Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  In October 2009, Janet Jackson hosted the family meeting at which the contents of the report were revealed. The very first fact laid out on the table was the most startling: Michael Jackson had been in New York City on July 7, 2002, the date on which, according to the handwritten annotation on the signature page of the will, he had executed that document in Los Angeles.

  The date in question had fallen right in the midst of the four days in the summer of 2002 when Michael Jackson was laying a very public siege to Sony Music and its chairman, Tommy Mottola, a period in which he had been seen, photographed, and written about as he rolled up Madison Avenue in a double decker bus packed with protesters from Harlem organized by the Reverend Al Sharpton, waving a photograph of Mottola upon which he had drawn horns and a pitchfork. All of the city’s daily newspapers, including the New York Times, had chronicled the entire drama. News photographs of Michael Jackson had been taken in New York on July 6, July 8, and July 9, but, oddly, not on July 7. Michael had spent most of that day hiding out in his hotel suite, his bodyguards said, blistered by the backlash against him throughout the recording industry and in the national media. He had, however, attended a meeting in Harlem during the afternoon, according to Al Sharpton.

  The private investigators had also gotten hold of the Interfor report that was commissioned by Michael Jackson (through David LeGrand) back in late 2002. “Interfor’s investigation found a tight relationship between Branca and Tommy Mottola,” the second paragraph of the report on Branca began, “primarily in regard to the affairs of Jackson. Interfor had begun investigating the flow of funds from Jackson through Mottola and Branca into offshore accounts in the Caribbean,” the company stated in the dossier provided to Jackson, but there was no actual evidence provided to support Interfor’s claim of “a scheme to defraud Jackson and his empire by Mottola and Branca by diverting funds offshore.” Even Brian Oxman recognized that Interfor was making accusations against Branca that the company couldn’t back up, while at the same time pleading for “additional time and a proper budget.” What he himself could prove, though, Oxman said, was that Michael had terminated Branca a short time after the Interfor report was delivered to him because he firmly believed that his attorney was in cahoots with Tommy Mottola.

  All the Jacksons knew was that Michael had spent most of the next six years insisting that he wanted nothing to do with the attorney and that no one who was in business with him should also be in business with Branca. “Even after Michael died I found notes that he had written to himself,” Katherine Jackson said: “John Branca has nothing else to do with my business from this day on, from this day forward, nothing.” Was it reasonable to believe that in June 2009, just days before his death, Michael would suddenly do an about-face and hire Branca back? Taking all of what they knew together, there was plenty of evidence to challenge John Branca’s right to serve as the administrator of the Michael Jackson estate, Oxman told the Jacksons. This was a winning case, in his opinion.

  Armed with all the facts that Oxman and the private investigators had assembled, it looked as if Katherine Jackson and her children might be poised to try to push John Branca aside and seize at least partial control of the estate and its assets. The family’s facade of a united front, though, was cracking into pieces. The world outside the Hayvenhurst compound might not see it, but Branca did.

  The weak points were several, and located mainly in the characters of the Jackson brothers. Randy was the one pushing hardest to take Branca down, but the rest of the family was concerned that Randy also imagined that he might take Branca’s place as a trustee. Branca and his attorneys were continually telling people what a rotten character Randy was. And in fact the Jacksons themselves viewed Randy as the most selfish and conniving among them. He was a chip off the old block, visitors to the family compound said, far more like Joe than any of his brothers—and no one intended that to be a compliment. His brothers and sisters all remembered that Michael had accused Randy not only of entangling him in dirty deals and mismanaging his affairs during 2004 and 2005, but also of stealing from him. Katherine knew Randy as the son who came to visit only when there was something he wanted, even though he had two children living in the Hayvenhurst house. She wasn’t about to let him take over running things.

  Jermaine, as always, could be gotten to. He was weak for women, but took little responsibility for the children they bore him. Margaret Maldonado, the former common-law wife who had borne him two sons, said she had never received a penny from Jermaine, even with a court order allowing her to collect it. “I just said, ‘Forget it,’” explained Maldonado, who supported her sons by setting up an agency that represented photographers and stylists in Hollywood. “It wasn’t worth going to court and fighting with him.” Alejandra and her attorneys, though, had kept careful track of the more than $90,000 Jermaine owed her. The estate was unwilling to clean up Jermaine’s child support arrears (or Randy’s either) but sent a message that it might help him earn the money to do it himself. Joel Katz suggested that he might be able to get Jermaine a recording contract at Universal. Branca sent a message that the estate could find a place for Jermaine in the Cirque du Soleil show deal they were negotiating, performing live with Janet and collecting fat checks, but of course only if he was on board with the men in charge. We should try to work with Branca and them, Jermaine began telling Katherine.

  Jackie was the son who visited Hayvenhurst most often, spending nearly every other weekend there, and was in some sense the estate’s inside man. Jackie had been friends with his former high school classmate John McClain since the two were teenagers and was the one who introduced McClain to the Jackson family. Now each nearly sixty, the two men continued to speak on the phone almost daily and it was McClain who had helped Jackie win the right to make a profit from his failing clothing business by selling Michael Jackson designer T-shirts. Branca and the estate would only let Jackie sell five hundred shirts at a time, but that was enough to bring in $10,000, $15,000, or even $20,000 a month, which was a lot better than Jackie had been doing before. And McClain said he was working on Branca to let Jackie expand, that it would come in time.

  McClain was also talking regularly to Katherine Jackson, calling her just about every morning to chat for a few minutes. He still called Mrs. Jackson “Mother,” just as he had done decades earlier, and promised that he was looking out for her interests. According to Katherine, McClain professed to dislike Branca every bit as much as any of the Jacksons did, and told her he was protecting her from the man and his law dogs. “I’m on your side, Mother,” John McClain told her. “I’m there for you.”

  Katherine was starting to wonder. McClain had sent an air treatment system he raved about to the Hayvenhurst estate that sat boxed in the utility room for weeks. He kept calling to ask if the Jacksons had set it up, and “seemed really intent on making sure they did,” a family advisor said. Suspicious that there was some sort of listening device secreted inside, Joe and Randy had convinced Katherine to move the box, still unopened, out into the garage.

  Unable to comprehend the financial analysis of the estate submitted by Branca and his cocounsels, Katherine’s confidence in her own representation was being shaken by the constant complaints of Joe and Randy Jackson. Her probate attorney Burt Levitch, widely regarded as one of the best lawyers in Los Angeles, was actually preparing to take exactly the sort of aggressive actions Joe and Randy urged, including one court filing that accused the executors of submitting a fraudulent will and another that demanded the appointment of a Jackson family member as the estate’s third executor. Doubts about what Levitch was up to intensified within the Jackson family during October when the estate requested a hearing on its motion to greatly expand the powers of Branca and McClain, allowing the two executors the right to negotiate deals and settle debts at their own discretion. Not long after the hearing was scheduled, Randy Jackson convinced his mother to fire Levitch for dragging his feet and to hire Adam Streisand, a partner at Loeb and Loeb who had been
involved in courtroom battles over more celebrity estates than just about any other lawyer in the country, including those of Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, William Randolph Hearst, and Michael Crichton. That Streisand was best known as a litigator appeared to signal that Mrs. Jackson was about to go to war. The new man didn’t exactly get off to a scintillating start in his first appearance as Katherine’s attorney, though, when Streisand missed most of the October 22 hearing at which Judge Beckloff had already agreed to expand the administrative powers of Branca and McClain. After listening to Howard Weitzman explain that the executors had initiated deals that would bring in at least $100 million in earnings to the estate, much of that money resulting from the This Is It movie that would premiere the following week, Beckloff ruled that the pair should have greater freedom to settle with creditors and negotiate new contracts. “I want this estate to move forward,” the judge said.

  His client Mrs. Jackson continued to feel that the executors were keeping her in the dark about both the deals they had made and their plans for the future, Streisand told Beckloff when he finally arrived in court. She and the entire Jackson family were frustrated with their inability “to get this case going,” Streisand told Beckloff, seeming to suggest that Katherine Jackson still intended to challenge Branca’s control of the estate. The judge’s response was not encouraging. Branca and McClain were in charge of the estate for now and would remain in charge for the time being, he said, “And while we are proceeding in this posture, I want Mrs. Jackson to have information about what is going on, and I don’t want to be in court all the time.”

  Local TV stations reported that Streisand had been hired because of “new evidence” that questioned the signature on Michael Jackson’s will, and that the attorney would be presenting it to the judge in his next court appearance. And in fact, Streisand doubted the will’s legitimacy, according to Katherine Jackson. The attorney also told her, though, Mrs. Jackson said, that she’d be well advised not to challenge the document. If she did not prevail, Katherine could be cut out entirely, Streisand said. Even should she prevail in court, if Michael was found to be intestate his estate was likely to be thrown into probate and chewed up by whatever bank was chosen to run it. Challenging John Branca was not necessarily a smart move either; Branca probably understood the value of Michael Jackson’s assets and how to expand that value better than anyone else alive. All things considered, allowing him to remain in charge might be the lesser of evils. The best course, Streisand said, according to Katherine, was to make peace with the man and to begin working with the estate. Perhaps Branca could win her “a seat at the table” by arranging for a Jackson family member to be named as the third executor.

  Katherine suggested that her grandson Taj might be that person; one of Michael’s favorite nephews (along with Tito’s two other sons),Taj was a solid, dependable young man with good sense. Branca flatly refused, claiming that to name a Jackson family member as an executor would create a clear conflict of interest. By early November, Streisand had convinced Mrs. Jackson that continuing the fight was counterproductive and that Braca was prepared to make certain concessions, including an increase in her monthly allowance, if she ended it. Also, Streisand wanted her to distance herself from Joe, who seemed determined to draw Katherine into his own bid for a piece of the estate.

  Joe Jackson remained intent on putting his one truly talented son to work for him, even in death, and his campaign continued to be the featured program of the ongoing family drama as it played out in the media. One day after the This Is It movie made its debut and raked in $20 million at the box office, Joe told the TV program Extra that his son was “worth more dead than alive.” For once, Joe seemed to realize what had just come out of his mouth and quickly added that, “I’d rather see him alive.” Three days after this, the Jackson patriarch was filing a petition in Judge Beckloff’s court to request “his own independent family allowance” from an estate that had “earned more than $100 million in the first seven [7] weeks following Michael Jackson’s death.” He needed $15,425 per month to cover his expenses, Joe’s moving papers claimed, including $2,500 per month for eating out, $2,000 for air travel, and $3,000 for hotel bills. Joe had worked out some sort of contingency arrangement with the one attorney he knew would accept an opportunity to stand before the TV cameras in lieu of a cash retainer: Brian Oxman.

  Joe was demanding that Katherine weigh in on his behalf, but Streisand was only one among many who warned her that would be a mistake. Being seen as attached to Joe would not only alienate fans, but also provide ammunition to anyone who wanted to argue that she should not have custody of Michael’s children. It was time to come to terms with Branca and get on with things.

  On Tuesday morning, November 10, 2009, Streisand arrived in Judge Beckloff’s courtroom to make the stunning announcement that Katherine Jackson was withdrawing her objections to John Branca and John McClain’s continuing to serve as the estate’s administrators. His client felt that it was “high time that the fighting end,” Streisand told the judge, and was making this decision in the best interests of her grandchildren. “She feels that Mr. Branca and Mr. McClain have been doing an admirable job,” Streisand went on. “We’re going to try to partner with them and work closely with them to make sure that the estate is doing the best that it can for the legacy of Michael Jackson, for the kids, most importantly.”

  He and Mrs. Jackson had reached this decision independently, Streisand told the judge. His client had actually kept it a secret from the rest of the family until a meeting with them all on the previous Saturday, and he was pleased to report that the Jacksons all agreed with what she was doing. Well, no, not Joe Jackson, Streisand told Beckloff; he hadn’t been invited to the meeting, but the entire rest of the family was present, and not one of them had objected to Mrs. Jackson’s decision.

  Brian Oxman was objecting, though, loudly and angrily when he stepped out of the courtroom to speak to the media horde. Katherine Jackson’s reversal was “one of the most despicable displays” he’d ever seen in a legal proceeding, Oxman declared. By making a secret deal with Branca and the estate attorneys behind her husband’s back, Katherine had “reneged on her obligation to her family,” Oxman added. Neither he nor Joe was going to simply stand by and let it happen.

  Streisand shot back by telling reporters that this accusation of a secret deal was “not only baseless, but just a product of Mr. Oxman’s imagination.” There was no deal and Mrs. Jackson’s decision had been just as much of a surprise to the estate as it was to the rest of the Jackson family. “Before I announced my decision [to the estate’s lawyers], Mrs. Jackson and I were the only two people in the world who knew what I was going to say.” As for Joe Jackson, Streisand added, “He has no rights in the assets of the estate.”

  At the same time he’d denied Joe’s right to challenge the executors, Judge Beckloff had ruled that Michael Jackson’s father could pursue his petition for an allowance, though the judge could scarcely conceal his amusement when Brian Oxman told him, “The executors discriminated against my client by not giving him an allowance and giving one to Katherine Jackson.” A hearing to consider the matter was scheduled for December 10, 2009, then postponed until January 2010.

  Through Adam Streisand, Katherine let it be known that she wouldn’t oppose Joe’s request for his own allowance. The lawyer who had just been appointed to serve as the guardian ad litem (legal representative) of Michael Jackson’s children, however, insisted that Joe Jackson had no right to any money from the estate. Margaret Lodise, one of the top trust and estate attorneys in Los Angeles, argued that Joe was not entitled to any stipend for the same reason he was not permitted to challenge the executors: Michael had not named him as a beneficiary of the estate. Lodise quickly lined up as a John Branca ally, siding with the estate administrator when Katherine Jackson objected to elements of the merchandising and memorabilia deals that Branca had made with Bravado, and again when Branca insisted that Mrs. Jackson had to sign confidentiali
ty agreements before she was allowed to see any of the contracts he had either negotiated or was in the process of negotiating. Judge Beckloff ruled in Branca’s favor on both points. So far, the judge had come down on the executors’ side every time a member of the Jackson family challenged Branca. On the question of Joe Jackson’s petition allowance, though, Beckloff announced he was putting off a decision until May 2010.

  With both momentum and the judge on their side, Branca seized that moment to submit a request to Judge Beckloff that he and John McClain, in their capacities as the special administrators of the Michael Jackson estate, be permitted to collect and split a 10 percent commission on the earnings of the estate, twice what they had been getting and more than triple the statutory fee for executors. They were asking for such “extraordinary compensation,” Branca and McClain told the court, because they were providing “extraordinary services,” in part compelled by the relentless efforts of Joe Jackson to collect an inheritance that had not been left to him, and by Katherine Jackson’s attempts to gain control of the estate for herself. Added to that, they had been forced to deal not only with the eleven lawsuits that were pending against Michael Jackson at the time of his death, but also with the dozens of others that had been either filed or threatened in the months since.

  The estate had in fact swiftly dispatched the two most grandiose court claims, made by AllGood Productions and Raymone Bain. The latter lawsuit was dismissed in May 2010 by a New York court judge who scarcely bothered to conceal his disdain for such a meritless money grab, ruling that the release document Bain had signed on December 27, 2007, in exchange for a payment of $488,820.05 had “unambiguously covered ‘all monies, known or unknown,’ owed under ‘any and all agreements whether written or verbal.’” The estate had not even needed to show the court that Bain was not involved in making the deal with AEG for the O2 Arena shows. Still, the onslaught of court filings, in particular those made by the Jackson family, had created a working climate in which their own “business reputations and the character and reputation of Michael Jackson were repeatedly assaulted by personal and unfounded attacks,” the executors explained (through Howard Weitzman) to Judge Beckloff, forcing them to answer back publicly in order to protect the Michael Jackson brand. To a lot of onlookers, it appeared as if Branca was concerned about protecting himself, but as the man running the estate, Branca could claim that the complaints made against him were actually assaults on Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson’s children.