Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  LAPD robbery-homicide division detective Orlando Martinez testified that during the interview with Conrad Murray he conducted two days after Michael Jackson’s death, the doctor had said he was attempting to “wean” Mr. Jackson off of propofol, but that during the early morning hours of June 25, Michael had literally “begged” for the drug to help him sleep. Feeling “pressure” from his patient, Murray said, he gave Mr. Jackson a reduced dose of propofol—with the patient’s help. Michael liked to “push in the propofol himself,” Murray explained, and said “other doctors let him do it.” Murray also told him that he had gone to the bathroom for only two minutes, Detective Martinez testified, and that he saw that Mr. Jackson wasn’t breathing as soon as he returned. Los Angeles County assistant medical examiner Dr. Christopher Rogers said on the stand that he believed Dr. Murray had lied to Detective Martinez about the size of the propofol dose that was administered to Michael Jackson. If it had been a mere 25 milligrams of propofol, as Murray said, then the patient would have awakened after as little as three to five minutes of sleep, testified Dr. Rogers, who added that it was inappropriate to use propofol to treat insomnia and that he considered the medical care provided to Michael Jackson by Dr. Murray to have been “substandard.”

  The prosecution appeared to be holding powerful evidence in reserve. A pair of phone company representatives were put on the stand to testify that Conrad Murray did a great deal of texting and calling between the time he discovered Michael Jackson had stopped breathing and the first 911 call. Who Dr. Murray had been texting and calling, along with what he had said to them, was not revealed. A connection between a couple of the cell phone calls Murray made and two women from the doctor’s office in Texas who had gone to a storage facility to retrieve boxes was implied but not explored.

  The failure of the LAPD to secure the Carolwood chateau in the immediate aftermath of Michael Jackson’s death was the one real advantage the defense possessed. Conrad Murray’s attorneys indicated they might exploit that area of vulnerability in the future but for now there was no doubt that Conrad Murray would be ordered to stand trial on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Before Judge Michael Pastor adjourned to prepare his decision, however, the California deputy attorney general who represented the medical board of California wanted to ask that the judge also suspend Dr. Murray’s license to practice medicine. Murray’s attorneys hastened to argue that this would deprive the doctor of the ability to mount a defense if he went to trial. It certainly would deprive him of the ability to pay their fees.

  A little more than an hour later, Judge Pastor ruled that Murray would stand trial, and that his license to practice medicine would be suspended as a condition of his bail. The doctor was given twenty-four hours to notify the medical boards in Texas and Nevada of the judge’s decision.

  29

  Katherine Jackson’s determination to drive Alejandra Oaziaza and her children out of the Hayvenhurst compound had mounted to the point that she finally went to John Branca and Howard Weitzman for help with it. The estate’s request for an eviction order was filed three days into Conrad Murray’s preliminary hearing and was the culmination of a struggle that had gone on for more than six months. Mrs. Jackson had made her first attempt to force Alejandra out back in June 2010 and was reportedly stunned when the mother of four of her grandchildren by two of her sons responded by hiring an attorney who made it clear she would fight to stay. Katherine and the Jacksons tried negotiation, offering to give Alejandra the title to the condominium where she had earlier been encouraged to live rent-free. Alejandra refused to sign the confidentiality agreement that was part of the deal, however, insisting she wanted to keep the option of writing a tell-all book. At that point, Katherine had turned to the estate executors, urging them to get Alejandra off the property.

  “One thing Katherine really didn’t like was that the other children were preventing Michael’s kids from making friends,” Marc Schaffel explained. “Jermajesty and Jaafar, and Randy Jr.—all these other kids—were telling Prince and Paris, ‘We’re your family. We’re the only ones who care about you. Don’t trust anyone else.’ Even Omer Bhatti would be telling them, ‘I’m your only friend. The rest just want your money.’ These poor kids were getting really distracted and Katherine could see it. But it was difficult for her, because those other kids were still her grandchildren. So she let the estate take over trying to get rid of Alejandra. They arranged to fumigate the house a couple times, and they even went so far as to change the locks. But Alejandra kept coming back and getting in.”

  By the summer of 2010, at the urging of Los Angeles County social workers who wanted Prince, Paris, and Blanket separated from Jaafar and Jermajesty, both Katherine and the estate had accepted that she would have to find another place to raise her grandchildren. Katherine, who had stayed several times with the children at Schaffel’s house out in Calabasas, decided that she loved the area, and asked Marc to drive her around to look at vacant properties. Eventually she would settle on (and into) a 12,670-square-foot mansion in a gated community perched in the hills just a block from Britney Spears’s home. The rent was $26,000 per month. She and Prince and Paris and Blanket would live there until the work at Hayvenhurst was completed—maybe longer, Katherine said.

  Alejandra, though, was digging in at Hayvenhurst. She was described as “a squatter” by TMZ. “She basically stays in the house full-time,” reported one of Katherine’s closest advisors in March 2011, “because she’s afraid they’re gonna change the locks on her again.” Exhausted and fed up, Katherine had eventually phoned the police to ask that they escort Alejandra off the property. Alejandra’s attorney intervened, however, convincing the cops that they could not remove a woman who had been in residence for more than two decades without a formal eviction order. A filing to evict Alejandra was made by the estate one week later.

  Alejandra’s ability to inflict pain on any Jackson who crossed her, though, was being demonstrated even in that moment. Some weeks earlier, Jermaine had traveled to Africa with a passport that was about to expire. Through her attorneys, Alejandra made the U.S. State Department aware that Jermaine owed her $91,921 (including interest and penalties) in back child support, which meant that, by law, he could not be allowed to renew his passport and return home to the United States until the full amount was paid. The American embassy in Ouagadougou, the capital city of the volatile, landlocked West African nation Burkina Faso, was being asked to issue temporary papers so that Jermaine could return home and attend to his obligations, but if the embassy refused, he would be stuck in Africa until Alejandra was paid. At Jermaine’s request, Katherine had gone to the estate to plead for the money he owed to Alejandra so that he would be allowed to return to the U.S. from Burkina Faso. The estate responded with a loan of $80,000.

  The other Jacksons shuddered at the thought of what Alejandra might say or do before March 15, 2011, when the hearing on the eviction order was scheduled to take place in court. “Katherine’s in a horrible situation,” Schaffel said. “She’s got two sons who have children they’re not taking responsibility for. Jermaine doesn’t pay a penny in child support and Randy didn’t for a long time. So Katherine’s stuck feeling she has to take care of these kids, but she doesn’t have the financial backing from the estate to do it.”

  Both Alejandra’s tenacity and her gall were on full display when she showed up for the March eviction hearing with an attorney who argued that Michael Jackson had wanted to ensure that the mother of his niece and nephews was taken care of, and intended that she be provided for by the Jackson Family Trust. “Alejandra actually had the nerve to complain that Katherine had taken the staff with her to Calabasas and that there was no one to take care of her needs in the manner to which she was accustomed,” Schaffel marveled. “She even claimed that she was receiving no grocery money and that Katherine and the estate were trying to starve her out. And she got a temporary stay on the eviction order.”

  The power of the role that Alejandra had car
ved out for herself within the Jackson family was nowhere more evident than in the deal by which John Branca and Howard Weitzman had settled matters between Alejandra and Katherine on one hand, and between Alejandra and Jermaine on the other. The essential ingredient in the negotiation during early April 2011 was the loan by the estate relieving Jermaine of his child support arrears.

  Katherine was becoming increasingly outspoken about her displeasure with Branca’s imperious attitude. During her interview for the Oprah show, Katherine had complained that Branca was willfully ignoring what he knew had been her son Michael’s wishes. After the interview aired in November 2010, Mrs. Jackson made a public statement that she was upset with Oprah Winfrey and her producers for caving in to threats from Weitzman and the estate attorneys, delivered shortly before the show was to run, that including Mrs. Jackson’s remarks about Branca might result in legal action. “Oprah relented and did not air the segment about the executors at all!” Katherine complained.

  Mrs. Jackson’s rhetoric heated up as she was drawn into the court battle for control of her son Michael’s Heal the World Foundation. Katherine publicly sided with the young woman to whom Michael had delegated responsibility for the charity, Melissa Johnson, and railed against the legal asault on Johnson that Branca and his attorneys had launched. The blow that landed heavy on Branca’s chin was the one Katherine delivered in early April 2011, just a week before the Heal the World lawsuit was to go to trial, when Mrs. Jackson’s signed declaration was filed with the court. “It is not my desire, nor would it be the desire of my son Michael, to continue this lawsuit against the Heal the World Foundation,” Mrs. Jackson had written. “Michael would be very upset if he knew that our charity was being torn apart by people who say they are doing what he wanted.” Katherine’s declaration singled out Branca as the one responsible for “bringing this lawsuit,” then stated publicly what she had been telling people privately for months: “Mr. Branca was a man my son was very worried about. Michael told me on more than one occasion that he did not like this man and did not trust him. He told me that John had stolen from him. This lawsuit is exactly the type of awful thing that Michael said he was capable of doing . . . These people say that I have been manipulated by Melissa Johnson and that we are exploiting my grandchildren, because we joined Heal the World, all while the executors convince people they are only doing what Michael wanted or what is in my best interests by suing everyone who helps us. Please do not believe them. It’s not true . . . Michael did not want his charity to be destroyed or lost; he wanted Ms. Johnson to run it for him.”

  Melissa and her partner Mel Wilson were “good and selfless people and I have grown to trust them very much,” Mrs. Jackson went on. “They have done a remarkable job with my son’s charity and they have made me happy to be a part of their work . . . Michael’s children absolutely do want to carry on their father’s legacy of giving and healing and to demean and distort that desire, for greed, is as awful as you can get.”

  Branca and his cohort struck back immediately with a statement that dismissed the assertions in Katherine Jackson’s declaration as “pathetic” and “full of lies.” At the same time, though, the estate lawyers attempted to avoid a direct confrontation with Michael’s mother by leaking a story to TMZ that Mrs. Jackson hadn’t actually made any of the personal attacks on John Branca that appeared in her declaration. Those slanders had come from “people who have Katherine’s ear [and] have it out for the estate,” as TMZ reported it.

  Adam Streisand made a fateful decision when he chose to chime in later that same day, telling TMZ that Mrs. Jackson “denies signing any statement to the court that makes accusations against the executors of any wrongdoing with respect to her son or his estate,” then adding, “She did not and would not make any such statements about the executors.”

  The headlines that Streisand’s assertions produced infuriated those who surrounded Katherine Jackson (who had, in fact, made those statements, and signed the declaration as well). “Basically, Adam Streisand was saying that his own client was either a liar or a fool,” one of Mrs. Jackson’s advisors said.

  The following morning, Adam Streisand received a letter by courier from Mrs. Jackson that read, “I have spent many hours reflecting on my goals and objectives with regards to my son’s estate and I have decided to move in a different direction. Therefore effective immediately I am hereby terminating the services of you and your law firm.”

  Streisand was indignant. “My partner Gabreille Vidal and I spoke with Mrs. Jackson and her assistant Janice Smith,” the attorney said, “and Mrs. Jackson told us that she did not sign a copy of the declaration that had the false accusations against the executors saying that they stole money from the estate, among other things, and she agreed to precisely what I was going to do and what I did issue as a statement about it.” But Mrs. Jackson had not accused the executors of stealing money from the estate in her declaration. “I never called Mrs. Jackson a liar,” Streisand insisted, but it sounded very much like he was calling her a liar now. “There is no doubt in my mind that after I issued the statement, Randy and Joe and probably others were very upset about it, and made that very clear to Mrs. Jackson. I have no doubt in my mind that she agreed to terminate our relationship as a way of disavowing responsibility for the statement.”

  His statement wasn’t the only reason Streisand had been let go, however. More significant was that Katherine Jackson had decided she needed an attorney who believed she had a better choice than to accept Branca’s control of the estate and to be appreciative of whatever generosity he could be persuaded to extend to her. She wanted a lawyer who would fight Branca, one who believed that Branca could be dislodged from his positions as executor, special administrator, and co–general counsel of the Michael Jackson estate, and perhaps be made to repay every penny he had earned from those positions.

  Within hours of firing Adam Streisand, Mrs. Jackson had hired an attorney who told her very convincingly he could do that.

  Perry Sanders Jr.. was a “big-time litigator,” as TMZ put it in the first report of his appearance on the scene. Most famously, he had filed the wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles that accused LAPD officers of involvement in the murder of rapper Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls. Sanders had also played the pivotal role in securing song-publishing rights worth hundreds of millions of dollars in an action against Master P and the No Limit Records catalog. Gaining control of a disputed music publishing catalog was, for obvious reasons, a particularly impressive achievement in Katherine Jackson’s eyes.

  Sanders suggested that Katherine direct any questions she might have about his performance as an attorney and his trustworthiness as an individual to Voletta Wallace, Notorious B.I.G.’s mom, herself a Jehovah’s Witness, a woman of great faith and impressive character. The day before she dismissed Streisand, Michael’s mother and Biggie’s mother spent four hours on the phone together. By the end of that conversation, Katherine said, she was sold on Perry Sanders.

  Sanders is an athletically built man in his late fifties, with chiseled features, a shaved head and face, and barely any eyebrows; he suggests an actor hired to play Lex Luthor as a protagonist. Raised in Louisiana as the son of one of the South’s best-known Baptist preachers, Sanders’s big grin and down-home colloquialisms (he was usually “fixin’” to do one thing or another) masked a capacity for cold-blooded cunning and creative strategies that was matched by few attorneys in the country. According to one of Mrs. Jackson’s advisors, Sanders had explained to Katherine at their second meeting that his main tactic in a situation like the one he had inherited from Adam Streisand was fairly simple on the surface: He approached his adversaries with the peacemaking offer of a fair deal in one hand and a brick in the other. He offered the deal first. If they didn’t take it, he hit them in the head with the brick, then asked if they’d like to reconsider. Of course, Sanders added, you wanted to make sure you had a real solid brick before you began th
at kind of conversation.

  Sanders realized he had the makings of a blunt instrument to his liking as soon as he read a copy of a filing that Brian Oxman had made in Judge Beckloff’s court several months earlier. “Joseph Jackson’s Objection to the Appointment of John Branca and John McClain as executors of the Estate of Michael Jackson” was the heading on a lengthy document that began with detailed allegations of fraud and possible forgery by Branca. Oxman had listed seventeen separate occasions between July 1, 2009, and September 29, 2009, when he claimed the executor had perjured himself by testifying that the will submitted to the court was “correct,” asserting that Branca and McClain “have conducted themselves in a fraudulent deceptive manner where their veracity can no longer be trusted.”

  While Oxman’s filing detailed the doubts about the authenticity of the will and trust agreement raised by his investigation, Joe’s attorney had been shrewd enough to recognize that the smart move was not to try to invalidate those documents. Rather, Sanders saw, the play was to challenge Branca’s decision to retain the originals of those two documents after he was fired as Michael Jackson’s attorney, and to attack his failure to resign from his position as executor. “In violation of his fiduciary duties, Branca concealed the purported will and concealed his refusal to resign,” Oxman charged, and in so doing had deceived and defrauded both Michael Jackson and the court. On the one hand, “Branca never accounted to Michael Jackson regarding his conduct, nor disclosed his books and records to Michael Jackson.” On the other hand, Branca’s failure to inform Judge Beckloff that he had been fired as Jackson’s attorney because Michael believed he was guilty of “embezzlement” was a fraud upon the court, Oxman had written.