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More Lawyers Quit Jackson Camp
Has Michael Jackson misplaced his checkbook (again)?
Another law firm that once went to bat for Jackson has cut ties with the pop star after several attorneys said that Jackson stopped returning their calls and emails and, perhaps more importantly, stopped paying their bills.
A Manhattan federal judge allowed lawyers from Wachtel & Massey, the firm representing Jackson in a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by a financial company that claims Jackson's MJ Publishing Trust owes it $48 million, to drop the case.
Attorney William Wachtel said that, after Jackson sent a number of intermediaries to converse on his behalf, the "Beat It" artist only met with his legal camp once, in June--and then dropped out of contact with the firm entirely.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson has failed to respond to every email and telephone message left for him over the past four weeks," Wachtel wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel.
Jackson, however, is maintaining that he fired Wachtel and company, faxing a letter dated July 17 to the Associated Press which reads: "It is with deep regret that I must terminate the services of Wachtel & Masyr (sic), LLP, effective immediately."
Wachtel and his colleagues had been working on Jackson's defense against Prescient Acquisition Group, a company that claims it helped the "Billie Jean" singer refinance $272.5 million in debt he owed to Bank of America and obtain a greater stake in the Sony/ATV music catalog to ward off those pesky creditors.
Judge Castel said he would give Jackson--who hasn't physically set foot in a U.S. courtroom since his child molestation trial last year--time to reorganize his legal team. He ordered the two parties back to court Sept. 5, saying that Jackson must either have a new lawyer by then or appear in court himself. In the flesh.
Wachtel & Massey was not even the first firm to work with Jackson on the Prescient Acquisitions case. His first attorneys, from the firm Latham & Watkins, quit in November, also saying that bills hadn't been paid and their client was too hard to get in touch with.
We'll see what the guy in charge has to say about all this. After reshuffling his entourage in June, Jackson hired L. Londell McMillan of the New York-based McMillan Firm to head up his business-related legal affairs--and there are plenty.
Los Angeles law firm Ayscough & Marar filed suit against Jackson last Tuesday, accusing the erstwhile pop idol of failing to pay more than $200,000 in legal fees for services rendered in 2005 while Jackson was on trial for molestation.
And while today was supposed to be the start date for yet another trial that Jackson won't be attending, the party has been postponed until Aug. 8. This time Jackson is the host. He sued a concert promoter (who had successfully sued him in 2002) to keep the man from proceeding with arbitration to settle their ongoing dispute over a 1999 contract.
Promoter Marcel Avram sued Jackson in 2000 for backing out of four concert dates, including two millennium New Year's Eve shows, and was eventually awarded $5.3 million in damages in 2003. But because Sony Music wouldn't let Avram sell CDs and DVDs from earlier Jackson shows, as was agreed upon during the original settlement, Avram decided to seek arbitration instead.
Jackson's lawsuit alleges that seeking arbitration is a violation of the agreement the two arrived at in 2003.
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