Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  Weitzman’s replies to the questions concerning whether Branca was rehired and to those who have criticized him for using his own law firm to prepare a will that named him as executor of the Michael Jackson Estate were incorporated into the text in an earlier chapter of this book.

  In the letter that Weitzman sent to me and my publisher in John Branca’s formal reply to my questions, the attorney stated: “Mr. Branca and Michael Jackson had a long and multifaceted personal and professional relationship that, admittedly, was interrupted at certain points in their careers for various reasons. Those who harbor no bias or animus against Mr. Branca acknowledge his contributions to Michael’s career, and recognize his role and that of his co-executor in the stunning financial turnaround of the estate after Michael’s death.” No argument here.

  30

  For the moment, it wouldn’t matter what questions remained about the will or the signature on the trust. It wouldn’t matter whether John Branca failed to resign as the executor of the Michael Jackson estate as he should have or kept Michael’s will if he had an obligation to return it. It wouldn’t matter what had happened to the will that made Al Malnik the executor of the Jackson estate, or why Michael had asked in the spring of 2009 for the creation of a new will and trust agreement that made no mention of John Branca or John McClain. It wouldn’t matter whether Branca really had been hired back as Jackson’s lawyer a week before Michael’s death.

  All of those questions were moot because in the end the struggle wasn’t about right or wrong, good or evil, justice or injustice. It was about money, Michael Jackson’s money, and there was enough of that to go around for everyone—everyone except Michael himself, of course. There’d never been enough money for him because what he wanted and needed most, money couldn’t buy.

  Nearly as often as he lamented the childhood he lost to celebrity, Michael had cursed the day he bought the Beatles catalog. He regularly compared himself to the boy with the golden goose: Everyone he met wanted to take it away from him. His mother Katherine said it was Michael’s wealth far more than his fame that had set him apart from the rest of the family and then separated the rest of them from one another. The resentment, the infighting, the scheming—all of that had been much more about Michael’s millions than his superstar status, Mrs. Jackson said. Michael and his mother had always been so much alike, full of the same sweetness and sentiment, and so similarly blind to their own contradictions. In much the same tone in which Michael mourned the carefree youth he had never really known, Katherine reminisced about their days back in Gary, and said again and again that they had really been so much happier then, so much more of a family. She would never have gone back if given the choice, of course, and neither would Michael, but it was lovely to imagine for a moment a world in which they might have.

  His mother wasn’t the only one in his family Michael loved, but she was the only one he trusted, and for years it was through her that his generosity had been distributed to the other Jacksons. Now, when he was gone, it was Katherine who would decide exactly how they divided whatever would ultimately be obtained for the Katherine Jackson Trust—half of Michael’s estate after the donations to charity, according to Mrs. Jackson’s advisors. It was a burden, Katherine said. They would all be coming after her, all trying to tell her what she should do and how she should do it. She already felt a clearer sense of what it must have been like for Michael.

  In fact, family intrigues were already set in motion. For reasons of his own, John McClain had leaked the news to the oldest Jackson son, Jackie, that this new lawyer of Katherine Jackson’s had cut some sort of deal that might potentially give Katherine control of hundreds of millions of dollars in Michael Jackson estate assets. Some of Mrs. Jackson’s advisors believed that McClain was trying to scuttle the deal, fearful that if it went through Katherine would discover that he had been less than candid with her about how much money he was making as an executor of the estate. Whether that was true or not, Jackie had passed along what he heard from McClain to his father and brothers. Joe and Randy immediately began lobbying to stop the deal Perry Sanders had made, whatever it was, insisting that to leave Branca in charge was a mistake, that the only way to go was to take him down and gain control of the estate themselves.

  In early May 2011, Joe won a sort of victory over Katherine when his wrongful death lawsuit against Conrad Murray was tied to Mrs. Jackson’s lawsuit against AEG. Judge Yvette Palazuelos, who was already hearing Katherine’s case, had scheduled a May 3 hearing on the “notice of related cases” filed by Brian Oxman on Joe’s behalf. Katherine’s attorneys fiercely opposed the attempt to tie Joe’s suit to hers, insisting to Judge Palazuelos that Mrs. Jackson’s claim “has distinct factual and legal issues of AEG’s direct negligence and whether or not it employed Dr. Conrad Murray.” AEG also objected to joining the two cases. “Whereas the vast majority of the factual allegations in Joseph Jackson’s complaint concern the day of Michael Jackson’s death and subsequent events, the allegations in Katherine Jackson’s complaint almost entirely concern events prior to Michael Jackson’s death,” the company’s attorneys argued in court. The judge, though, had sided with Oxman’s argument. Joe was now certain to be a major player in whatever went forward and to have his own piece of the action. It was likely that, in order to streamline the process and cut down on the cost of litigation, the two “related cases” would eventually be combined into a single lawsuit.

  Other family members and factotums looked to cash in on different fronts. Janet, Jermaine, and La Toya all published books. Frank Cascio had announced a book, too, and Dieter Wiesner said he was working on one also.

  Frank Dileo intended to write his own tell-all book as well, but was confronted with a chapter he hadn’t expected to write. The sixty-three-year-old Dileo, who had suffered from heart problems for years, checked into a hospital near his home in Pittsburgh in March 2011 to prepare for open-heart surgery that included a bypass and valve replacement. “Complications” had swiftly ensued and Dileo suffered a heart attack on the operating table that caused an interruption in the supply of oxygen to his brain. He remained in a coma for weeks, and never fully regained consciousness before his death on August 24, 2011.

  Dr. Arnold Klein had no immediate plans for a tell-all book though at that point in his life could have used the revenue. Confined mostly to a wheelchair and denying reports he was afflicted with multiple sclerosis, Arnie was also broke. According to Klein, his assistant Jason Pfeiffer had teamed up with his accountant Muhammad Khilji to clean him out. Klein was claiming embezzlement in reports to the Beverly Hills police department, but Marc Schaffel doubted it was quite that cut and dry. “I know for a fact that every Friday they used to give Klein a packet of papers to sign—payroll, checks, documents, and basically anything they put in front of him, he signed. He didn’t even look at what it was.” It sounded eerily like Michael Jackson. “But I don’t think even Michael was that careless,” Schaffel said.

  Among the papers bearing the doctor’s signature were powers of attorney that had allowed the two men not only full access to all of his bank accounts, Klein said, but also the ability to take out equity loans on all of his homes: the historically registered $9 million mansion on Windsor Square in Los Angeles, the $12 million Frank Gehry–designed beach house in Laguna, and the $1.9 million desert retreat in Palm Springs. Pfeiffer and Khilji had leased themselves Bentleys in his name, the doctor said, and had opened credit card accounts billed to their employer with spending limits so high they could cover purchases well into six figures. In January 2011, Dr. Klein was forced to file bankruptcy.

  Desperate, Klein had gone to the FBI, claiming wildly that his accountant, Khilji, had stolen his money to turn it over to a terrorist organization. “Arnie’s lost it a little bit,” Schaffel said. “He’s saying, ‘Those weren’t my signatures,’ then he’s saying, ‘I didn’t know what I was signing.’ He thinks he’s gonna sue them civilly and get the money back. I said, ‘Arnie, the money’s go
ne. They’ve spent this money like water.’ Not only is all his money gone, but they left him ten million in debt. They mortgaged all his properties, dried up all his cash. He owes his medical supplier $250,000 and can’t afford to pay it.”

  Pfeiffer and Khilji insisted that it was Arnold Klein’s profligacy, not any scheme by them, that had driven him into bankruptcy. Klein’s disregard for the bottom line had caught up with him after 2007, when his two top-grossing medical partners left the practice, Khilji said, and by 2011 his reported gross monthly revenue of $90,872 was a far cry from the $20,000 a day he had boasted of in a 2004 interview with the New York Times. “To say I’m a thief? He still owes me $50,000 from outstanding invoices,” the accountant told the Daily Beast and promised to sue Klein for slander.

  Klein, for years as admired a raconteur as Beverly Hills could boast, now lived in dread of the Conrad Murray trial. The defense had subpoenaed Klein’s medical records going back to the beginning of his relationship with Michael Jackson and clearly intended to build a case around the argument that the dermatologist had been encouraging Jackson’s drug abuse for decades.

  “I used to consider Arnie the most intelligent person I’ve ever met,” said a saddened Schaffel, “and Michael saw him the same way. You could learn so much from a conversation with Arnie. He was so articulate and well-read. But now he’s less and less coherent. He babbles, something he never did before.”

  Perhaps nothing left Klein so distraught as the fact that Liz Taylor had cut him off from contact during the last months of her life. Taylor had been furious when Klein gave an interview that seemed to support Jason Pfeiffer’s claim that he had been Michael Jackson’s lover, and in May 2010 she had openly denounced Arnie on her Twitter account for the treachery she saw in his public comments about Michael’s sexuality: “It seems he supplies not only women, but men too . . . how convenient. Just what we want in our doctors. And then to say he did not betray Michael’s confidence. No wonder he has death threats . . . I thought doctors, like priests, took an oath of confidentiality. May God have mercy on his soul.”

  Klein would retract his statements about Michael Jackson and Jason Pfeiffer, and apologize for suggesting things that weren’t true. It was too late, though, to repair his relationship with Liz. “Arnie tried to call her but she wouldn’t take his calls,” a mutual friend said. “Arnie sent her Christmas gifts, she returned them. When she went into the hospital [in March 2011], Arnie sent her flowers, but Liz rejected them. Arnie tried to go over to see her at the hospital before she died, but they wouldn’t let him in.”

  Klein at least had been able to enjoy the public humiliation of his longtime rival Dr. Steven Hoefflin. Thanks in large part to Michael Jackson’s old nemesis Diane Dimond, Hoefflin now owned a reputation for weirdness that matched anything the reporter had ever attributed to Jackson.

  Dimond had gotten hold of a Los Angeles police department report that chronicled a recent history of “delusional” behavior by Hoefflin that, she reported, had resulted in officers from the LAPD Threat Assessment Unit being assigned to monitor him. Dimond went on to detail a sequence of bizarre behavior which, if true, indicated Hoefflin was in serious need of psychiatric help. What distressed Arnold Klein was that, despite this, Hoefflin claimed to be the Jackson family’s “authorized medical representative” in the weeks after Michael’s death, sitting in with the family as they discussed plans to file wrongful death lawsuits against various physicians (Dr. Klein among them) as well as Lloyd’s of London and AEG Live. Jackson family insiders denied Hoefflin’s claim to this title.

  In Las Vegas, the Palomino hacienda was being offered as “Michael Jackson’s Last Las Vegas Residence.” The brochure didn’t mention that Michael and his children had lived in the guesthouse, instead emphasizing the “lower level” of the home where Michael had stored “his vast collection of memorabilia, book collection, and art, and also kept his personal studio and art room,” which sounded a far cry from the dingy basement and oppressive clutter that Tohme Tohme and others recalled from their visits to the house while Michael lived there. Still, the price of $8.8 million was a pittance compared to the $29 million that Hubert Guez wanted for the Carolwood chateau where Michael Jackson had come to the end of his life.

  Even the cash-strapped State of California was looking to cut itself in on the booming market in Michael Jackson–related real estate. At a time when the new governor, Jerry Brown, was moving to close down any number of state parks, Assemblyman Mike Davis was proposing to add a new one, introducing a bill to finance a study to determine the feasibility of letting the California Department of Parks and Recreation join in a public/private partnership with Colony Capital to run Neverland Ranch as a state-sanctioned tourist attraction. The owners of Oxnard-based Channel Island Helicopters certainly believed there was still widespread interest in Michael Jackson’s former home. The company announced that on June 25, 2011, the second anniversary of Michael’s death, it would begin offering half-hour flights over Neverland at a cost of $175 per person.

  Enduring as the fascination with Michael Jackson seemed to be, there was reason to wonder whether his estate could sustain the fantastic earning power it had demonstrated in the first year after the star’s death. Sales of Jackson’s classic records had subsided during 2010 to approximately the level they had been at before his death. After more than 33 million Jackson albums had been purchased worldwide in 2009 (most of them in a six-month period) sales had dipped to less than 6 million units through the first eleven months of 2010 and the disparity was even greater domestically. From 12.6 million downloads of Michael songs in the United States during 2009, the number had fallen to 1.1 million in 2010. Sony was disappointed by sales of the This Is It soundtrack but that album had sold more than twice the number of copies that Michael did. In the third, fourth, and fifth weeks of its release, Michael’s domestic sales dropped to 27,000 units, then 18,000 units, and finally to 11,000 units, making it evident that Sony would have what Billboard called “an inventory liability problem” on its hands.

  The estate reported that Michael’s enormous debt had only been partially paid off, even though most of what the estate had earned thus far, John Branca said, had been dedicated to that purpose. Money was still pouring in, of course, largely as a result of the contracts that Branca had negotiated prior to the release of Michael. The executors’ public report at the end of 2010 listed $310 million in profits for the Michael Jackson estate during the past eighteen months. The total value of the deals that the estate had made in just the first twelve months after Michael’s death was estimated at $756 million, and continued to pay off at the rate of tens of millions per month. “There’s something unique about Americans,” Robert F. X. Sillerman told the New York Times. “We root against people and look for the negative while they’re alive, and then we’re very forgiving, whether they deserve it or not, and we celebrate their success in death.”

  Other observers, though, wondered whether Michael Jackson’s estate really would continue to be the most valuable in the entertainment industry. “The question is: Is he Elvis or is he not?” Bob Lefsetz, the former entertainment lawyer whose blog The Lefsetz Letter was widely read throughout the music industry, told the Times. Personally, he didn’t think so, Lefsetz said, not without some Graceland-like destination for fans to flock to. The failure to make a Michael Jackson monument of Neverland Ranch, Lefsetz believed, would cost the estate hundreds of millions of dollars over the long term.

  Potential revenues were no doubt a good reason to reconsider the question of a King of Pop shrine at Neverland Ranch, but perhaps not the only one. The debate that arose from the possibility of a final return to Neverland encompassed the complexity of Michael Jackson’s legacy like no other public discussion possibly could. On one side was that for nearly fifteen years Michael had cherished Neverland in a way that he never did and never would again love any other place on earth. The ranch was a universe custom-fitted to his character and, as Tom Mesereau put it,
“the only place he had ever really felt comfortable.” It was his vision as well as his home. The other side of the argument was that Michael had told one person after another during the last four years of his life that Neverland was lost to him, describing his former residence as a ruin of faded hopes and forgotten dreams that he would always associate with suffering and humiliation, and with the profound sense of betrayal that had shredded the last fibers of his trust in people. Neverland had been Michael Jackson’s fantasy land and his true-life residence, an imaginary redoubt of eternal youth and an actual repository of the questions about the star’s “personal life” that would shadow his memory far into the future.

  At Neverland, Michael Jackson had learned that “going on” with what remained of his life after the settlement of the sex abuse charges against him in 1994 would take far more from him than he had bargained for. And it was of little if any consolation to him that the man on the other side of that deal had been even more destroyed by it than he was.

  In the Chandler family narrative, the characterization of Michael Jackson was surprisingly sympathetic even though they all agreed, without reservation, that he was a pedophile. “Michael had needs,” one of the Chandlers (speaking anonymously) would explain shortly before the second anniversary of the star’s death. “Among these was to love and be loved, to touch and be touched. He had sexual urges. It was just that his emotional growth in that area was stunted because of his childhood experiences. Michael was the most sensitive one among the Jacksons. And as the most sensitive one, he was the one most affected by what he saw and felt.

  “With Jordie and with the others, he was just trying to meet his needs. To a normal heterosexual male, having sex with a twelve-year-old is icky. To Michael, having sex with an adult was icky. That was who he was. From his point of view he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.”