep turned over ten to twelve boxes (reports vary) of Philip Morris documents that Mr. Tamol had stored in her basement to Arthur Miller, the lawyer in the Plaintiff's side in the Peter Castano class action lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The documents reportedly focused on the amount of nicotine necessary to keep smokers addicted. Plaintiff's attorneys gave copies of Mr Tamol's documents to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Philip Morris called the revealing of the documents a "bizarre stunt."

Ms. Heep gave a sworn, 62-page statement in which she testified that Philip Morris lawyers and employees called her, visited her house and begged her and harassed her to destroy the documents. In her statement, she called Philip Morris employees "goons." She said her former lover kept the documents "to preserve his life's work." The documents were dated from 1962 to 1992, and some bore a stamp "R. Tamol," including one that talked about keeping smokers hooked.