Katherines report
Katy Butler covered the Ramona recovered-memory trial in Napa County last spring for the _Los Angeles Times_ magazine. She is a staff writer for the _San Francisco Chronicle_ and works as a consulting editor for _Psychotherapy Networker_
2023.05.30 18:32 chronic-venting Katy Butler covered the Ramona recovered-memory trial in Napa County last spring for the _Los Angeles Times_ magazine. She is a staff writer for the _San Francisco Chronicle_ and works as a consulting editor for _Psychotherapy Networker_
February 5, 1995
On May 8, 1991, seven years after her father's death, a graying, impeccably groomed former Miss America named Marilyn Van Derbur walked to a podium in a small auditorium on the University of Colorado's Denver campus. Announcing a family gift of $260,000 to a university research program on child sexual abuse, the onetime Outstanding Woman Speaker in America said that her late father, Francis—a millionaire philanthropist whose name was inscribed on the local Boy Scout building—had repeatedly violated her between the ages of 5 and 18.
Van Derbur said she had no conscious memories of what her father had done to her until she was 24. She had coped, she said, by somehow splitting herself. A high-achieving "day child" skied, played the piano and studied hard—utterly failing to incorporate any awareness of a mute, terrified "night child" whose legs, she said, were repeatedly pried apart in the darkness by her father's insistent hands.
Van Derbur thought she was speaking only to the people in the room that night, but a reporter was there taking notes. Her secret—the kind once taken to the grave or contained in the female domain of gossip—was about to cross the border into the public realm and become news.
Within a day or two, radio talk shows were debating whether she was lying, deluded or telling the truth. Her total "forgetting" of repeated horrors for many years seemed to defy common sense.
Three days after the speech, Marilyn Van Derbur's oldest sister, Gwen, an attorney in Hillsborough, Calif., told the Rocky Mountain News that she, too, had been molested by their father—but she had never forgotten. With that, most questions about Marilyn Van Derbur's credibility and memory ended, and last year her father's name was removed from the Denver Boy Scout building.
But the floodgates had been opened. If power consists in part of determining whose stories will be told and whose believed, the balance of power was shifting. After nearly a century in which many psychiatrists—most of them [cis] male—dismissed such reports as hysterical fantasies, women and men who were sexually abused in childhood lost patience with being spoken about and began to speak for themselves. It was as though Lolita had taken the pen from Humbert Humbert's hand.
The revelations began in the 1980s at 12-step meetings for Adult Children of Alcoholics; they were whispered to a new generation of mostly female therapists whose clients were financially independent women. By 1994, more than 800,000 women had bought a self-help book called The Courage to Heal.
A window had opened, letting in darkness rather than light. Never before in history had so many women accused so many seemingly respectable men.
Little attention has been paid to the feelings of parents accused of abuse—either the innocent or the guilty. Now a comforting counter-explanation for the nation's wave of [incestuous abuse] revelation is being advanced: The problem is not abuse so much as an epidemic of false memories of it, fomented by therapists who suspect it when none has occurred.
The most formidable intellectual champions of this view are cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, the author, with journalist Katherine Ketcham, of The Myth of Repressed Memory, and Pulitzer Prize-winning social psychologist Richard Ofshe, the author, with journalist Ethan Watters, of Making Monsters. Both argue that an [incestuous abuse] recovery culture—purveyed in self-help and pop psychology books, on TV shows and by reckless therapists—has induced thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of women to falsely accuse their parents.
Loftus, a cognitive psychologist and an eminent memory researcher at the University of Washington, is not a therapist but a hard scientist, an expert on the malleability of memory. She is skeptical of all therapeutic theories (such as the concept of "repression") that have never been scientifically proven and skeptical of "recovered memories" of abuse because, as she writes in her book, she was secretly molested by a male baby-sitter when she was 6 and has never forgotten.
Her concern for the falsely accused has been shaped by nearly 20 years as an expert witness in criminal trials. As she described in a previous book, Witness for the Defense (1991), she tells juries that memory is not a pristine videotape, but subject to distortion, reconstruction, over-dubbing and erasure from stress, retelling, suggestion and the passage of time.
As she recounts in the current book, Loftus began in 1991 to apply her research to the incest debate. She got five university students and colleagues—about 20% of those who tried—to get a younger relative (in two cases young children) to report a mildly traumatic "false memory." They did it by mixing accurate details with a false event—mentioning a familiar shopping mall, for example, and then "reminding" the subject of being lost there until rescued by a fictitious stranger. Based on such limited studies, Loftus speculates that traumatic "memories" of [incestuous abuse] have been implanted unwittingly by therapists in thousands of women.
This view is supported by about 16,000 parents who have contacted the False Memory Syndrome Foundation of Philadelphia since 1992 to say they have been wrongly accused. Their daughters (and some sons), they say, developed "false memories" after reading The Courage to Heal, joining an [incestuous abuse] recovery group or being hypnotized or encouraged to draw or write about their childhoods by their therapists.
[...]
Making Monsters also uses case studies to build a broad attack on all therapy centered on the past. Therapy, Ofshe and Watters argue [...], is less a science than a system of influence, suggestion and belief. In the office, clients construct "narratives" of their lives that usually highlight what the therapist thinks is important: childhood trauma, perhaps, rather than present time. Do women benefit, he asks, from a life lived through a rearview mirror? It's a provocative argument, though it seems overstated: What happens to us affects us, after all.
[...]
That said, their books are not the dispassionate work of scientists. In Ofshe and Watters' book, the [incestuous abuse] recovery movement—composed primarily of women who have never forgotten memories of garden-variety abuse—has "morphed" into the "recovered memory movement," a quasi-cult of hysterical women devoted to explaining away all present problems by dowsing for a traumatic past.
[...]
While decrying as "pseudoscientific" the credulity of [incestuous abuse recovery] therapists, both Ofshe and Loftus seem remarkably uninterested in the vagaries of memory of those who have sexually abused children. Psychotherapists who work regularly with such men and women report that they frequently have alcohol problems that affect memory, or deny what they've done and admit or remember it months or years later.
Loftus makes only a glancing reference to Marilyn Van Derbur, and Ofshe does not mention her at all; nor do they discuss many other cases that might contradict these books' central article of faith. Loftus, curiously, does not include any reference to a scientific study she co-published last year in the Psychology of Women Quarterly; in the study, which would appear to contradict the title of her own book, more than half of the 105 women questioned at a substance abuse center reported having been sexually abused as children, and almost a fifth of that group reported a period of total forgetting, after which their memories returned.
Ofshe, for his part, tells readers that by "conservative estimate" 15% of "recovered memory therapy" cases eventually involve allegations of ritual abuse. That statistic is as unscientific as the wildest overestimates of incest; it comes from a voluntary survey of 500 members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, the support group for accused parents.
Almost all of Ofshe and Watters' case studies are hidden behind pseudonyms from independent inquiry, forcing the reader to trust the writer's conclusions rather than see how they were reached. The looseness with which he treats the material is evident in Chapter 6 of Making Monsters. Here he tells the story of "Jane"—a Washington state woman called Lynn Crook who has identified herself in a letter she circulated to the media disputing Ofshe's account. In Ofshe's account, Crook was led down the garden path by self-help books and therapists until she fabricated horrible memories of sexual abuse by her father, a respectable physician. Two of her sisters, apparently caught up in the hysteria, supposedly then interpreted vague and ambiguous memories as signs that they, too, had been abused. Crook sued her father (both Ofshe and Loftus appeared as expert witnesses at the trial) and, reportedly to "empower" herself, sought out a local newspaper reporter. As the chapter ends, she appears headed into the delusionary territory of satanic ritual abuse: She recalls seeing a crowd standing around a bonfire in masks, robes.
Although this chapter is told as though Ofshe and Watters can read Crook's mind—her "heart races" at one point—they did not interview her or the sisters who testified on her behalf. The tale is an embellished reconstitution of the court records, and discrepancies in the details do not inspire confidence in Ofshe and Watters' contention that Crook's memories were caused by reckless therapy and the reading of self-help books. The authors have fiddled with the timeline, making it appear that Crook read and positively reviewed The Courage to Heal before, rather than after, she recovered memories of abuse. Crook, in fact, never told anyone that she had informed a local reporter of her suit against her father to "empower" herself; she responded to a phone call from a reporter who ran across the legal filing. One of Crook's sisters supposedly testified that her father had once told her to close her legs; the book, however, omits the last half of the father's reported sentence—"or I'll think you want me." And while Crook's therapist's notes did refer to a frightening memory of people standing around a bonfire in masks, the reference to robes was invented, making the memory sound more indicative of the delusions of satanic ritual abuse that Ofshe seems eager to find everywhere.
Ofshe omits from this account any reference to his own role in the lawsuit. In the court records, Judge Dennis D. Yule comments: "Just as (Ofshe) accuses (therapists) of resolving at the outset (to find) repressed memories of abuse and then constructing them, he has resolved at the outset to find a macabre scheme of memories progressing toward satanic cult ritual and then creates them."
Inaccurate reporting like this takes a book like Making Monsters beyond polemic to backlash.
Sadly, we live in a world that produces its share of Jeffrey Dahmers, Ted Bundys, John Wayne Gacys, Susan Smiths and Francis Van Derburs; the public face people turn toward the world may have little relation to the one expressed in private. Yet if these authors have ever met guilty parents, they haven't written about them. They seem to accept most protestations of parental innocence at face value, even those as half-hearted and ambiguous as "I don't remember doing this" or "I don't think so."
They write movingly of the anguish of parents whose daughters accuse them of horrible crimes, but seem remarkably insensitive to sexually abused children. Families in which [sexual abuse] charges surface are described as "shattered"; but families in which [sexual abuse] really happened were secretly shattered long before anyone brought the truth to light.
[...] the danger is that books like Making Monsters and The Myth of Repressed Memory will once again silence women and men from speaking—and being believed—about very real abuse, and will create a new breed of experts who will once again presume to know the truth.
submitted by chronic-venting to Prevention [link] [comments]
On May 8, 1991, seven years after her father's death, a graying, impeccably groomed former Miss America named Marilyn Van Derbur walked to a podium in a small auditorium on the University of Colorado's Denver campus. Announcing a family gift of $260,000 to a university research program on child sexual abuse, the onetime Outstanding Woman Speaker in America said that her late father, Francis—a millionaire philanthropist whose name was inscribed on the local Boy Scout building—had repeatedly violated her between the ages of 5 and 18.
Van Derbur said she had no conscious memories of what her father had done to her until she was 24. She had coped, she said, by somehow splitting herself. A high-achieving "day child" skied, played the piano and studied hard—utterly failing to incorporate any awareness of a mute, terrified "night child" whose legs, she said, were repeatedly pried apart in the darkness by her father's insistent hands.
Van Derbur thought she was speaking only to the people in the room that night, but a reporter was there taking notes. Her secret—the kind once taken to the grave or contained in the female domain of gossip—was about to cross the border into the public realm and become news.
Within a day or two, radio talk shows were debating whether she was lying, deluded or telling the truth. Her total "forgetting" of repeated horrors for many years seemed to defy common sense.
Three days after the speech, Marilyn Van Derbur's oldest sister, Gwen, an attorney in Hillsborough, Calif., told the Rocky Mountain News that she, too, had been molested by their father—but she had never forgotten. With that, most questions about Marilyn Van Derbur's credibility and memory ended, and last year her father's name was removed from the Denver Boy Scout building.
But the floodgates had been opened. If power consists in part of determining whose stories will be told and whose believed, the balance of power was shifting. After nearly a century in which many psychiatrists—most of them [cis] male—dismissed such reports as hysterical fantasies, women and men who were sexually abused in childhood lost patience with being spoken about and began to speak for themselves. It was as though Lolita had taken the pen from Humbert Humbert's hand.
The revelations began in the 1980s at 12-step meetings for Adult Children of Alcoholics; they were whispered to a new generation of mostly female therapists whose clients were financially independent women. By 1994, more than 800,000 women had bought a self-help book called The Courage to Heal.
A window had opened, letting in darkness rather than light. Never before in history had so many women accused so many seemingly respectable men.
Little attention has been paid to the feelings of parents accused of abuse—either the innocent or the guilty. Now a comforting counter-explanation for the nation's wave of [incestuous abuse] revelation is being advanced: The problem is not abuse so much as an epidemic of false memories of it, fomented by therapists who suspect it when none has occurred.
The most formidable intellectual champions of this view are cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, the author, with journalist Katherine Ketcham, of The Myth of Repressed Memory, and Pulitzer Prize-winning social psychologist Richard Ofshe, the author, with journalist Ethan Watters, of Making Monsters. Both argue that an [incestuous abuse] recovery culture—purveyed in self-help and pop psychology books, on TV shows and by reckless therapists—has induced thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of women to falsely accuse their parents.
Loftus, a cognitive psychologist and an eminent memory researcher at the University of Washington, is not a therapist but a hard scientist, an expert on the malleability of memory. She is skeptical of all therapeutic theories (such as the concept of "repression") that have never been scientifically proven and skeptical of "recovered memories" of abuse because, as she writes in her book, she was secretly molested by a male baby-sitter when she was 6 and has never forgotten.
Her concern for the falsely accused has been shaped by nearly 20 years as an expert witness in criminal trials. As she described in a previous book, Witness for the Defense (1991), she tells juries that memory is not a pristine videotape, but subject to distortion, reconstruction, over-dubbing and erasure from stress, retelling, suggestion and the passage of time.
As she recounts in the current book, Loftus began in 1991 to apply her research to the incest debate. She got five university students and colleagues—about 20% of those who tried—to get a younger relative (in two cases young children) to report a mildly traumatic "false memory." They did it by mixing accurate details with a false event—mentioning a familiar shopping mall, for example, and then "reminding" the subject of being lost there until rescued by a fictitious stranger. Based on such limited studies, Loftus speculates that traumatic "memories" of [incestuous abuse] have been implanted unwittingly by therapists in thousands of women.
This view is supported by about 16,000 parents who have contacted the False Memory Syndrome Foundation of Philadelphia since 1992 to say they have been wrongly accused. Their daughters (and some sons), they say, developed "false memories" after reading The Courage to Heal, joining an [incestuous abuse] recovery group or being hypnotized or encouraged to draw or write about their childhoods by their therapists.
[...]
Making Monsters also uses case studies to build a broad attack on all therapy centered on the past. Therapy, Ofshe and Watters argue [...], is less a science than a system of influence, suggestion and belief. In the office, clients construct "narratives" of their lives that usually highlight what the therapist thinks is important: childhood trauma, perhaps, rather than present time. Do women benefit, he asks, from a life lived through a rearview mirror? It's a provocative argument, though it seems overstated: What happens to us affects us, after all.
[...]
That said, their books are not the dispassionate work of scientists. In Ofshe and Watters' book, the [incestuous abuse] recovery movement—composed primarily of women who have never forgotten memories of garden-variety abuse—has "morphed" into the "recovered memory movement," a quasi-cult of hysterical women devoted to explaining away all present problems by dowsing for a traumatic past.
[...]
While decrying as "pseudoscientific" the credulity of [incestuous abuse recovery] therapists, both Ofshe and Loftus seem remarkably uninterested in the vagaries of memory of those who have sexually abused children. Psychotherapists who work regularly with such men and women report that they frequently have alcohol problems that affect memory, or deny what they've done and admit or remember it months or years later.
Loftus makes only a glancing reference to Marilyn Van Derbur, and Ofshe does not mention her at all; nor do they discuss many other cases that might contradict these books' central article of faith. Loftus, curiously, does not include any reference to a scientific study she co-published last year in the Psychology of Women Quarterly; in the study, which would appear to contradict the title of her own book, more than half of the 105 women questioned at a substance abuse center reported having been sexually abused as children, and almost a fifth of that group reported a period of total forgetting, after which their memories returned.
Ofshe, for his part, tells readers that by "conservative estimate" 15% of "recovered memory therapy" cases eventually involve allegations of ritual abuse. That statistic is as unscientific as the wildest overestimates of incest; it comes from a voluntary survey of 500 members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, the support group for accused parents.
Almost all of Ofshe and Watters' case studies are hidden behind pseudonyms from independent inquiry, forcing the reader to trust the writer's conclusions rather than see how they were reached. The looseness with which he treats the material is evident in Chapter 6 of Making Monsters. Here he tells the story of "Jane"—a Washington state woman called Lynn Crook who has identified herself in a letter she circulated to the media disputing Ofshe's account. In Ofshe's account, Crook was led down the garden path by self-help books and therapists until she fabricated horrible memories of sexual abuse by her father, a respectable physician. Two of her sisters, apparently caught up in the hysteria, supposedly then interpreted vague and ambiguous memories as signs that they, too, had been abused. Crook sued her father (both Ofshe and Loftus appeared as expert witnesses at the trial) and, reportedly to "empower" herself, sought out a local newspaper reporter. As the chapter ends, she appears headed into the delusionary territory of satanic ritual abuse: She recalls seeing a crowd standing around a bonfire in masks, robes.
Although this chapter is told as though Ofshe and Watters can read Crook's mind—her "heart races" at one point—they did not interview her or the sisters who testified on her behalf. The tale is an embellished reconstitution of the court records, and discrepancies in the details do not inspire confidence in Ofshe and Watters' contention that Crook's memories were caused by reckless therapy and the reading of self-help books. The authors have fiddled with the timeline, making it appear that Crook read and positively reviewed The Courage to Heal before, rather than after, she recovered memories of abuse. Crook, in fact, never told anyone that she had informed a local reporter of her suit against her father to "empower" herself; she responded to a phone call from a reporter who ran across the legal filing. One of Crook's sisters supposedly testified that her father had once told her to close her legs; the book, however, omits the last half of the father's reported sentence—"or I'll think you want me." And while Crook's therapist's notes did refer to a frightening memory of people standing around a bonfire in masks, the reference to robes was invented, making the memory sound more indicative of the delusions of satanic ritual abuse that Ofshe seems eager to find everywhere.
Ofshe omits from this account any reference to his own role in the lawsuit. In the court records, Judge Dennis D. Yule comments: "Just as (Ofshe) accuses (therapists) of resolving at the outset (to find) repressed memories of abuse and then constructing them, he has resolved at the outset to find a macabre scheme of memories progressing toward satanic cult ritual and then creates them."
Inaccurate reporting like this takes a book like Making Monsters beyond polemic to backlash.
Sadly, we live in a world that produces its share of Jeffrey Dahmers, Ted Bundys, John Wayne Gacys, Susan Smiths and Francis Van Derburs; the public face people turn toward the world may have little relation to the one expressed in private. Yet if these authors have ever met guilty parents, they haven't written about them. They seem to accept most protestations of parental innocence at face value, even those as half-hearted and ambiguous as "I don't remember doing this" or "I don't think so."
They write movingly of the anguish of parents whose daughters accuse them of horrible crimes, but seem remarkably insensitive to sexually abused children. Families in which [sexual abuse] charges surface are described as "shattered"; but families in which [sexual abuse] really happened were secretly shattered long before anyone brought the truth to light.
[...] the danger is that books like Making Monsters and The Myth of Repressed Memory will once again silence women and men from speaking—and being believed—about very real abuse, and will create a new breed of experts who will once again presume to know the truth.
2023.05.30 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 30th
 | 1970 - "The Love You Save" by the Jackson 5 enters the Billboard US Hot 100 singles chart at #45. In late June, will peak at #1 & stay there for 2 weeks submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1971 - The Jackson 5 play at the Fairgrounds Arena (now Jim Norick Arena) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on their 2nd national tour 1977 - The Jacksons perform “Keep On Dancing” on Numéro Un Joe Dassin taped at the Buttes-Chaumont Studios in Paris, France while on their European tour. It would air on July 2nd https://preview.redd.it/l7qs60bu1t2b1.jpg?width=583&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6097f10de11c1eed4db5c31fd60ee1164723854d https://preview.redd.it/u8bs840v1t2b1.jpg?width=535&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9656ff295d3383c08dab4328533c5ddcc738131f 1979 - On their Destiny Tour, The Jacksons play the Jim Norick Arena in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 1987 - The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael has submitted an official bid, for an undisclosed sum, for the remains of the late John Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, from the London Hospital Medical College which has kept them since Merrick’s death in 1890. Michael's manager, Frank DiLeo, commented “Jackson has no exploitative intentions whatsoever and cares about and is concerned with the Elephant Man as a dedicated and devoted collector of art and antiques" Also adding that Michael "has a high degree of respect for the memory of Merrick" 1992 - "In The Closet" peaked at #6 during it's 5th week on the Billboard chart. It would stay in the Top 40 for 11 weeks 1997 - HIStory tour rehearsals in Bremen, Germany 2000 - Dangerous (album) is certified 7X platinum by the RIAA. https://preview.redd.it/mux66z1m1t2b1.jpg?width=200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=534424417cb398602f1e05ad08738a2b71593424 https://preview.redd.it/d9mty4pm1t2b1.png?width=325&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e4d908b0017480477988d8cb306482571b7cf96 2000 - Michael announces that he has become a key partner & investor in HollywoodTicket.com, a promotional and marketing site that gives netizens the chance to win backstage passes to concerts & visits to film/tv show shoots. The amount he invested was not disclosed but it's understood to be in the millions 2003 - Michael attends a party at Robert Evan's house to celebrate Brett Ratner's Hillhaven Lodge: The Photo Book Pictures book launch. Brett Ratner is the director of Rush Hour. Later that same night, Michael shows up at a MTV Movie Awards post party at Ron Burkle's Beverly Hills Mansion where he meets Puff Daddy and Paris Hilton among others. https://preview.redd.it/dqatcf5r1t2b1.jpg?width=487&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15562776b7bed38a21cb83b55196fc88f4763164 https://preview.redd.it/lcfs3asr1t2b1.jpg?width=1707&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d44d91cf64ea078ecfc0e8d91a591feb80c49f6 https://preview.redd.it/nnogz5ls1t2b1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=34428f4ce83bf04217c4d2b4b66e880d1ce86a1d 2005 - No court today due to the Memorial Day holiday 2006 - Michael Jackson takes his kids and his nanny Grace to Tokyo Disneyland. 2007 - A collection of almost 2000 Jackson family items dating from the mid-1960's to the early '90's goes to auction in the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. These are items from a storage warehouse that Henry Vaccaro came in to possession of after a failed business venture ended up in bankruptcy court. Items include Michael's gold record for Thriller, handwritten "ABC" lyrics & a signed Victory tour program 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 20 Katherine and Rebbie Jackson are in court. The court also heard an update on efforts to get emails and any other records from a computer used by Michael's former manager, Frank Dileo. Apparently an LA attorney has a copy of Dileo's computer hard drive. Attorneys are working to get a copy of the HD to both sides. The copy was revealed during a deposition of Dileo's widow earlier this week in Pennsylvania, plaintiff's attorney Brian Panish said Paul Gongaware Testimony Jackson direct Gongaware said he met with his attorneys again yesterday to refresh his recollection Panish asked if AEG was concerned about Mr. Jackson's health. "When he was sick we obviously had a concern," Gongaware responded. Gongaware said he understood Michael was sick from reading the chain of emails shown yesterday. But Gongaware told the jury he didn't have any particular concern about Michael Jackson other than on June 19th, no one told Gongaware about being concerned with his health. Gongaware testified that he disagreed with Houghdahl's opinion, saying he had no "particular concern" about Jackson's health and ability to perform Talking about the email Hougdahl sent saying Michael was deteriorating quickly, Gongaware explained: "I didn't see it the way he saw." Hougdahl, in response to concerns expressed by Travis Payne about Jackson's weight Email 6/15/09 from Hougdahl to Gongaware : He needs some cheeseburgers with a bunch of Wisconsin cheesehead bowlers and a couple of brats and beers"Was he joking around about this situation?" Panish asked Gongaware, referring to Hougdahl. "I think he was," Gongaware replied. "Did you think that was funny?" Panish asked. "I did," Gongaware admitted Panish asked about indemnity in Gongaware's contract. The exec said indemnity means that someone else is taking on the responsibility. "I haven't read my contract in 12/13 years, I don't know what it says," Gongaware said. Gongaware said he does not know how many pages his employment agreement is. Panish asked if he AEG would cover for Gongaware should they be found guilty. Gongaware said it was his understanding that he wouldn't be personally responsible financially if the jury sided with Jackson family. Panish: "That means if you did something wrong..."Adding that depending upon the size of the judgment, AEG could go after him. Panish asked how much AEG would be able to afford, and Gongaware said he didn't know. Panish emphasized there are various ways for AEG to pay a judgment, and Gongaware mentioned they had some sort of cancellation insurance. Panish went back to discuss the email from Randy Phillips where he wrote 'Dr. Murray didn't need the gig and was unbiased and ethical' Panish: "Is Mr. Phillips unbiased and ethical, sir?"Panish asked if it was ethical for Phillips to represent to Ortega that the doctor is 'extremely successful' and 'we checked everyone out'. Gongaware responded that he didn't know what Phillips knew at the time. Panish: "Is number one priority 'the show must go on'?"Panish showed the email from John Branca, saying he had the right therapist for Michael and asked if substance abuse was involved. "This is referring to the meeting that was going to happen and I was waiting to see the results of it," Gongaware said. "I didn't believe there was a substance abuse issue," Gongaware testified. "In the entire time I was dealing with him in this tour, I saw it once when he came back from his doctor," Gongaware testified. Gongaware said that was the only time he saw Michael with slurred speech and under the influence of something. Gongaware said he didn't know what Dr. Klein was giving Michael Jackson. When Panish asked Gongaware if he checked Dr. Klein out, he replied: "No, he was Michael's doctor and it was none of my business." Gongaware said he once observed Michael looking "slow" and possibly intoxicated after a visit to his dermatologist but he didn't believe he had any "serious health problems" even after Jackson appeared weak and disoriented at a June 19 rehearsal. "My observation of Michael Jackson was that he was healthy," Gongaware said. "They had a meeting to discuss (the June 19 incident), and he took a couple days off and he came back strong" As to insurance issues, Gongaware said he was involved only peripherally. On June 25, Gongaware sent an email saying that if they didn't get sickness coverage in the insurance, they would be dropping the policy. Gongaware said he didn't know why he was pressing for sickness insurance on the day Michael died. Bob Taylor, the insurance broker, wrote back that it was always down to the medical issued from the word go. Regarding Randy Phillips asking for life insurance the day Michael died, Gongaware said he didn't pay much attention to insurance, didn't recall. The day Michael died, Gongaware said Phillips called him and told him to get over to the house right away, there seems to be a problem. Randy followed the ambulance to UCLA. "The second call was that he informed me that he had died," Gongaware remembered. On June 25, Gongaware said he went to the rehearsal at the Staples Center and talked to Kenny Ortega. Panish: "Were you sad Mr. Jackson died?""He was a business associate", Gongaware said about Michael. They did not didn't hang out as friends Panish asked about Phillips' email directing Gongaware to remove thin, skeletal footage of Michael in the red jacket from This Is It documentary. Gongaware testified that he remembered receiving the email. In his deposition played in court, Gongaware said he didn't recall the email. Panish: "Did you change your testimony?"AEG Live president and co-chief executive Randy Phillips wrote in Aug. 9 email: Make sure we take out the shots of Michael in that red leather jacket at the sound stage where the mini-movies were being filmed. He looks way too think (sic) and skeletalGongaware replied to Phillips, his boss: ok will have a look when it comes on screenGongaware said he didn't try to control any of the messages about Michael after his death to reflect he was fully engaged in rehearsals. Panish asked about an email from Gongaware okay'ing the band, singers and dancer to give interviews but asked them to keep it positive In another email July 9, 2009, email to music coordinator JoAnn Tominaga, Gongaware wrote: We are ok with the band, singers and dancers doing interviews now. The only thing we ask is that they keep it positive and stress that Michael was active, engaged and not the emaciated person some want to paint him as being.Answering questions from Jackson family attorney Brian Panish, Gongaware said he was not trying to control the film's message. Panish: "You're telling them what not to say, aren't you sir?"Gongaware's testimony again emphasized the contrast between the answers he gave during his deposition under oath in December 2012 and his responses in the courtroom. In testimony, he agreed that Phillips meant "thin" in his email, instead of the word he typed, 'think'. Asked during the deposition what Phillips meant, he replied, "I don't know what he meant" Gongaware said nothing was taken out of the documentary, which included rehearsals for the scheduled 50 concerts in London. Gongaware promised in a follow-up email to Phillips that he'd "have a look," but he testified that he never dumped any footage. "We didn't keep anything out based on what Randy wrote," Gogaware told jurors. Gongaware testified that he did not know why Phillips would ask that. Gongaware said there were 15,000 tickets per show, $1.5 million in tickets per show, $47 million for all 31 shows. Tickets were selling at lightening fast, Gongaware said. "As fast as the system can sell.". The tickets were sold in March, Gongaware said. It was held by the arena, AEG had control of the money. Gongaware said merchandising was another way of making money. The building, which is owned by AEG, would keep the revenue of beverage sold. Gongaware said the beverage money would offset the arena rent, which Michael would not have to pay. Gongaware: "His (MJ) potential was great"Before lunch, Panish asked Gongaware whether This Is It was intended to be a multi-city tour. Gongaware said no, it was just going to be the 50 shows at London's O2 arena. "The only thing we knew was 50 shows in London. Michael had not agreed to anything else," Gongaware explained Panish asked Gongaware by the time the show was sold out, how many people were in the queue to buy tickets. "250,000 people were still in the queue, which would be enough to sell another 50 shows," Gongaware answered. During Murray's trial, Gongaware testified that 250k people still wanted tickets. He told that jury This Is It would be a multi-city tour. Panish: "Did you tell the truth when you testified in this case, sir?"Panish then concluded his questioning of Gongaware. AEG cross AEG's attorney, Marvin Putnam, did the questioning of Gongaware on behalf of the defendants. Putnam: "Have you ever been sued personally for the wrongful death of anyone?"Putnam asked about Gongaware's memory and he said it's okay Putnam asked Gongaware about some of the emails shown to jurors yesterday. Putnam was trying to show that not all the contents of the emails had been shown to jury. Some email addresses had been redacted. Attorney Brian Panish objected to the redactions, and got testy with the judge. It prompted another lengthy sidebar. When attorneys returned from the judge's chambers, Putnam resumed questioning Gongaware about emails sent to his private account Putnam said Gongaware handed over more than 13,000 emails in discovery from the This Is It period Putnam inquired about Gongaware's Kazoodi personal email account. On 6/20/09, the chain of emails with "Trouble at the Front" was sent there. Gongaware said he didn't remember receiving this email. Gongaware said he had more than one "Kazoodi" email account. He said he was not using the account the email was sent to on 6/20. "The account was closed at the time." Putnam presented Gongaware a document that indicated the private email account had been closed at the time. Gongaware said he never denied it was sent. Gongaware claimed yesterday was the first time he saw this chain of emails. Putnam used the closed email account to try to show Gongaware's testimony was truthful Putnam: "Why could you not recall e-mails?"Some of the e-mails were new to him because he was so busy putting Jackson's tour together that he never read them, he said. Gongaware said he was receiving hundreds of email a day at the height of 2008/09 tour preparation. "Mostly, it was just a time factor if it was something that didn't have to do with me" Gongaware said he doesn't have an office at AEG, and that he works on his own projects. He has an office at his house. Gongaware is the Co-CEO of AEG Live Concerts West with John Meglen. He said he was the co-founder of the company. Phillips is AEG Live CEO Gongaware explained be has been testifying about what he could recall. If he didn't remember, he said he told the jury he couldn't recall. Gongaware testified he looked at the emails after his deposition because he wanted to put everything together and see the bigger picture. Putnam: "Did you try to give your best testimony?" Gongaware: "Yes, I did" Regarding the phone call between Gongaware and Dr. Murray where the doctor asked about $5 million, Gongaware said he remembers that call. The next call between the two, it was the $150,000 call, where Gongaware offered the doctor $150k. Gongaware said those were the only two calls he had with Dr. Murray Gongaware said the 1st time he met Dr. Murray was a meeting at Michael's Carolwood house. He said MJ, Kenny, Randy, Frank & Dr Murray were present. Gongaware recalled the other meeting with Dr. Murray was an encounter with him at The Forum. He remembers saying hello to him. Gongaware said he's sure he didn't meet with Dr. Murray other than on those two occasions Gongaware said he promoted couple of shows/dances in college. He graduated in '69 from Waynesboro College in Pennsylvania in Accounting. He worked for Arthur Andersen in NYC after college as auditor. He said one needed two years of experience in order to get CPA license.The company ended up shutting down after being involved in the Enron scandal, Gongaware explained. He said there's a continuing education requirement in order to maintain his CPA license, but he hasn't kept current. "I didn't like that work," Gongaware said about leaving the practice. "I wanted to do things and not just be an accountant." Gongaware said he ski bummed for a winter and would do bookkeeping to pay for his lodge. His first big show was in Colorado -- he got The Grateful Dead to perform at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo. He said he didn't know the band or any of its managers, but asked them to come to Colorado. They did, and the show was a hit. "The concert was sold out", Gongaware said, and he became an independent promoter. Around 1975, he met Terry Bassett who worked at Concerts West and Gongaware went to work for them in their Seattle office. He worked for them for about 10 years. Gongaware said he went to work for the company because the money was steady. At Concerts West, Gongaware worked with Bad Company, Led Zeppelin, Beach Boys, Chicago, Eric Clapton, among others. This Concerts West is not the same; he is the currently the co-CEO. Gongaware left Seattle and came to LA to work at Concerts West. He then went to Warner Miller Films. The company did primarily ski movies. Jerry Weintraub was Elvis' promoter and Concerts West assigned him to work with Colonel Parker, Elvis' manager. Gongaware was in his 20s when he worked with Elvis. He said when they'd announce an Elvis concert, there would be lines at the box office for 4 days. Gongaware said Colonel would buy ads on every radio station and promote the show. When tickets went on sale, Gongaware was to report to Colonel every hour regarding the ticket sales. Elvis Presley's death became a controversy at this trial as the man (Gongaware) who promoted both artists' last tours testified. He testified yesterday that Presley died of a drug overdose, but when his own lawyer questioned him today he changed his testimony to say Elvis died of a heart ailment. Presley collapsed in the bathroom of his Memphis, Tennessee, mansion, Graceland, on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42. While his death was ruled the result of an irregular heartbeat, the autopsy report was sealed amid accusations that abuse of prescription drugs caused the problem.How Presley died is relevant because Jackson lawyers argue Gongaware's experience as Elvis's promoter should have made him more aware of drug abuse by artists, including Michael Jackson. Although he worked advance promotion on Elvis Presley's last tours -- under the direction of Presley manager Colonel Tom Parker -- Gongaware testified he never met Presley. Putnam:"Did you understand he had a problem with drugs?"Around 1992, Gongaware went to work on the Dangerous tour with Michael. This was his first time working with Michael Jackson. He worked with the Jacksons in 2000 but he remembered working on a tour with the Jacksons prior to 92 and said Michael was part of the group. "I was the tour manager, handled the logistics and travel for the B party," Gongaware said, adding he worked for Michael but not for A party.
Putnam: "Were there any doctors in that tour?"Gongaware said Dr. Forecast was Michael's personal doctor. He didn't think Dr. Forecast treated anyone else, so they had Dr. Finkelstein also. Dr. Finkelstein, a general practitioner, was in the B party. They went to places where they didn't know the quality of local healthcare. Gongaware explained Dr. Finkelstein treated B, C and D parties. Gongaware said he did not see any doctor treat Michael. Dr. Finkelstein told Gongaware he treated Michael twice. Dr. Forecast wasn't in Bangkok yet, so Dr. Finkelstein treated him when he needed. "The King of Thailand said Michael would have to do the second show because his friends were attending", Gongaware recalled.Gongaware said the King put armed guards outside their doors to make sure they didn't leave Putnam: "During the Dangerous tour, had you come to have an understating that Michael had a problem with drugs or painkillers?"Gongaware said. He learned it had to do with drug addiction because Michael announced it. Putnam played the audio with Michael's statement: "My friends and doctors advised me to seek professional guidance immediately in order to eliminate what has become an addition. It is time for me to acknowledge my need for treatment"On Jun 25, 2009 Gabriel Sutter (a tech guy) wrote Gongaware a condolences email. "It was such an incredible shock to go through that experience," Gongaware explained. Gongaware's response on July 5, 2009: I was working on the Elvis tour when he died so I kind of knew what to expect"You have all these people out of work," Gongaware explained. "With Elvis some were without jobs permanently." Under questioning from Putnam, Gongaware said he didn't mean that he expected Jackson to die like Elvis. He was referring to the trauma of people losing their jobs because a tour is canceled and the estate taking over the legacy, he said. Putnam: "When you wrote the email, did you expect Michael to die?"Here's what Gongaware had to say about the role of the estate after Elvis died (and what he expected after Jackson's death.): "Then the estate takes over, and everything's different. You have nothing to say about anything"When one of his friends asked about his plans after Michael's death, Gongaware replied he was "trying to recover our losses from the show" "Michael died of overdose of Propofol. He didn't die of being sick or malnutrition", Gongaware said. He said that he had no idea of what Propofol was. "I had no idea" Jackson was using propofol in the weeks before his death, Gongaware testified Gongaware said he worked on Michael's memorial service. He was in charge of the tickets and worked closely with the family. He said he didn't charge for his work. Putnam: "Why did you work at the memorial service?"Court Transcript 2017 - Michael Jackson: Searching For Neverland, starring Navi as Michael, premieres on the Lifetime channel in the US |
2023.05.29 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 29th
 | 1950 - Maureen Reillette "Rebbie" Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. She is the first child born to Joe & Katherine Jackson submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1956 - La Toya Yvonne Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. She is the 5th child & the middle daughter 1971 - The Jackson 5 play at the Indiana Fairgrounds Coliseum (now Indiana Farmers Coliseum) in Indianapolis, Indiana 1988 - Michael Jackson performs in concert to an audience of 53,600 at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino in Turin, Italy on his BAD World Tour https://preview.redd.it/pkmq55o7il2b1.jpg?width=188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=565bf39b3c27e237092a868e3c590859d7c92852 1997 - Michael arrives in Bremen, Germany with Tarak Ben Ammar, on the HIStory World Tour. He meets the mayor of the city, Henning Scherf https://preview.redd.it/xxuqu9k5il2b1.jpg?width=419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1efb677539f72da3a2130b05ebd0ce456aa3425d https://i.redd.it/rs245el6il2b1.gif Three month old Prince Michael Jr is taken to a Paris hotel suite where he is taken care of by his nannies Grace Rwaramba & Pia Bhatti. Michael joins him after each concert of the European tour. Debbie Rowe also flies every weekend to spend time with Michael & their son. 2006 - While still in Tokyo, Michael has business meetings in his hotel suite and then goes out shopping 2009 - Michael invites some fans into CenterStaging, where This Is It rehearsals are taking place. According to them he seemed worried, upset and his voice crackled as if he was on the verge of tears as he revealed that he had "gone to bed thinking it was 10 concerts and woke up finding out it was 50". Michael’s curly hair is back! https://preview.redd.it/ypg7sx42il2b1.jpg?width=150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bbdad990b37e3848f92fcbde269a5a09a4f5cc49 https://preview.redd.it/qfe4xg53il2b1.jpg?width=793&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37fd8a1992f87a862cd094f8d051b33d312194bc Later Michael goes for the second time in 10 days to a sound design studio on Magnolia Boulevard. 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 19 Katherine and Rebbie Jackson are at court. Paul Gongaware Testimony Jackson direct "My understanding Michael Jackson is a party (to the contract)," Gongaware said about Dr. Murray's contract. Gongaware told jury he's never looked at Conrad Murray's contract to serve as Michael Jackson's tour doctor Panish: "Why did AEG have to enter into a contract with Dr. Murray?" Gongaware: "I don't know about AEG terminating Dr. Murray"Gongaware said he didn't believe they could do it, because he was Michael's doctor. Gongaware said it was fair to say he didn't know why AEG would enter into a contract with a doctor for Michael Jackson. Panish asked Gongaware if Michael negotiated the price/contract with Dr. Murray. "I believe he did through me, he instructed me what to offer"Gongaware said he didn't know for sure whether Karen Faye was an independent contractor or not. "Dr. Murray would've been 100% charged to Michael Jackson," Gongaware testified.Gongaware said he didn't know what the $300k budgeted for medical management was for. Panish tried 'impeaching' Gongaware, which is the process of calling into question the credibility of an individual who's testifying. Yesterday and today the plaintiffs' attorney would ask a question then play parts of the deposition to catch Gongaware in contradiction. At one point, a portion of Gongaware's deposition was played in which he discussed a meeting at Michael's house with Conrad Murray. In his deposition, Paul Gongaware said the meeting "was about Dr. Murray and engaging him"; Gongaware later changed testimony to state "him" meant MJ. That change was read to the jury, leading attorney Brian Panish to question Gongaware about what he meant by the word "engage". "Here I think we were talking about making sure Michael Jackson was engaged and focused", Gongaware said. He told the jury he was concerned about getting Michael involved and focused, engaged mentally. "I believe that was Kenny's concern, that he wanted him to be focused," Gongaware explained. "Michael had gone before without rehearsing", Gongaware recalled. "When he got to London, he was going to be sensational." Gongaware said he thought at the meeting they discussed Jackson's nutrition, not his health (i.e. sleep issues.) Panish asked Gongaware about another meeting at Jackson's house in which Michael showed up late after a visit to Dr. Arnold Klein. "I didn't know what he was under the influence of, but he was a little bit off", Gongaware said of the meeting adding that he didn't know what kind of drugs Dr. Klein was giving Michael Panish then asked Gongaware whether he was involved in getting Jackson a nutritionist. Lots of back-and-forth on this issue. Panish showed emails in which Gongaware emailed others at AEG telling them Jackson needed a nutritionist and physical therapist. "Obviously I was looking for a nutritionist for him, but I wasn't involved in his nutrition," Gongaware said. Panish played Gongaware's deposition where he said he was not involved in finding a nutritional person. Gongaware explained he believes nutritional person and nutritionist were not necessarily the same. On June 15, 2009, Gongaware sent an email to Ortega in response to request for nutritionist and physical therapist for Michael . Email: We're on it. AEG owns major sports teams in this market so we think we can find the right people quickly. Kenny responded: Super.Not a minute too soon. Let's turn this guy around! Panish then asked Gongaware about a friend of AEG CEO Randy Phillips who was going to work with Jackson. Gongaware said he didn't know whether this friend of Phillips was a nutrition specialist. He told Panish he'd have to ask Randy Phillips. Gongaware testified he remembers someone named David Laughner working with Michael. Panish pointed out Laughner is Randy Phillips' friend. "I don't know if he was a nutritionist, it was someone in charge of making Michael eat," Gongaware explained. Gongaware: "He's a guy who's dealt with artists quite a bit"Gongaware said he doesn't know what Laughner did, but he's seen him working with JLo and Enrique Iglesias. Gongaware didn't know why MJ would need a nutritionist when he had a doctor hired. "Kenny asked for it," Gongaware explained. Gongaware said he told Dr. Murray he wanted him to have everything he needed. He said Michael Jackson had always been thin Gongaware said he didn't attend rehearsals frequently. "I was at the rehearsal facility at all the times but I wasn't in the arena much.""We were always concerned about Michael's health and well being," Gongaware explained, saying he was responding to Kenny Ortega's requests. Gongaware said Kenny Ortega was responsible for keeping an eye on everything, including Michael and his health. Gongaware was then asked whether there was anyone responsible for handling AEG's interests at rehearsals. Gongaware responded "Yes, that was Kenny Ortega" Panish: "Do you think Ortega was overreacting?"Talking about the email Gongaware wrote saying he wanted to remind him (Dr. Murray) that it's AEG, not Michael, who's paying his salary. In his deposition, Gongaware said he didn't know what he meant to say in the email. Gongaware testified he spent some of the time himself looking at this email, putting it in context with the rest of the material he had. Panish: "After meeting with your lawyers and talking about an hour or two about this email, did you refresh your memory of what you meant?"Panish played for jurors a section of Gongaware's deposition, recorded in December, in which Jackson lawyer Kevin Boyle questioned him about what he meant when he wrote to Ortega: "We want to remind him that it is AEG, not Michael, who is paying his salary." Boyle: "Based on the assumptions that AEG is your company and Michael is Michael Jackson, do you have an understanding of what that means?"After Gongaware began recalling in court what he meant in the e-mail, Panish suggested it may be a case of "repressed memories" where "someone doesn't remember something for three or four years." "You didn't have any psychotherapy to remember what you wrote here?" Panish asked. "You didn't like get put to sleep? (Judge Yvette Palazuelos injected: "Hypnotized?") to see if you remembered this?Panish went through every word of the email, which was to Kenny Ortega and Frank DiLeo: Frank and I have discussed it already and have requested a face-to-face meeting with the doctor, hopefully Monday. We want to remind him that it is AEG, not Michael, who's paying his salary. We want him to understand what's expected of him. He's been dodging Frank so far Panish: "You're referring to Dr. Murray and what's expected of Dr. Murray, right?"Panish asked if he thought Dr. Murray knew what his responsibility was, so why the need to remind him what was expected of him? "This thing was shorthand between me, Kenny and Frank. I was going through hundreds of emails a day. If I knew lawyers four years later were picking everything apart, I may have been more careful choosing my words", Gongaware testified.He claimed he was referring to Kenny's email regarding nutritionist, physical therapist. "I certainly feel Dr. Murray should be competent to do that (be a nutritionist). He's a doctor!" Gongaware testified.Panish asked why Gongaware thought they needed a nutritionist when they had a doctor hired. "Kenny asked for one," he responded "If Michael signed the contract and if Michael would've instructed us to pay him, we would've pay him," Gongaware said about Dr. Murray "Frank and I have discussed it already and have requested a face-to-face meeting with the doctor, hopefully MondayAEG Live co-CEO Paul Gongaware wrote on June 14, 2009, 11 days before Murray administered a fatal dose propofol "Michael didn't like to rehearse, it didn't surprise me," Gongaware expressed, saying it was known that Michael didn't go to rehearsals. But when the lights went up, Jackson was "on," he stated. Email on 5/5/09 from Gongaware to Carla Garcia: Pray for me. This is a nightmare. Not coincidentally, I have them now every night. Cold sweats too. Life used to be so much fun...It was not an admission that he was concerned about Jackson's ability to do the show, he said. "It was just playing around, joking," with AEG President Tim Leiweke's assistant, Carla Garcia, he testified. "Carla is an absolute babe and I was just chatting her up. I don't have cold sweats, I don't have nightmares, I sleep great!" Gongaware said. Panish asked him if he was lying in the email, "white lie?" Response from Phillips on Jun 20: Bugzee, I know because I just got Kenny's message on my voicemail.What did he do when he got there and what happened between him and KO? I have a meeting with Michael tomorrow morningFrom Hougdahl (Bugzee)to Phillips, cc'd Gongaware: MJ came out and watched all the pyro demonstrations and endorsed the all the effects then went into his room and asked Kenny "you aren't going to kill the artist, are you?" We assumed this was reference to pyro, but Kenny said he was shaking and couldn't hold his knife and fork. Kenny had to cut his food for him before he could eat, and then had to use his fingers. I don't know how much embellishment there is to this, but (Kenny) said repeatedly that Michael was in no shape to go on stage. He kept going on and on how no one was taking responsibility for "getting him ready". We might be getting beyond ... damage control, here"I didn't worry about, it sounded like he was sick and they were going to talk about it next morning," Gongaware explained Phillips replied: Tim and I are going to see him tomorrow, however, I am not sure what the problem is. Chemical or physiological?Gongaware said he was at a family wedding and wasn't really paying attention to this. This was 1st time he heard something was wrong with Michael Gongaware responds: Take the doctor with you. Why wasn't he there last night?"Yes, if he (MJ) was sick, why wasn't he (the doctor) there?" Gongaware said he meant in the email Phillips responded and added Tim Leiweke in the chain: He is not a psychiatrist so I'm not sure how effective he can be at this point. Obviously, getting him there is not the issue. It is much deeper."I think Randy is stating his opinion," Gongaware said. Panish asked if Gongaware inquired what Phillips meant by "the issue... It's much deeper." Gongaware: "Well, there was going to be a meeting that day to discuss it"Response from Hougdahl to Phillips, about needing trainetherapist: I've watched him deteriorate in front of my eyes over the last 8 weeks. He was able to do multiple 360 spins back in April. He'd fall on his ass if he tried it now"There was a meeting on June 20th. I wasn't there, I was back East," Gongaware recalled. Email from Phillips (6/20/09): Unfortunately, we are running out of time. That's my biggest fear"He was afraid of that, I wasn't," Gongaware said. Gongaware said he didn't agree with Phillips' assessment, "He may have said that, but I didn't agree with that" Panish questioned Gongaware about whether the company put too much emphasis on the showbiz maxim, "The show must go on." Gongaware denied that was the case. He told the jury that he was concerned about Jackson's health, but that he thought This Is It tour director Kenny Ortega may have been overstating concerns about the singer's wellbeing. Gongaware agreed that in this business, the show must go on Gongaware testified he didn't know when Dr. Murray's contract was to begin. "That contract was for London and the shows for London, I believe," Gongaware said. Email on 6/20/09 from Phillips to LeiwekeComm and "Kazoodi"(private email address that belongs to Gongaware): This guy is really starting to concern me. Read his email and my response. Dr. Murray and I are meeting with Michael at 4pm today at The Forum.Gongaware testified that he wasn't sure who Phillips was referring to, and his boss may have been expressing concerns about Jackson or Murray. The artist's health is paramount. Without the artist, there's no show. The artist is the most important thing," Gongaware testified Email on 6/19/09 from Phillips to Leiweke: We have a real problem hereThere was a meeting that was going to happen the next day, Gongaware said, and he waited to see what would come out of it Email on 6/19/09 from Leiweke to Phillips: Let's set up a time for you and I to meet with him. I want Kenny in the meeting as wellOrtega wrote back: I will do whatever I can to be of help with this situation. My concern is now that we've brought the Doctor into the fold played the tough love .He appeared quite weak and fatigued this evening. He had a terrible case of the chills, was trembling, rambling and obsessing. Everything in me says he should be psychologically evaluated. If we have any chance at all to get him back in the light it's going to take a strong therapist to help him through this as well as immediate physical nurturing. I was told by our choreographer during the artists costume fitting w/ his designer tonight they noticed he's lost more weight.: As far as I can tell, there's no 1 taking responsibility (caring) for him on a daily basis. Where was his assistant tonight? Tonight I was feeding him wrapping him in blankets to warm his chill, massaging his feet to calm him and calling his doctor. There were four security guards outside his door, but no one offering him a cup of hot tea. Finally, it's important for everyone to know I believe he really wants this. It would shatter him break his heart if we pulled plug. He's terribly frightened it's all going to go away. He asked me repeatedly tonight if i was going to leave him. He was practically begging for my confidence. It broke my heart. He was like a lost boy. There still may be a chance he can rise to the occasion if we get him the help he needs.Phillips responded: Kenny: I will call you when I figure this out,we have a person like that, Brigitte, who's in London advancing his stay. We will bring her back asap and Frank, too, however, I'm stymied on who to bring in as a therapist and how they can get through to him in such a short timeGongaware said Brigitte is a lawyer who was in charge of accommodations for MJ in London Gongaware: "He was obviously concerned""This all happened prior to the meeting, and I was waiting to understand what the situation was," Gongaware explained "I think they are special," Gongaware said about artists. Email response from Philips to Kenny urging him, and everyone else, not to become amateur psychiatrists or physicians on 6/20/09: You cannot imagine the harm and ramifications of stopping this show now Panish: "Can you name a single person at AEG who checked Dr. Murray out?"Gongaware: "I never checked any doctor that I used. I just go by recommendation, never checked anyone's financial situation" Gongaware said everyone thought Michael had all the money in the world, and it was not unusual for him to see people asking for a lot of money. Gongaware said he never heard before today anything about Dr. Murray's financial conditions Panish: "He knew Michael's health was declining based on what the doctor told him, right?"Email on 6/22/09 from Hougdahl (Production Manager, known as Bugzee) to Gongaware: Further to the earlier email Let's keep our two docu people out of here today, unless they stay in the dressing room area only. Tomorrow is another story... Panish: "Sir, Michael was sick this time, wasn't he?"Panish then asked Gongaware about his attendance at Jackson's rehearsals. Gongaware said he didn't attend many. He watched Jackson perform "Thriller" two days before he died, but that was the only time he spent at that rehearsal. "He appeared to me to be fully engaged. I recall seeing "Thriller" because it was the first time they were rehearsing with the costume and I wanted to see it," Gongaware saidCourt Transcript 2017 - Lifetime original movie, Michael Jackson: Searching For Neverland is featured in TV Weekly magazine, with Navi on the cover https://preview.redd.it/xr20szbwhl2b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca89f816ca5d8ca75a97e23528767b4036711be3 |
2023.05.28 20:49 Mortimer_Whimsiwick World Hunger Games: 17th Hunger Games: Finale + Aftermath
Day 2 came to a close along with the betting circuits. As by law, the betting circuits closed the moment ten tributes remained which was brought about by Carnelia’s death. Artemis and Luther revealed the betting statistics. The top three tributes from top to bottom were Mortimer, Cat, and Wolvthorne. Artemis claimed to have taken a gamble and betted on Cat. Luther stuck with his Mortimer vote, uttering his signature catchphrase, “Always vote for the best story”. Their attention was diverted to the victor’s lounge where Candace Freeman (victor of the 4th Hunger Games) drunkenly accused Gill of cheating and then devolving into a rant about how unfair it was that District 1 hadn’t done well in recent years. Bacchus Johnson (victor of the 9th Hunger Games) blamed their district mayor Baron Moriarty for his materialistic viewpoints and encouragement for overindulgence spoiling the district youth rotten. Fabeline Granger (victor of the 15th Hunger Games) chalked it up to Candace being a privileged drama queen before making a snide remark towards her husband, Capital superstar Paris Dinkley. Candace broke a bottle over her head in retaliation. Silas MacIntyre (victor of the 7th Hunger Games) wrapped Candace in a bear hug and threw her out of the room. Fabeline was taken to the infirmary, where she was treated for a gash on her head, receiving four stitches. Back in the commentator’s booth, Artemis was so far deep in the juicy drama that she missed the arena’s great reveal.
After a light breakfast, Mortimer and Cat decided they were ready to push through the brush. They were still feeling woozy from the powerful smell but felt the need to persevere. Cat took the lead and used her sword to cut through the foliage. Mortimer kept the rear and scanned the lake, searching for any approaching tributes. After about ten minutes, Cat cut through the last bush and was mystified by what lay ahead. Mortimer caught up and turned to see the arena’s hidden surprise.
It was a derelict pirate ship nestled on a mound of sand. The ship appeared abandoned and worn down, the cameras spotting holes in the hull. It was also without sails, leaving naked wooden poles. Cat wondered why this would be such a big deal, saying the place looked unsafe. Mortimer agreed and guessed it wasn’t for floating, using the holes and lack of sails as proof. Cat suggested they check it out anyway, guessing this was where the final showdown will take place. He agreed and the two made their way up.
Now that the secret location was found, the gamemakers made preparations for the finale. The alligators were called back, but not soon enough for Peggy (8), who was ripped to shreds and cannon sounding as Mortimer and Cat climbed the ship’s ladder. Head Gamemaker Grimstone’s voice rang throughout the arena. He congratulated the remaining six tributes and instructed them to make their way across the lake for the final showdown. Suddenly, large stones rose from the lake’s depths, all lining up to create a path towards the ship. For those farthest away, a large blue light emanated above the ship. All the remaining tributes rushed towards the ship as fast as they could. Jassy (12) was the first to make it across the lake despite falling off the stone path three times. Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) were both minutes behind her and after grabbing their supplies proceeded onto the stone path. Wolvthorne was following behind a disoriented Andrei and took this opportunity to lodge his axe into his back, fracturing his spine. Andrei roared in pain and anger, but his cries were silenced when he was thrown into the lake. His injury prevented him from staying afloat and his cannon sounded three minutes later. Horace (10) was the last to make it across, feeling weak from the smell.
Mortimer and Cat were already on the poop deck when the announcement happened. They were elated to discover the sulphur smell to not be present anymore and tore off their masks. They hastily surveyed the deck, looking for a hiding place or any sort of useful tool. Cat realized that the entrances into the bowels of the ship were closed off, leaving them stranded out in the open on the deck. Mortimer considered their options and surrendered to their only option: making a stand. The two brandished their weapons and waited by the ladder, waiting for anyone to climb up.
Jassy noticed this and circled around to the other side and found another ladder. Wolvthorne followed suit. Jassy crept up onto the deck and spotted Mortimer and Cat staring down the ship. She notched her last arrow into her bow and aimed carefully. Her accuracy was slightly off when she released, and the arrow landed in Mortimer’s left bicep. He grunted in pain, causing him to drop his trident off the side of the ship. The surprised Cat turned to see Jassy standing there shell shocked over her failed assassination attempt. Cat chased after her around the deck, attempting to swipe at her with her sword. While the two were distracted, Wolvthorne pulled himself up and narrowed his sights on Mortimer. Weaponless, Mortimer nevertheless stood his ground and faced him. Wolvthorne told him he would pay for killing his partner, but he scoffed and reminded him there could only be one winner. An enraged Wolvthorne charged with axe in hand. Mortimer dodged his attack and began to run across the deck. Wolvthorne continued in hot pursuit, with Mortimer continuously evading his attacks. This became a hilarious game of cat and mouse, Artemis flinching every time Wolvthorne’s axe was within an inch of Mortimer’s head.
Meanwhile, Horace (10) finally emerged and noticed the separate fights going on. He decided to go after the girls, seeing the two men as a greater threat. Cat chased Jassy up to the steering wheel and managed to corner her. Jassy begged for her life, even offering to help defeat Wolvthorne. Cat remained unfazed and thrust her sword into her chest, sounding her cannon seconds later. Horace used the distraction to tackle Cat to the ground. He held her down with all his might and tried to wretch the sword out of her hand. She bit down on his hand so hard that blood began to pool. The crowds in Maximus Square were surprised by the power of her jaw. Cat ripped a flap of skin clean off Horace’s hand, drops of blood decorating her face. She regained possession of her sword and swung it back behind her. The blade lodged itself into the side of his head, sounding his cannon instantly. Out of breath, she limped to the railing and saw Mortimer was in trouble. She ran down the stairs to help her ally.
Despite the harrowing battle Cat was enduring, most of the attention was on the game of cat and mouse between Mortimer and Wolvthorne. At the same time Cat was struggling to escape Horace’s weight, one of Wolvthorne’s strikes demolished a wooden support beam that held a small above deck which would’ve led to the captain’s quarters. A particularly large cornerstone of the deck above fell onto Wolvthorne’s head, causing him to stumble back and collide with the ship’s edge. Mortimer used this opportunity to rush him and try pushing him off. Wolvthorne was much bigger than him and barely budged. However, Mortimer was successful in making him drop his axe. Wolvthorne headbutted Mortimer and shoved him to the ground. He attempted to choke him, but Mortimer twisted himself around and wrapped his legs around Wolvthorne’s torso. He used his elbows to push himself over his opponent’s back and pulled on his right arm all the while still keeping his leg grip. Wolvthorne struggled for a moment before wrestling himself free. He put him in a chokehold and slammed his face into the ground. He squeezed as hard as he could while Mortimer tried and failed to struggle. Many viewers in Maximus Square were cheering for Mortimer to fight back, mostly due to their betting money going towards him.
The prayers of the Buccaneers were answered when a sword entered Wolvthorne’s back and exited out his abdomen. Wolvthorne’s grip softened, enabling Mortimer to squeeze himself free. Wolvthorne turned to see Cat standing there with a determined look on her face. With the last bit of his strength, he lunged at Cat and pulled her into the blade protruding from his stomach. Cat let out a gasp as the blade entered her body. The Capital was shocked by the sudden turn of events but not as horrified as Mortimer. He grabbed the handle and looked at Cat. She looked upon him in sorrow and nodded her head. Mortimer unsheathed the sword from both bodies and thrust the blade into Wolvthorne’s brain, sounding his cannon instantly.
Mortimer thanked her for being his ally and a true friend. He quickly surveyed the skies. He leaned forward, brought his mouth to Cat’s ear, and began to whisper. The arena’s concealed microphones couldn’t decipher anything. Cat’s final words were, “Don’t worry. Patient confidentiality.” Her cannon sounded seconds later. Head Gamemaker Grimstone declared Mortimer Beckett of District 4 the victor of the 17th Hunger Games. Mortimer felt immense relief and let himself crumple onto the floor. The retrieval team arrived to pick him up and he came with them without a fight.
Mortimer was airlifted to the Maximus Hospital for medical examination. The arrow wound was stitched together and the cut over his eye received treatment, leaving two tic marks at the 2 o’clock and 8 o’clock positions. He was released two days later and was instructed to take it easy. Minerva escorted him back to the apartment, feeling happy he won. They reunited with Gill Henderson, who congratulated him for his win. While Mortimer admitted he felt grateful to have survived, he couldn’t stop thinking about Cat and how she was more deserving. Gill assured him that she sacrificed herself because she believed in him. He remained unconvinced, so Gill took him on a field trip to the Capital’s Oakley Museum of Art, recently erected by Silas MacIntyre (victor of the 7th Hunger Games) and Candace Freeman (victor of the 4th Hunger Games). It was there he met Phoebe Bentley and the two spent hours at the museum talking. Their intimate conversation helped Mortimer significantly, cheering him up enough to meet Gill at the Dipping Downer’s bar to drink with Bacchus Johnson (victor of the 9th Hunger Games) and Quarry Grounds (victor of the 12th Hunger Games).
The victor’s interview arrived and gathered a decent turnaround. Artemis and Luther wore matching outfits, reminiscent of the clothes swamp tour guides wore before the Dark Days. During the opening monologue, Luther expressed how pleased he was of the recent games giving them powerful personal journeys with the victors. Artemis said that while he was no Ashley Chen (victor of the 13th Hunger Games) or Sherpa Kapoor (victor of the 16th Hunger Games), she greatly enjoyed Mortimer’s performance. Mortimer entered the stage sporting something completely unexpected. His now famous tattoo was visible, but the suit he wore was intricately cut around it. The top half was sky blue while the bottom half was dark blue with wavy patterns making it look almost like the ocean. The funny part was him wearing a cap with a small cartoonish gator's head attached to the front.
Artemis and Luther started off by marveling at his outfit, calling it a revolution in fashion design. Mortimer attributed this to Minerva, the same person who polished the tattoo for the pre games interview. Artemis asked if he would get new tattoos, him saying he is planning on it. The first half of the interview was casual, covering topics of tattoo suggestions, his time at the bar with Bacchus and Quarry, and Minerva’s hard work on his outfit. The games eventually came up in conversation with Mortimer describing it “as if walking in a wet blanket that was also in the sewer”. Luther asked about the alligators and what motivated him to wrestle them. Mortimer tensed up but answered that he was trying to save Pearl. Artemis asked how much of a role she played in his victory. Mortimer credited her for getting the ball rolling in helping him realise to not give up on humanity. He saw her as the little sister he never had and wished he would have thanked her. Luther noted that since she got the ball rolling, it was someone else who broke through to him. Mortimer realised he was talking about Cat. He expressed how he felt she deserved to win more than him and how he chose to not let her sacrifice go to waste. Artemis admitted that while she betted on Cat, she was glad he made it, calling her Golden Victor material. Mortimer appreciated her sentiment. Luther reminded them that he was certainly a Golden Victor, citing his impressive chemistry skills and literally wrestling with an alligator. Him and Artemis dismissed Mortimer from the stage to rapturous applause, calling him “Captain Gator”, which became his victor’s nickname.
Mortimer was invited to some parties in the Capital. Gill accompanied him and stole the spotlight numerous times when requested to do shanties. Mortimer would dance along always with a drink in hand. He returned to District 4 and received a warm welcome from its citizens. He used the stage to openly apologise to those he turned away and for being a hoodlum. His reunion with his girlfriend Meridia was passionate and heartwarming, but not as much as the one with his father. Two weeks later, his request for Edward Beckett to undergo back surgery at the Capital was improved with a letter of recommendation personally penned by Gill. Edward’s damaged spinal disc was replaced with a flexible prosthetic. However, the surgery was a minimal success, removing some of the pain and enabling him to walk only small increments with assistance from a cane. Mortimer felt dejected over this but was humbled when several townsfolk pitched in to craft a wheelchair for him. Mortimer and his father partnered with Gill to start a rehabilitation center to help the injured and disabled workers of District 4 and the Island Bases. He further expanded his knowledge of chemistry and medicine, becoming District 4’s chief doctor. He crafted pain medication from the SHC compound delivered to him by Phoebe Bentley and prescribed them to various members of the district.
Mortimer made right by his promise and mended his relationships. He and Pearl’s father Alexander Riverstone crafted new nonalcoholic drinks, a certain cherry lime drink inspiring the Johnson’s Jazzy Juices future classic: the Beach Blanket. He also patched things up with Meridia’s father, the two often going on fishing trips together. His reputation only grew and grew until he was elected mayor of District 4 by the 31st Hunger Games. Mortimer grew closer to Gill and mentored alongside him until the next D4 victor was crowned. He became good friends with Phoebe Bentley as well, supplying him with chemistry textbooks and new batches of the warmweed’s SHC compound. In honor of Cat, he had Meridia etch a sea green ribbon tattoo, which represented mental health awareness, around the treasure chest. He was also friends with Corpse Beckford (victor of the 10th Hunger Games) who gifted him and Meridia tattoo inks for his birthday. Quarry Grounds (victor of the 12th Hunger Games) was also in Mortimer's good graces after he gifted Edward a special redwood cane with a beautiful marble topper.
Things were complicated when it came to his relationship with Meridia. Initially, they grew much closer, her giving him sea serpent tattoos on both his arms in addition to the ribbon. Unfortunately, five months before next year’s game, the two broke off the relationship. However, after the tumultuous 18th Hunger Games, the two reconciled and married a week before the reaping of the 19th Hunger Games. The two had five kids, naming his first daughter Katherine, after his deceased ally.
Mortimer was one of the four Golden Victors to disappear alongside Vixen Furtherson (victor of the 14th Hunger Games) after Savannah Pickett (victor of the 6th Hunger Games)’s death before the 41st Hunger Games. Days after the 47th Hunger Games, the underground terrorist group The Phoenix Fighters leaked two dossiers days apart. The first revealing reports of many accidents taking place on the military island bases. It also highlighted some cases of peacekeepers overworking and in some cases beating workers. The same dossier also revealed how Edward Beckett’s ‘accident’ was actually caused by the Faroe Island Base’s assistant supervisor Plutarch Manson. Manson was found dead in his Capital apartment three days later, his throat slit.
The second dossier revealed evidence of the reapings being tampered with over the years, whether it’d be names added, taken out, or scrubbed. The second dossier instigated some chaos in the districts, which was hastily subdued by the peacekeepers. Mortimer was never seen again, though there was heavy speculation regarding his possible membership in The Phoenix Fighters. On occasion, Capital navy ships and submarines would be attacked and looted under mysterious circumstances. One survivor named Lemuel Stanton blamed everything on a ‘ghost submarine’, one no one could see on the radar nor in person. A fair pocket of Capital analysts suspected Mortimer but lack of evidence kept his bounty from increasing.
submitted by Mortimer_Whimsiwick to christianblanco [link] [comments]
After a light breakfast, Mortimer and Cat decided they were ready to push through the brush. They were still feeling woozy from the powerful smell but felt the need to persevere. Cat took the lead and used her sword to cut through the foliage. Mortimer kept the rear and scanned the lake, searching for any approaching tributes. After about ten minutes, Cat cut through the last bush and was mystified by what lay ahead. Mortimer caught up and turned to see the arena’s hidden surprise.
It was a derelict pirate ship nestled on a mound of sand. The ship appeared abandoned and worn down, the cameras spotting holes in the hull. It was also without sails, leaving naked wooden poles. Cat wondered why this would be such a big deal, saying the place looked unsafe. Mortimer agreed and guessed it wasn’t for floating, using the holes and lack of sails as proof. Cat suggested they check it out anyway, guessing this was where the final showdown will take place. He agreed and the two made their way up.
Now that the secret location was found, the gamemakers made preparations for the finale. The alligators were called back, but not soon enough for Peggy (8), who was ripped to shreds and cannon sounding as Mortimer and Cat climbed the ship’s ladder. Head Gamemaker Grimstone’s voice rang throughout the arena. He congratulated the remaining six tributes and instructed them to make their way across the lake for the final showdown. Suddenly, large stones rose from the lake’s depths, all lining up to create a path towards the ship. For those farthest away, a large blue light emanated above the ship. All the remaining tributes rushed towards the ship as fast as they could. Jassy (12) was the first to make it across the lake despite falling off the stone path three times. Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) were both minutes behind her and after grabbing their supplies proceeded onto the stone path. Wolvthorne was following behind a disoriented Andrei and took this opportunity to lodge his axe into his back, fracturing his spine. Andrei roared in pain and anger, but his cries were silenced when he was thrown into the lake. His injury prevented him from staying afloat and his cannon sounded three minutes later. Horace (10) was the last to make it across, feeling weak from the smell.
Mortimer and Cat were already on the poop deck when the announcement happened. They were elated to discover the sulphur smell to not be present anymore and tore off their masks. They hastily surveyed the deck, looking for a hiding place or any sort of useful tool. Cat realized that the entrances into the bowels of the ship were closed off, leaving them stranded out in the open on the deck. Mortimer considered their options and surrendered to their only option: making a stand. The two brandished their weapons and waited by the ladder, waiting for anyone to climb up.
Jassy noticed this and circled around to the other side and found another ladder. Wolvthorne followed suit. Jassy crept up onto the deck and spotted Mortimer and Cat staring down the ship. She notched her last arrow into her bow and aimed carefully. Her accuracy was slightly off when she released, and the arrow landed in Mortimer’s left bicep. He grunted in pain, causing him to drop his trident off the side of the ship. The surprised Cat turned to see Jassy standing there shell shocked over her failed assassination attempt. Cat chased after her around the deck, attempting to swipe at her with her sword. While the two were distracted, Wolvthorne pulled himself up and narrowed his sights on Mortimer. Weaponless, Mortimer nevertheless stood his ground and faced him. Wolvthorne told him he would pay for killing his partner, but he scoffed and reminded him there could only be one winner. An enraged Wolvthorne charged with axe in hand. Mortimer dodged his attack and began to run across the deck. Wolvthorne continued in hot pursuit, with Mortimer continuously evading his attacks. This became a hilarious game of cat and mouse, Artemis flinching every time Wolvthorne’s axe was within an inch of Mortimer’s head.
Meanwhile, Horace (10) finally emerged and noticed the separate fights going on. He decided to go after the girls, seeing the two men as a greater threat. Cat chased Jassy up to the steering wheel and managed to corner her. Jassy begged for her life, even offering to help defeat Wolvthorne. Cat remained unfazed and thrust her sword into her chest, sounding her cannon seconds later. Horace used the distraction to tackle Cat to the ground. He held her down with all his might and tried to wretch the sword out of her hand. She bit down on his hand so hard that blood began to pool. The crowds in Maximus Square were surprised by the power of her jaw. Cat ripped a flap of skin clean off Horace’s hand, drops of blood decorating her face. She regained possession of her sword and swung it back behind her. The blade lodged itself into the side of his head, sounding his cannon instantly. Out of breath, she limped to the railing and saw Mortimer was in trouble. She ran down the stairs to help her ally.
Despite the harrowing battle Cat was enduring, most of the attention was on the game of cat and mouse between Mortimer and Wolvthorne. At the same time Cat was struggling to escape Horace’s weight, one of Wolvthorne’s strikes demolished a wooden support beam that held a small above deck which would’ve led to the captain’s quarters. A particularly large cornerstone of the deck above fell onto Wolvthorne’s head, causing him to stumble back and collide with the ship’s edge. Mortimer used this opportunity to rush him and try pushing him off. Wolvthorne was much bigger than him and barely budged. However, Mortimer was successful in making him drop his axe. Wolvthorne headbutted Mortimer and shoved him to the ground. He attempted to choke him, but Mortimer twisted himself around and wrapped his legs around Wolvthorne’s torso. He used his elbows to push himself over his opponent’s back and pulled on his right arm all the while still keeping his leg grip. Wolvthorne struggled for a moment before wrestling himself free. He put him in a chokehold and slammed his face into the ground. He squeezed as hard as he could while Mortimer tried and failed to struggle. Many viewers in Maximus Square were cheering for Mortimer to fight back, mostly due to their betting money going towards him.
The prayers of the Buccaneers were answered when a sword entered Wolvthorne’s back and exited out his abdomen. Wolvthorne’s grip softened, enabling Mortimer to squeeze himself free. Wolvthorne turned to see Cat standing there with a determined look on her face. With the last bit of his strength, he lunged at Cat and pulled her into the blade protruding from his stomach. Cat let out a gasp as the blade entered her body. The Capital was shocked by the sudden turn of events but not as horrified as Mortimer. He grabbed the handle and looked at Cat. She looked upon him in sorrow and nodded her head. Mortimer unsheathed the sword from both bodies and thrust the blade into Wolvthorne’s brain, sounding his cannon instantly.
Mortimer thanked her for being his ally and a true friend. He quickly surveyed the skies. He leaned forward, brought his mouth to Cat’s ear, and began to whisper. The arena’s concealed microphones couldn’t decipher anything. Cat’s final words were, “Don’t worry. Patient confidentiality.” Her cannon sounded seconds later. Head Gamemaker Grimstone declared Mortimer Beckett of District 4 the victor of the 17th Hunger Games. Mortimer felt immense relief and let himself crumple onto the floor. The retrieval team arrived to pick him up and he came with them without a fight.
Mortimer was airlifted to the Maximus Hospital for medical examination. The arrow wound was stitched together and the cut over his eye received treatment, leaving two tic marks at the 2 o’clock and 8 o’clock positions. He was released two days later and was instructed to take it easy. Minerva escorted him back to the apartment, feeling happy he won. They reunited with Gill Henderson, who congratulated him for his win. While Mortimer admitted he felt grateful to have survived, he couldn’t stop thinking about Cat and how she was more deserving. Gill assured him that she sacrificed herself because she believed in him. He remained unconvinced, so Gill took him on a field trip to the Capital’s Oakley Museum of Art, recently erected by Silas MacIntyre (victor of the 7th Hunger Games) and Candace Freeman (victor of the 4th Hunger Games). It was there he met Phoebe Bentley and the two spent hours at the museum talking. Their intimate conversation helped Mortimer significantly, cheering him up enough to meet Gill at the Dipping Downer’s bar to drink with Bacchus Johnson (victor of the 9th Hunger Games) and Quarry Grounds (victor of the 12th Hunger Games).
The victor’s interview arrived and gathered a decent turnaround. Artemis and Luther wore matching outfits, reminiscent of the clothes swamp tour guides wore before the Dark Days. During the opening monologue, Luther expressed how pleased he was of the recent games giving them powerful personal journeys with the victors. Artemis said that while he was no Ashley Chen (victor of the 13th Hunger Games) or Sherpa Kapoor (victor of the 16th Hunger Games), she greatly enjoyed Mortimer’s performance. Mortimer entered the stage sporting something completely unexpected. His now famous tattoo was visible, but the suit he wore was intricately cut around it. The top half was sky blue while the bottom half was dark blue with wavy patterns making it look almost like the ocean. The funny part was him wearing a cap with a small cartoonish gator's head attached to the front.
Artemis and Luther started off by marveling at his outfit, calling it a revolution in fashion design. Mortimer attributed this to Minerva, the same person who polished the tattoo for the pre games interview. Artemis asked if he would get new tattoos, him saying he is planning on it. The first half of the interview was casual, covering topics of tattoo suggestions, his time at the bar with Bacchus and Quarry, and Minerva’s hard work on his outfit. The games eventually came up in conversation with Mortimer describing it “as if walking in a wet blanket that was also in the sewer”. Luther asked about the alligators and what motivated him to wrestle them. Mortimer tensed up but answered that he was trying to save Pearl. Artemis asked how much of a role she played in his victory. Mortimer credited her for getting the ball rolling in helping him realise to not give up on humanity. He saw her as the little sister he never had and wished he would have thanked her. Luther noted that since she got the ball rolling, it was someone else who broke through to him. Mortimer realised he was talking about Cat. He expressed how he felt she deserved to win more than him and how he chose to not let her sacrifice go to waste. Artemis admitted that while she betted on Cat, she was glad he made it, calling her Golden Victor material. Mortimer appreciated her sentiment. Luther reminded them that he was certainly a Golden Victor, citing his impressive chemistry skills and literally wrestling with an alligator. Him and Artemis dismissed Mortimer from the stage to rapturous applause, calling him “Captain Gator”, which became his victor’s nickname.
Mortimer was invited to some parties in the Capital. Gill accompanied him and stole the spotlight numerous times when requested to do shanties. Mortimer would dance along always with a drink in hand. He returned to District 4 and received a warm welcome from its citizens. He used the stage to openly apologise to those he turned away and for being a hoodlum. His reunion with his girlfriend Meridia was passionate and heartwarming, but not as much as the one with his father. Two weeks later, his request for Edward Beckett to undergo back surgery at the Capital was improved with a letter of recommendation personally penned by Gill. Edward’s damaged spinal disc was replaced with a flexible prosthetic. However, the surgery was a minimal success, removing some of the pain and enabling him to walk only small increments with assistance from a cane. Mortimer felt dejected over this but was humbled when several townsfolk pitched in to craft a wheelchair for him. Mortimer and his father partnered with Gill to start a rehabilitation center to help the injured and disabled workers of District 4 and the Island Bases. He further expanded his knowledge of chemistry and medicine, becoming District 4’s chief doctor. He crafted pain medication from the SHC compound delivered to him by Phoebe Bentley and prescribed them to various members of the district.
Mortimer made right by his promise and mended his relationships. He and Pearl’s father Alexander Riverstone crafted new nonalcoholic drinks, a certain cherry lime drink inspiring the Johnson’s Jazzy Juices future classic: the Beach Blanket. He also patched things up with Meridia’s father, the two often going on fishing trips together. His reputation only grew and grew until he was elected mayor of District 4 by the 31st Hunger Games. Mortimer grew closer to Gill and mentored alongside him until the next D4 victor was crowned. He became good friends with Phoebe Bentley as well, supplying him with chemistry textbooks and new batches of the warmweed’s SHC compound. In honor of Cat, he had Meridia etch a sea green ribbon tattoo, which represented mental health awareness, around the treasure chest. He was also friends with Corpse Beckford (victor of the 10th Hunger Games) who gifted him and Meridia tattoo inks for his birthday. Quarry Grounds (victor of the 12th Hunger Games) was also in Mortimer's good graces after he gifted Edward a special redwood cane with a beautiful marble topper.
Things were complicated when it came to his relationship with Meridia. Initially, they grew much closer, her giving him sea serpent tattoos on both his arms in addition to the ribbon. Unfortunately, five months before next year’s game, the two broke off the relationship. However, after the tumultuous 18th Hunger Games, the two reconciled and married a week before the reaping of the 19th Hunger Games. The two had five kids, naming his first daughter Katherine, after his deceased ally.
Mortimer was one of the four Golden Victors to disappear alongside Vixen Furtherson (victor of the 14th Hunger Games) after Savannah Pickett (victor of the 6th Hunger Games)’s death before the 41st Hunger Games. Days after the 47th Hunger Games, the underground terrorist group The Phoenix Fighters leaked two dossiers days apart. The first revealing reports of many accidents taking place on the military island bases. It also highlighted some cases of peacekeepers overworking and in some cases beating workers. The same dossier also revealed how Edward Beckett’s ‘accident’ was actually caused by the Faroe Island Base’s assistant supervisor Plutarch Manson. Manson was found dead in his Capital apartment three days later, his throat slit.
The second dossier revealed evidence of the reapings being tampered with over the years, whether it’d be names added, taken out, or scrubbed. The second dossier instigated some chaos in the districts, which was hastily subdued by the peacekeepers. Mortimer was never seen again, though there was heavy speculation regarding his possible membership in The Phoenix Fighters. On occasion, Capital navy ships and submarines would be attacked and looted under mysterious circumstances. One survivor named Lemuel Stanton blamed everything on a ‘ghost submarine’, one no one could see on the radar nor in person. A fair pocket of Capital analysts suspected Mortimer but lack of evidence kept his bounty from increasing.
2023.05.28 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 28th
 | 1971 - The Jackson 5 play at the Spectrum (now closed - 2009) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1988 - Michael's duet with Stevie Wonder , "Get It", from Stevie's album Characters peaks at #80 on the Hot 100 Chart while it was at #6 on the R&B chart 1989 - Michael was one of the few winners present at the Black Radio Exclusive awards show at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. He was honored as the "Triple Crown Winner for Outstanding Achievement in Pop, Rock and Soul." The elegantly laminated plaque has a black and gold edging, with purple printing on a faux-marble background, with a stylized photo image of Michael in his trademark black fedora. 1997 - His 2nd day in Poland starts with a stop at the presidential palace where Michael is received by the first lady. In his quest for a residence in Poland, he then visits the luxury Hotel Bristol. Price for the hotel ended up being too high. He then went to the Warsaw City Hall where he signed a “preliminary letter of intent” to develop a 'Michael Jackson’s Family Entertainment Park', in the Polish capital. https://preview.redd.it/l8aax0vbmf2b1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2058be4c166fe6a5d16dc17142e7910fac7aad1f “My dream is to appeal to the child that lives in the heart of every man and woman on this planet and to create something in Poland that is so unique and so unusual that it cannot be experienced in any other place", he saidThe letter mentioned no price, but Jackson’s business manager, Tarak Ben Ammar, said in an interview that estimates of Jackson’s contribution range between $100 million and $300 million--modest sums by Western theme park standards. Poland would add an unknown amount. https://preview.redd.it/v3vax6femf2b1.jpg?width=636&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe01e404092b93a587184acbb64809e82e8675fe https://preview.redd.it/svjneycfmf2b1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9994183672ab7fe0eb2496407b91cafc3196922 " I would also like to tell a great truth, I have traveled all over the world six times and have been everywhere, but nowhere I liked it more than in Poland. A visit to Poland is the fulfillment of my childhood dreams...." He shops at the Kidiland toy store, reportedly in the amount of $670,000. He then goes to the children's hospital, with his arms loaded with gifts. https://preview.redd.it/kok5pazgmf2b1.jpg?width=639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ebb70051f68409f937c0775426c55ff67f9009c https://preview.redd.it/ncl93ephmf2b1.jpg?width=594&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31621e03ff28ea84d04b050dcb0d9e0a1a403c49 Next he takes a helicopter to Lubiaz, in order to see Cistercian Abbey of Lubiaz, wich he also planned to purchase. Accompanied by Professor Marek Kwiatkowski, who guided him during his visit, Michael spends 45 minutes marveling at the Baroque architecture and the relics. He'll even try a little "heehee" in the middle of the Hall des Princes to test the acoustics! Michael, who wanted to settle in Poland, already saw himself owning this old building, despite the millions of dollars in restoration to be expected. https://preview.redd.it/ih1lgr0jmf2b1.jpg?width=389&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d38bf32bbf497853881a2ee5ee22587d7672d2b In the evening, he flies to Bremen, Germany where in three days he will begin the 2nd leg of his HIStory Tour. https://preview.redd.it/2ea4068kmf2b1.jpg?width=547&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cb5c1e7f75c3f9226c6c3fa9752b601cec7b5ca https://preview.redd.it/di920gqnmf2b1.jpg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72307480617262d831871b2f5b9e0d55a927a11a The plans to build the amusement park at a nearby military airport won approval from state officials in February 1998. Michael asks for sketches to be drawn up for the proposed theme parks, however, following the project’s approval and a huge hiatus, the army owning the airport does not agree to make it available for the park. Two grounds pointed out by the government will also be denied due to local protests. The Polish government abandons this project altogether and nothing will come out of it 2004 - Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville has ordered a trial-setting conference hearing today. Thomas Mesereau, Brian Oxman & Joe Jackson go to the courthouse; Michael's appearance isn't required. They argue for a reduction in his $3-million bail and seek an order to force prosecutors to move faster in sharing evidence. In accusing the prosecution of moving too slowly in giving the defense access to the evidence, as required by law, Mesereau said Michael's right to a fair trial was “jeopardized by the undue delay of discovery.” “The investigation of this case involves dozens of, if not over 100 witnesses, voluminous documents and expert examination on a variety of topics,” Jackson’s lawyers wrote. “The defense needs ample time to conduct follow-up witness interviews, locate and interview rebuttal witnesses and conduct its own forensic examinations, among other things.” Prosecutors have responded that they have turned over vast amounts of evidence already and are processing the information they have as quickly as possible. They also are strongly resisting an attempt by Mesereau to substantially reduce Jackson’s bail on grounds that it is much higher than the bail for other defendants facing similar charges. The bail-reduction request notes that Jackson has no prior record, arrests or convictions & that he has fully complied with all conditions of his release on bail, including attending court when ordered. “Mr. Jackson’s ties to this community are substantial,” the defense motion states. “The record reveals that Mr. Jackson is not a flight risk or a danger to the community. It is also apparent that Mr. Jackson intends to confront and vigorously defend rather than evade the allegations in this case.” Though Mesereau noted that Santa Barbara County’s bail schedule calls for bail of about $135,000 for the conspiracy and molestation charges in the grand jury complaint, prosecutors oppose the request on grounds that Jackson is a flight risk and that his wealth should be a factor in retaining high bail. Melville said early in the proceedings that he hoped a trial could begin before the end of this year, but legal experts and many criminal lawyers predicted that would be impossible. September 13 is set as the date for the trial to begin On another legal front, Janet Arvizo filed a claim against county child protection officials accusing them of moving too slowly in investigating leaks to the media that were helpful to Jackson’s defense. Before a psychiatrist who had examined Gavin told Santa Barbara County officials that the child had been molested, Welfare officials had interviewed the family after Living With Michael Jackson aired in early 2003 A memo written by authorities after Jackson’s arrest said the family had denied any sexual abuse. The memo was subsequently released on a website. Attorney Larry R. Feldman, representing the Arvizos, said he filed the claim, a necessary step before a lawsuit, to force county officials to speedily conclude their investigation to ensure that such a breach of confidentiality “will never occur again to another innocent child.” 2006 - Michael visited a Tokyo orphanage and told a group of 140 excited children "I love you" in Japanese. Michael's van was swarmed by 100+ fans as he arrived. Inside the Seibi Gakuen children's home, he watched a performance of traditional music and dance by the children before speaking briefly on stage. He later shook hands and signed autographs for the children. https://preview.redd.it/5lt7jdhqmf2b1.jpg?width=767&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d3a34ad3850b3460555a46dee82abca40bdbb9a Michael's children and Grace visited with the children on this tour of the Japanese orphanage. https://preview.redd.it/f9q2mu3tmf2b1.jpg?width=218&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3110b0dca7829696b7bbdb23ff3a6afc2557bbf "I look forward to seeing old friends and saying hello to my huge fan base in Japan who, like my other fans around the world, have for so many years consistently shown their love and support to me and my family."- MJ"Everyone couldn't believe such a big international star was visiting us," said Kiyoko Mito, headmistress of the Christian-run school. "The children only believed me after seeing the news yesterday that Michael Jackson was actually in Japan," she said 2009 - Having not heard from AEG regarding his salary, Conrad Murray sent another email to AEG & receives a response from Tim Wooley https://preview.redd.it/53qvtjwumf2b1.png?width=513&format=png&auto=webp&s=c048d2d7ca288f12a6a423237ced8234dba40b05 https://preview.redd.it/tsc7mzuvmf2b1.png?width=513&format=png&auto=webp&s=521de2b6de9a122d1ae45ba25caf39a5b7fb76a2 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 18 Katherine, Janet, Rebbie and Randy Jackson are in court. Only one of the siblings was allowed in the courtroom as they are potential witnesses. Janet accompanied Katherine during morning session while Rebbie was with her during the afternoon session. Paul Gongaware Testimony Jackson direct Paul Gongaware is one of the defendants in the case. He's an adverse witness called by the plaintiffs. Gongaware is Co-CEO of Concerts West, part of AEG Live. Gongaware has toured with Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and is currently on tour with The Rolling Stones. He worked for Jerry Weintraub in the 80s He produced Prince's tour in 2004. He has not promoted/produced tours since. Gongaware has not talked to Prince after the tour Gongaware was a CPA licensed in NY and Washington. He said he believes he's still licensed but hasn't checked status since there's no need Gongaware testified that landing Jackson, whom he felt was the biggest artist of his era, was huge for AEG. In a 2008 email to AEG Live President and Chief Executive Randy Phillips, Gongaware described how the company should approach Jackson and his manager about a possible comeback tour: We need to start at the fundamentals. How we do it. The difference between [Live Nation] and us is huge. We are artist-based, they are Wall Street-driven. We are smart people. We are completely honest and transparent with everything we do. That's how [founder] Phil [Anschutz] wants itGongaware said he worked on an Elvis Presley tour. Panish asked if Elvis died of drug overdose, and Gongaware said "Yes". Gongaware replied to a condolences' email on July 5, 2009: I was working on the Elvis tour when he died, so I kind of knew what to expect. Still quite a shock "So you knew what to expect when Michael Jackson passed away, is that right, sir?", Brian Panish asked.Despite working as a tour promoter for 37 years -- including for Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and many others -- Gongaware testified that the only artist he ever knew that was using drugs on tour was Rick James Panish asked about working for Jackson 5, Gongaware said had no interaction with Michael. Gongaware was a logistics manager on the Dangerous tour in 92-93. Panish said Michael made $100 million and donated it to charity. Gongaware said he didn't know When Gongaware met Jackson was with Colonel Parker (Elvis' manager) in Las Vegas. Michael had wanted to meet the Colonel Gongaware explained the difference between being tour manager and managing the tour. He talked about Michael's History tour Panish: "You knew that Michael had been to rehab during the dangerous tour?"Gongaware said he never knew MJ was involved with drugs until after the end of the Dangerous tour. Gongaware told LAPD he was aware of Jackson's previous use of pills/painkillers but did not want to get involved. Gongaware had known for years that Michael Jackson was taking painkillers but wasn't aware he was abusing them until MJ abruptly canceled his Dangerous world tour in the early 1990s to enter rehab. Gongaware said he knew of "two occasions" when Michael used painkillers between shows, but he claimed he didn't grasp the scope of the Michael's sickness until the taped 1993 announcement. "I would dispute knowing that he had a problem. I wasn't aware that there were problems", Gongaware said Gongaware said he knew a doctor was medicating Jackson during the Dangerous tour but did not find out why the tour was eventually cut short. "Didn't have time,I was just dealing with what was in front of me", he said Panish said Dr. Finkelstein testified under oath that Gongaware knew Michael had problems with painkillers before the Dangerous tour ended. Panish: "Do you dispute that?" (Finkelstein testimony)Gongaware said Dr. Finkelstein is his doctor and friend and that they talk off and on, but he doesn't know specifics of the doctor's deposition. Dr. Finkelstein said he gave MJ painkillers after the concert in Bangkok following Michael's scalp surgery. In Gongaware's video deposition: "Did you ever ask Dr. Finkelstein if he treated Michael during the Dangerous tour?"Another part of Gongaware's video depo: He said yes, he "occasionally treated Michael Jackson on the Dangerous tour" Panish: "Were you always honest with Michael?"Panish elicited contradictory testimony asking over and over about Gongaware's memory, how long he spent with lawyers to discuss testimony. On the Bad Tour MJ sold out 10 stadiums at 75,000 tickets per night. Panish: "That's a pretty big number?""No one knows how many shows we can get with Mikey," said Gongaware. Panish asked about name "Mikey" - he said he used it occasionally Email on 2/27/09 from Gongaware to Phillips: We are holding all of the risk, if Michael won't approve it we go without his approval.We let Mikey know just what it will cost him in terms of him making money, and then we go with or without him in London. We cannot be forced into stopping this, which Michael will try to do because he is lazy and constantly changes his mind to fit his immediate wants.Gongaware said his use "Mikey" was affectionate, not disparaging, and that the 'lazy' crack amounted to "poor choice of words" but one that accurately reflected how Michael "really didn't like to rehearse. He didn't like to do these kinds of things." "People were aware at this point there would be a press conference. Michael wouldn't show up at the conference, it'd cost money," Gongaware said. "It wasn't much risk at all, we hadn't spent money," Gongaware said about that point of the tour. This was prior to news conference. Gongaware said the situation in London, where they constantly referred to Michael as "Wacko Jacko" would impact marketability to sell tickets "He doesn't want to do this kind of things, but it was important to show Michael to the world if he wanted to do a show," Gongaware explained Jurors were shown several e-mails from Gongaware that Jackson lawyers suggested were evidence that AEG Live deliberately misled Jackson about how much money he would make from his comeback concerts and how many days he would have to rest between shows. Gongaware wrote to his boss, AEG Live President Randy Phillips, that they should present gross ticket sales numbers to Jackson, not the percentage of the net profits, during contract talks. "Maybe gross is a better number to throw around if we use numbers with Mikey listening"Panish talked about an email Gongaware sent to his secretary suggesting that she design a concert calendar for Jackson using light tan colors for show dates, while drawing attention to his rest days Don't want the shows to stand out too much when Michael looks at it.Less contrast between work and off. Maybe off days in a contrasting soft color. Put 'OFF' in each off day after July 8, as well. Figure it out so it looks like he's not working so much. Panish: "Did you want to change the color of the schedule to show Michael would not be working so hard?"Gongaware said it would be obvious when Michael would be working and not and he wasn't trying to trick him. Email on 3/25/09 from Phillips to Gongaware: "We need to pull the plug now. I will explain" Panish: "Mr. Phillips wanted to pull the plug on the show, right sir?""Kenny wanted the pull because the way she (Faye) handled situations," Gongaware explained. "She tried to control access to Michael and Kenny didn't like that" Karen Faye expressed strong opinion that the tour as dangerous and impractical for MJ. Panish asked about a chain of emails where Gongaware said the pulling the plug refers to Ms. Faye. "I believe he was," Gongaware repeated. In another March 25, 2009, email, Ortega wrote Gongaware that it was Faye's "strong opinion that this is dangerous and impractical with consideration to Michael's health and ability to perform.". "I thought he was in good shape at the press conference, I was there," Gongaware said at the deposition. Gongaware was at O2 arena and Phillips was with Michael. "Michael was late, Randy [Phillips] was saying I'm trying to get him going, I'm trying to get him going".As to Dr. Conrad Murray, Gongaware said there was 1 rehearsal he said hello to him. "It was basically a hello, on the floor at the Forum. Mikey asked me to retain him. I never hired him"Panish played an interview of Phillips to SkyTV after Michael died: "The guy is willing 2 leave his practice for large sum of money, so we hired him""I was told Michael wanted him as his doctor for the show," Gongaware said. Gongaware said Michael did not have any illness that he knew of. Gongaware: "He had taken a physical, he passed the physical and from what I understand there was nothing wrong with him. Maybe some hay fever"Gongaware said he received an email from Bob Taylor that everything was fine and that Michael had passed the physical. Gongaware said he never saw the results of the tests and doesn't know who saw them. Panish showed video deposition of Gongaware and a declaration he signed about a month before giving the deposition. They contradict themselves.At first, Gongaware insisted he did no negotiating with Murray, but, confronted with emails and his previous testimony, he changed his position and said, "The only thing I did with Dr. Murray was negotiate a price." Gongaware said that neither he nor anyone at the AEG investigated Murray's background or credentials Panish: "First you said how much did you want?"(to Dr. Murray)Gongaware said Dr. Murray had been Michael's personal doctor for the past 3 years. He said he did not know how many times MJ had seen the doctor. "Michael insisted on him, recommended him, and that was good enough for me, it was not for me to tell him who his doctor should be" Gongaware said "The fact that he had been Michael Jackson's personal physician for three years was good enough for me," Gongaware said. He said that Murray initially asked for $5 million to travel to London with Jackson and tend to him during the tour. "I just told him it wasn't going to happen," he said, recalling that Jackson then suggested offering him $150,000 a month. "Michael Jackson insisted on it and recommended him and it was not for me to tell him no," said Gongaware. "I wanted to provide what was necessary for him to do his job...He wanted a doctor and I wanted him to be healthy." Even after the offer of $150,000, Murray wasn't satisfied. "He started saying he wanted more and I said, 'The offer is coming directly from the artist," Gongaware said. Minutes later, he said Murray accepted. "Did that seem desperate to you?" asked Panish."We agreed on what the compensation was going to be, but there were a lot of issues to be resolved," Gongaware said. Gongaware said he recalled meeting with Dr. Murray where he was told the doctor was going to take care of the medical licensing in London. Gongaware and Timm Wooley are longtime friends. They are currently working on The Rolling Stones tour. Gongaware said he negotiated the price for Dr. Murray, but didn't negotiate the contract. Gongaware explained that he didn't do the negotiation, he would normally refer that to Wooley. Dr. Finkelstein and Gongaware have been friends for 35-plus years. Gongaware said he never offered Dr. Finkelstein the job of being MJ's doctor and said the doctor would be mistaken if he testified otherwise. Gongaware told the jury he called Dr. Finkelstein to ask what a fair price for a tour doctor would be. Doctor told him it was $10,000/week. As to Dr. Finkelstein wanting to be the tour doctor, Gongaware said he didn't recall specifically, but knew he wanted it."After his death we may have talked, but I don't recall specifics," Gongaware said. Gongaware said he sees Dr. Finkelstein a few times a year, but the subject of Michael never came up. Panish asked Gongaware if Dr. Finkelstein wanted to know if Michael was clean or using drugs. Gongaware said he didn't recall the conversation Panish asked: "You could have told Dr. Murray at any time that his services were no longer needed, couldn't you?"Gongaware told nanny, Grace Rwamba, that her services would not be needed anymore because AEG was cutting down on Michael's expenses "I never read the contract, I was there when Michael signed it, but didn't see what was in it," Gongaware said, "Doctor Murray was 100% Michael's cost" Based on the contract, Gongaware said 95% of the production expenses were Michael's responsibility, 5% AEG. Panish: "Who decided there was a need for a written contract with Dr. Murray?"Gongaware said that if the tour went forward, Dr. Murray would've made $1.5 million for 10 months. Ortega would've made almost that. Gongaware said although AEG never did a background check on Murray, in his view they had "checked out" the doctor according to their standard practices. "When we check out someone, we either rely on if we know the person or if they're known in the industry or if they're recommended by the artist & in this case, Dr. Murray was recommended by the artist, in fact, the artist insisted" Panish pressed Gongaware: "You did nothing to verify anything about Dr. Murray, isn't that true, sir?"Panish asked Gongaware if he approved budgets for April-July including Dr. Murray as production expense. He said he didn't know which budgets he approved. "It's my job to get that show on the road," Gongaware said. Gongaware said he had to know how much the production had spent at any given time, but didn't have time to read the budget. Panish: "Do you think you're good at your job, sir?"Gongaware testified that he didn't pay attention to the tour budgets that he approved, even though he was the tour manager.Paul Gongaware said he didn't read through the budgets, instead trusting that the tour accountant knew what he was talking about. Gongaware testified that Dr. Murray's salary, although included in the company's budget for several months, wasn't something he saw as an actual payment that would be made. "If there's a potential for cost we put it in our budget so there are no surprises later", he said. Gongaware often pleaded poor memory of events. He said he may have met with Jackson as many as 10 times, but could remember only two of the meetings and only one when Murray was present Gongaware said he doesn't remember how many meetings he attended at Carolwood house. He didn't recall a meeting where a vase was broken. "There was a meeting where he signed the contract," Gongaware recalled, saying there were more but he doesn't remember specifics. At the meeting in early June, Gongaware said he was present along with Kenny, Randy, Frank DiLeo, Dr. Murray and Michael. "The meeting was about making sure Michael and Dr. Murray had everything they needed to care for Michael," Gongaware explained. "Yes, we did talk about health-related issues. It was more a general meeting about what Dr. Murray would need", Gongaware said. He had told the police the topic of the meeting was Jackson's overall health ( i.e., diet, stamina and his weight) He remembered that Jackson arrived late from a doctor's appointment and had slurred speech. Gongaware said Michael Jackson "was a bit off". "He was just coming back from visiting Dr. Klein. I believe he was under the influence of something. That was the only time I saw him like that", Gongaware said. Jackson had missed a rehearsal and was thought to be dancing at home. However they discovered he was only watching video. Doctor Murray was receptive to their concerns and indicated he would take care of the situation Court Transcript |
2023.05.23 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 23rd
 | 1972 - Jackson 5's 6th studio album Lookin’ Through The Windows is released by Motown. It would peak at #7 on Billboard & #3 on Billboard's Top Soul Albums chart submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/pg6fy3xiug1b1.jpg?width=226&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac613da619a794cf4eb65eeee9d53d5a16e59f45 1988 - Michael kicks off the European leg of his Bad tour, performing the first of two nights at Stadio Flaminio in Rome, Italy. https://preview.redd.it/usxfpxlbvg1b1.jpg?width=649&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57490e2de0918269f9b0044a9676494da8ae452f https://preview.redd.it/5sykwr6dvg1b1.jpg?width=1048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbdd80a874bfd3ddf4594e5fbe5502be400bf4bf An after-show party is held at the 16th Century Palazzo Taverna where Michael makes a brief appearance greeted by guests Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Federico Fellini & Georgio Armani https://preview.redd.it/lcw4uycevg1b1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06c5c4325a456032f3d00df21a9cfd02715501c8 https://preview.redd.it/kzazne7fvg1b1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f38e4fad387ff56a43198a13e661ceec1cd3a386 1989 - 2300 Jackson Street, the last album by The Jacksons is released by Epic. Michael only participates to the title song. It’s the last album ever recorded and released by The Jacksons 20 years after their first album on Motown https://preview.redd.it/6i1nl910fs2b1.jpg?width=200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fc4650bb652a7cd1a13ecb6173b916ada3d60b7 2005 - Day 58. Week 13 Michael goes to court with Katherine https://preview.redd.it/58g9z09gvg1b1.jpg?width=438&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a7ac4f8c4a9cbabb64551a54ec0c2c12589fce0 The defense received a huge boost as several witnesses painted the accusers mother as a greedy welfare cheat. Jurors heard emotional testimony from Gavin's aunt who said the mother, Janet Arvizo, was only interested in money for her then cancer-stricken son. The aunt, who is estranged from the Arvizo family, said she attempted to arrange a blood drive for her nephew. But she told jurors that Arvizo told her in a phone call that she didnt need my (expletive) blood and that instead she needed money. "I think I just hung up on her," the aunt recalled. An employee of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services testified that she processed Arvizos welfare application in November 2001. She said that in the application, Arvizo stated she had no sources of income, assets or health insurance. However, just 10 days earlier the family had received a $152,000 settlement from a lawsuit filed against J.C. Penney. This followed an altercation with store security guards in 1998 - the guards had suspected them of shoplifting. The family claimed the guards battered them and eventually received a settlement which was split between the mother, father and all three children. The defense contends that the family has a history of using false allegations for financial gain. Mercy Dee Manrriquez stated that Janet Arvizo did not disclose any of the settlements on her welfare application and that a person who willingly excluded sources of income from the forms was guilty of fraud. "Would it be fraud to fail to disclose it at this point?", asked defense attorney Robert Sanger. "Yes it would be", Manriquez said. She also stated that all income should have been reported - including gifts and the $5,000 a month pay of her then boyfriend. Manrriquez further revealed that the mother swore under penalty of perjury that the family did not have any medical insurance. However, it was established in earlier testimony that the accuser's cancer treatments were in fact covered by his fathers employer. During her previous testimony, Arvizo invoked 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination concerning her alleged welfare fraud. Next to testify was Mike Radakovich, an accountant who examined the bank accounts of the Arvizo family. He testified that a week after Janet Arvizo deposited her $32,000 portion of the J.C. Penny settlement, she withdrew $29,000 in a cashiers check made out to a car dealership. Then the paper trail mysteriously ended. "I never saw it going back into any account I looked at", Radakovich told jurors. He also stated that the Arvizo family was still collecting welfare payments in February & March 2003. At the same time, Jackson was spending several thousand dollars paying their expenses, including a private jet trip to Miami, an orthodontist appointment and a body wax for the mother. This is also the time period that the prosecution alleges the family was held captive by Jackson. Radakovich said that during this same time, two welfare payments of $769 were deposited into the bank account of Arvizos then boyfriend (now her husband). The boyfriend then paid the rent on the familys apartment. The defense also called Connie Keenan, editor of the Mid Valley News, to the stand. The editor testified that she ran a story about the medical plight of the family It was a story I didnt want to do but (the mother) played on some sympathies in the office so I assigned it, she testified. After the story ran, Arvizo wanted another one, Keenan said. "The mother wanted an additional story because she didnt make enough money from the original story - those are her words, not mine", she asserted. Keenan also told jurors that Arvizo wanted the article to say people could send her money. She said she had told Arvizo it would be unethical for people to send money to her house and urged her to set up a trust fund in her sons name. The editor said the account was eventually created and she ran the story on the front page. When defense attorney Mesereau asked why it was given such prominence, she said, "I think the story tugged at your heart strings. The face of the child was beautiful" Bringing the testimony to a close, Mesereau asked Keenan if the mother had called her personally and how long the conversation was. "Approximately one minute and 20 seconds", she retorted,"I didnt want to talk to her. I had already established the fact that I had been duped" Court Transcript 2006- In his first face-to-face interview since being acquitted the previous year, Michael talks briefly to showbiz reporter Fiona Cummins at the London offices of Harrods where he is visiting his close pal Mohamed Al Fayed. Fionna states that even though Michael has often given the impression that he prefers to keep people at arm's length, he greeted her like an old friend - "Smiling broadly he held out his hand, then threw his arms around me, giving me a whiff of his sweet smelling cologne" https://preview.redd.it/pugiighhvg1b1.jpg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2816f378c2c3dfad808f269dd31f4a334f5f657 2008 - Michael attends French stylist Christian Audigier's 50th birthday party at Petersen Automotive Museum in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, where he meets French singer Johnny Hallyday, Pamela Anderson & Britney Spears among others. https://preview.redd.it/mb3oo2divg1b1.jpg?width=749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f07a9180ca881a98601708211d9e94b1b8dd9394 https://preview.redd.it/4z58g53jvg1b1.jpg?width=380&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=099ea0ea888b5bf8e6c4657e519f7baaa7e6f6f7 2009 - Conrad Murray is in Houston, Texas having dinner with one of his mistresses 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial day 16 Katherine Jackson and Rebbie Jackson are in court. Katherine becomes emotional when Panish asks about Michael being pressured, leaves court during lunch & does not come back for the afternoon session. Shawn Trell Testimony Jackson redirect Trell said when he met Michael Jackson in January of 2009, he didn't appear to be in pain. "I approximate the number of tours I've been involved in to be about 100," Trell testified. Trell said AEG has done other smaller productions as promoter and producer, only on two occasions for singers (Prince and MJ). "We promoted and produced Prince's 88 tour," Trell said.Panish said Prince's tour did not go well. "I wouldn't agree with that statement," Trell said. "I've never spoken to Prince, ever.Trell said AEG never hired physicians for tours before. Trell said he didn't know if AEG has a written contract with attorney Kathy Jorrie, who drafted Dr. Murray's contract. AEG did not deduct any payment from Jorrie for making mistakes in the contracts "I think Mr. Jackson asked us to engage his (Dr. Murray) services for him and his family on the tour," Trell explained. "We weren't aware of a conflict of interest," Trell said. Panish: "You, AEG Live, could've said you should hire your own doctor with your own money, right?" Panish: "Do you believe a threat to lose $150,000 month could exert pressure on anyone?"As to Dr. Murray's contract, Trell said it was prepared by AEG Live attorneys and never sent to any attorney representing MJ. "I believe there were three or four drafts," Trell explained.As to mistakes in contracts, Panish said there were a lot made in several contracts. He highlighted a few of them. Panish: "How many shows were in the tour?"Trell said he didn't have written approval from MJ for 50 shows. "But you wanted to get fully executed contracts right sir?" Panish inquiredTrell said he never reviewed any of the drafts of Dr. Murray's contract because Jorrie was handling the negotiation. Trell explained that before AEG were to sign the final version, though, he would've reviewed everything to make sure there were no mistakes. Panish asked if Trell knew Randy Phillips talked to Dr. Murray for 20 minutes on the phone. "I'm aware he had spoken with him, but didn't know the length of the calls," Trell said.Panish asked if MJ ever signed a release of authorization for Randy Phillips to speak with Dr. Murray. Trell said he was not aware of one. Panish asked if Trell thought it was ok for Phillips to speak with Dr. Murray alone. He said it depends on the substance of the conversation Panish: "About their physical conditions?"Trell said he doesn't think there's need for an authorization that Panish was talking about. Panish: "Are you familiar with HIPPA?"Panish referred to the email from Gongaware on June 14, 2009 saying AEG was the one paying Dr. Murray's salary and what's expected of him. Panish: "Is it a conflict of interest to tell a doctor you are paying how he needs to treat his patient?"As to independent contractors, Trell said the indemnity provision is always included in the agreements. Panish: "That's because it's your job to protect the financial interested of the company, rights?"Trell said he doesn't expect the CEO of a company to know everything within the company, as Phillips wrote that they 'checked everyone out'. Trell said the people whom AEG contracted are either known to them, to the artist or in the business. Trell said AEG had a management agreement with Dr. Tohme, a management agreement. "It was an agreement between us and Tohme regarding the service he would render on the tour," Trell said. "It was a fee for whatever services Michael wanted him to perform according to the agreement," Trell explained. Panish asked if Dr. Tohme was an employee of AEG. Trell: "He was not an employee"Panish pressed Trell for an answer, since he testified people working on the tour were either employees or independent contractors. "It's hard for me to describe, he was not an employee, and not independent contractor either," said Trell.Panish showed an email where attorney Kathy Jorrie expressed reservations about Dr. Tohme. Jorrie questioned if he was the "real McCoy", meaning the real deal, and recommended a background check to be performed. Did you perform background check on Dr. Tohme? Trell: "No".Trell said there was no reason to believe Dr. Tohme wasn't telling the truth when he said he represented Michael Jackson. Trell said he saw Dr. Tohme call MJ numerous times about the tour. Trell: "I don't know what she meant with the reference to 'real McCoy'"Email on 6/23/09 from Timm Wooley to Bob Taylor (insurance broker): Kenny Ortega has responsibility only for the show content and structure.Randy Phillips and Dr. Murray are responsible for Michael's rehearsal and attendance schedule. Looks like there might have been an issue in KO either not being demanding enough."Timm Wooley's statement is inaccurate, in my opinion," Trell said, but agreed he never spoke with Wooley about it, never saw it before. "Meaning Michael showed up whenever Michael wanted to," Trell opined. "I testified that I was inquiring of ways that might be available to bridge the gap," Trell said about looking for additional insurance. Trell doesn't know the exact number of the tickets sold. Estimating 15K seats for each of the 50 shows, Trell said it was about 750K tickets. He testified the venue typically holds the money of the sold tickets. In this case, AEG was the owner of the venue, withheld the money. Panish asked Trell if he knew Randy Phillips threatened to take away Michael's house if he didn't perform. Defendant's attorney asked for a sidebar. They claimed Panish was misrepresenting the evidence. After the sidebar, they changed subject. Trell said he didn't know how much MJ's assets were worth. He agreed they were underinsured for the tour. Email from Ortega to Phillips on 6/20/09 at 2am: My concern is now that we have brought the doctor in the fold and have applied tough love, now or never card, that the artist may be unable to rise to the occasion. Panish: "Was Michael pressured psychologically and needed to be checked?"Trell said he doesn't think AEG was under pressure to lose $34 million. "It was Michael Jackson's obligation to us."Panish asked Trell if to work for AEG Live a person needed to have an executed contract. "There are employees that are hired by AEG who don't have contracts; they are at will employees," Trell explained.Panish asked Trell about several people who worked for AEG but didn't have fully executed contracts. Panish: "You told us every person who got paid had fully executed contract, right?"Panish said he wants to show all the unexecuted contracts as of June 25, 2009. Email said: "Contract still under negotiation. Timm gave verbal Termination notice" Panish: "Was everyone without fully executed contracts paid for the This Is It tour?"Email on 6/19/09 from John Hougdahl to Randy Phillips: My laymen's degree tells me he needs a shrink to get him mentally prepared to get on stage and then a trainer to get him in physical shape... (Kobe's should be available) I have watched him deteriorate in front of my eyes over the last 8 weeks. He was able to do multiple 360 spins back in April. He'd fall on his ass if he tried it nowJohn Houghdahl was the stage manager of "This Is It" tour. Trell said Phillips never told him about this email. "This email is an indication from Houghdahl to Phillips that he feels that way." Panish: "Were you trying to stall Dr. Murray in getting a contract?"Email on 5/26/09 from Timm Wooley to Brigitte Segal: Brigitte, Any joy with an agreement for Murray to sign. He's pinging on us for payment but we can't without a contract in place. Would like to stall him with something for him to look at & mull over. Brigitte dealt with the housing in London. Panish: "Do you have anything in writing authorizing you to extend the tour to 50 shows?"Panish showed Trell the contract with Michael and the provisions showed any change needed to be in writing. Panish: "Do you have anything in writing from Mr. Jackson for costs in excess of $7.5 million?"On April 14, 2009, Michael Jackson wrote a "Notice of Revocation of a Power of Attorney" that Tohme was no longer representing him. As of May 5, 2009, Trell was made aware of Michael's request regarding Dr. Tohme "We would not pay on an agreement until there was a fully executed agreement," Trell said. Tohme signed a letter on 6/28/09 on behalf of MJ's company approving the expenses of $34 million to go to Jackson's estate. Panish: "Do you deny telling Mr. Taylor before Michael died that AEG employed Dr. Murray at the request of Michael?"AEG recross Jessica Bina did re-cross of Trell, who said Dr. Murray's agreement required medical licenses both here in the US and in the UK. He also needed proof of insurance. If Dr. Murray didn't provide them, there were grounds for termination of services. Bina: "Did AEG Live ever provided him with medical equipments?"Equipment requested:
Bina: "Does the fact that you are negotiating means you have a contract?"Trell said he didn't know if Michael and Dr. Murray talked about the contract and didn't know whether Michael was going to sign it. Trell said there were dozens and dozens, North of 50 contracts done for the This Is It tour. Contract: Artistsco hereby pre-approves thirty one shows or such greater number as agreed by artistco and promoter. Trell said there was an ongoing discussion about the expenses incurred to mount the show; impractical to get everyone's signature. As to the expense report sent to the estate and approved by Dr. Tohme, Trell said Frank DiLeo also signed it. Bina showed a document from DiLeo saying he was MJ's manager from March 2009 until his death. "For instance, Michael asked AEG Live to retain services of Dr. Murray as his personal physician," DiLeo letter said. Trell said DiLeo was acting in some management capacity for him Bina: "Did anyone ever tell you MJ had not approved the costs for This Is It tour?"As to Dr, Murray, Trell said he didn't feel there was a conflict of interest, the interest of all three parties involved were the same. "There were no inconsistencies in the agenda," Trell said. "Second, even if the agreement was in place, effectively Michael was hiring Dr. Murray, just using our money" "We had entered into a multi-faced, multi-year agreement with Michael and wanted nothing but for it to be successful," Trell testified. "The Michael Jackson company, in first instance, would be responsible to pay the money. Then MJ had guaranteed it," Trell testified saying that if Michael had any royalties, AEG would have rights on it to recoup the money, but couldn't take interest in his music catalogue.Bina played deposition from Trell were he said he didn't supervise people who performed personal services, like hair and make-up artists. His job, Trell explained, was to supervise the what-you-see-on-stage. Bina talked about Hougdahl's email. She asked if it mentioned drug abuse, medication, anesthesia. Trell said "No, the email had to do with Michael being mentally prepared and about a trainer to get him in shape"Trell said HIPPA law is intended to protect a patient. He doesn't have any more knowledge about it. Bina: "Did Mr. Phillips say he discussed treatment of Mr. Jackson with Dr. Murray?"Trell said AEG Live never supplied any equipment or paid for any drugs given to Michael Bina: "What was MJ's cause of death?"Jackson redirect Panish, in re-re-cross: "Did you know AEG paid Frank Dileo $5 million after Michael died?"Panish showed emails regarding DiLeo's revised payment 10/13/09 from Shawn Trell to Rick Webking: Approved $5 MM bucket. $50k payment to Frank would have to do with motion picture, Trell said. It would be taken out of the 5 million dollar bucket."That does not mean Frank was paid $5 million," Trell said, explaining DiLeo was paid $50,000 but he didn't know what for. Regarding the approval of tour expenses. Panish: "You had no signature before Mr. Jackson was dead?""Of course Michael Jackson was necessary for a Michael Jackson tour," Trell explained. "It's his show, it's Michael Jackson show, he's the most important person." Trell said he doesn't recall anybody else, other than Dr. Murray, at the rate of $150,000. Panish: "Did Randy Phillips ever call your doctor to see how you're doing?"Judge ended the session and excused Shawn Trell, subject to recall if needed. Court Transcript |
2023.05.22 13:04 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 22nd
 | 1984 - It is announced that the Jackson's forthcoming Victory Tour will not sell Michael Jackson related merchandise at the tour's venues. It will sell only the Jackson's related merchandise at each show. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1984 - Michael is on the cover of tabloid Star magazine https://preview.redd.it/1p4tinsk1a1b1.jpg?width=202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db799c691004201185ecce940901ec40a97a77ff 1988 - Before rehearsals Michael visits children who suffered from cancer in the Bambino-Gesu Children’s Hospital in Rome. He signs autographs and gives away sweets and records to the children. He also donates a ₤ 100,000 for leukemia research https://preview.redd.it/de16704m1a1b1.jpg?width=919&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2c6d2099017ffdec07ddfe41cf2522538720664 https://preview.redd.it/ztgroa6n1a1b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=736115548b42d90286dc03b0982d6a0bdfc909ce https://preview.redd.it/i0aurguw1a1b1.jpg?width=930&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7da00118c0379cd41f501c643fe4c125cab4f573 1988 - Gary Taylor, the director of the Suzuki Race Team, heard that Michael was a fan of the Suzuki RG500 motorcycle & offered it to him as a gift at the Lord Byron Hotel https://preview.redd.it/kd1ahpav1a1b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa20c484161ce78ba6385b3f1179172448563cd6 https://preview.redd.it/1r7fy3mr1a1b1.jpg?width=1158&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1dc1c1f7445a25c66f9807634856cf2ab052df7e https://preview.redd.it/fby9b8hs1a1b1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d06e91dac2235024cc44b5217c57b2c4afd19c1 1995 - MTV and VH1 premiere the HIStory teaser. Later the teaser is rolled out to cinemas across the U.S. 2006 - Michael participates in a deposition in London. His former adviser, Mark Schaffel, was suing him for $3.8 million dollars for breach of contract. Michael counter-sued him. In July of 2006, both parties would be awarded money 2007 - Michael arrives in London at Heathrow Airport with his children & their nanny, Grace. He's there to attend a private 25th birthday party for Prince Haji 'Abdul' Azim of Brunei. Prince Azim is known internationally, famous for throwing lavish parties. His 27th birthday party was dubbed the "2009 Party of the Year" https://preview.redd.it/37wkmney1a1b1.jpg?width=949&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74d7061c8f65d26c40ad51d0e7598e50dd05b738 2009 - Fans hear Michael recording a new song from a building in the back of his Holmby Hills estate. Michael tells them he is working on the lyrics and has not chosen the title yet. This mystery song is the last song known to have been recorded by him 2009 - Murray wrote an email to AEG with his bank information so AEG could deposit his salary https://preview.redd.it/ginc2my02a1b1.png?width=518&format=png&auto=webp&s=acb94938c541eb6e0fb2a6b79577d5e3c20229b8 2012 - BAD 25 was announced for a September 18th release. The two disc set includes the original album and unreleased material from the BAD sessions. The deluxe edition, which is a box set, includes both discs along with a CD & DVD of the 7/16/88 Wembley performance, a photo booklet, a two sided poster & a sticker. A vinyl version was also released 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 15 Katherine, Rebbie and Trent Jackson are in court Shawn Trell Testimony AEG Cross Trell was first asked about the contract between AEG and Jackson's former manager, Tohme R. Tohme. Jessica Bina asked Trell about an agreement regarding former manager Tohme Tohme. He was employed by Jackson and the contract added duties. Compensation is detailed in the contract. There was a condition precedent. Trell: "While this agreement started in January, the conditions/terms were not met. If Tohme would've performed as specified, he would've been paid" Shawn Trell said Tohme's agreement called for him to get paid once cancellation insurance was secured. Tour cancellation insurance wasn't obtained for the This Is It tour until late April, after Tohme had been fired. Trell: "To pursue Jackson's interest in films, AEG would put up a million dollars for development. They contemplated making 3 films". Trell was also asked about an agreement Jackson signed in January of 2009 for a possible three-film deal. The film agreement would have allowed Jackson to get $1 million to develop a script for an AEG-owned film company. In addition to the tour contract between Jackson and AEG, Trell said the two also had an agreement that proposed developing up to three film projects together, one of which was related to his Thriller video. When nothing was developed by the agreement's June 1, 2009, deadline, AEG sent a proposed amendment to extend that date to Jackson's representatives, Trell said. "I think the interest was still there on Mr. Jackson's side and I know we were interested in helping him realize what he wanted to accomplish",Trell said. After discussing the possible film deal, AEG lawyer Jessica Stebbins Bina then asked him more about tour cancellation policy. Trell said it's always the artists obligation to obtain this form of insurance to pay back the advances. Trell: "The cancellation insurance, whether one show lost or the entire tour, Michael was obligated to pay us regarding the production costs. AEG had an obligation regarding advances. We don't secure insurance to cover profits, only to protect losses from cancellation.We don't secure cancellation insurance to secure anticipated profits, only advanced costs" Trell: "It is not uncommon for an artist to have the assistance of a promoter. We have to be satisfied with the strength of the policy". Trell said insurance was $17.5 million. He said in the market place there was lot of skittishness. He said the insurance broker was having difficulty at first getting cancellation insurance. There wasn't a lot of interest and Trell said the underwriters in London were concerned with tabloid reports about Jackson's health. Some reports referenced Jackson having skin cancer, which wasn't the case. Broker suggested a medical exam to alleviate concerns. The exam would involve blood and urine tests, filling out a questionnaire and the doctor reviewing 5 years of Jackson's medical records. Broker suggested a NYC ear, nose and throat specialist, who was flown out to Los Angeles and evaluated Jackson. The doctor had to provide his resume and sign a confidentiality agreement before examining Jackson in early February 2009. Trell said he never saw the medical records from Jackson's exam & has never seen an artist's records after a physical. He testified that he was later informed by the insurance broker. Trell: The broker's exact words to me were, 'Other than a slight case of hay fever, he passed with flying colors' " AEG ended up securing a $17.5-million insurance policy that listed among its exclusions the illegal possession or illicit taking of drugs and their effects. Jackson was referred to as 'Mark Jones' in the documents to mask his identity. The policy covered the first 30 shows at O2 Arena. Trell said it was unusual for an artist to be listed under a different name on an insurance policy in his experience. AEG had a $17.5 million "non-appearance" policy on Jackson should he fail to perform the first 13 of his 50 shows at London's O2 Arena. The insurers wouldn't cover illness until Jackson underwent a second medical exam to be performed in London by a doctor selected by the insurers Bina: "You wouldn't go out to get a policy for an artist with an illicit drug problem?"List of what appeared on tabloids:
On June 25, 2009, at 5:54 a.m., London time, Taylor sent an email to Dr. Conrad Murray, who had been brought onto the tour to tend to Jackson. The email, introduced as evidence in the case, read: The insurers have specifically requested information on the following:Jackson died hours later from a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol administered by Murray. Jessica Stebbins Bina, an attorney representing AEG, pointed out in the courtroom that the list of insurers concerns did not include drugs, painkillers, alcohol or sleep disorders. Bina: "Could AEG make a profit from cancellation insurance?"Trell said employees are insured by the company. Independent contractors are just that, that is why it is called independent. "Independent contractors have area of expertise needed to make the project happen", Trell said. It's expertise not within the company itself. Trell: "We hire third parties for equipment, sound. They're usually referred to us or they are known to the artist. People responsible for the project would be involved in establishing rates and conditions, agreement is handled by me or my office. On a nightly basis when they leave the premises, they go home, that is the sanctity of their home, that is their business. It would be misguided for us to inject ourselves in the lives of those people. (Referring to members of an artist's entourage). It would be misplaced or misguided for us to inject ourselves into the affairs of an artist" Bina: "Did AEG have any role in choosing doctor Murray?"Trell said insurance was required based on the contract. Trell said they produced Prince's tour a few years ago, which was analogous to the This Is It tour Email on 5/21/09 from Wooley to Dr. Murray: Dear Conrad, I should like to send a contract to you in the next day or two But am looking for help writing the legal department because the form within which I work don't apply to your specialized position. So it has to be custom-generated.On 5/28/09, Wooley said to Dr. Murray that the legal department has not yet completed the agreement which is rather specialized, rare event Email noted payment could only be made upon fully executed contract. Kathy Jorrie is attorney retained by AEG to work on Murray's contract Bina: "Did Ms. Jorrie begin contract negotiations with Dr. Murray at your direction?"6/15/09 Jorrie wrote to Wooley: I've attached draft for your review/comment. If you approved the attached, please submit copy to Dr. MurrayContract: Provision 9 Artist Consent - 'The effect of this agreement is conditioned upon the approval and consent of the artist' Contract: 'Without the artist's expressed and written approval of the agreement neither party to the agreement will have any rights obligations to one another arising from the agreement'. Trell testified this was the first contract he saw this provision included. Trell said there's a final settling of the tour after the project is completed. That's where they categorize/re-categorize things. Trell said he doesn't do the final settlement himself, but people who do ask him questions about how it should be done."My understanding is that he was going to be categorized as artist advance. This was specific accommodation at the request of the artist as opposed to production cost incurred while mounting a show. I'm not aware of Mr Jackson making objections to this provision," Trell explained Bina showed Dr. Murray's last page of the contract signed by Murray. The agreement was between AEG Live Productions, LLC and GCA Holdings LLC and Conrad Murray. GCA Holdings is Dr. Murray's employer. "The intention was to make it (provision 9) expressly subject to have Michael's signature on it," Trell explained Bina shows the Recitals of the contract. In one of them, it says Dr. Murry was a licensed cardiologist. Contract Scope of Services: 'Dr. Murray will provide general medical care to the Artist... Such services will be administered professionally and w/ the greatest degree of care expected from members in the medical field' Responsibilities of GCA/Dr. Murray - 'Obtain, maintain and comply with all licenses or other approvals required by any applicable law or from any governmental agency or authority to permit or otherwise legally authorize Dr. Murray to perform any and all Services and to fulfill all of his obligations under this Agreement including in accordance with applicable laws in the United Kingdom. Present to Producer within two weeks from the date of this Agreement documented proof of any and all licenses required for Dr. Murray to practice Medicine in the United States and to perform the Services under this Agreement. Present to Producer no later than July 3, 2009 documented proof of all licenses required for Dr. Murray to practice medicine i n the United Kingdom and to perfonn the Services under this Agreement to the reasonable satisfaction of the producer. Contract included provisions to terminate the contract for failure to provide appropriate medical licenses to work in the US and UK Email on 6/23/09 from Kathy Jorrie to Wooley and Dr. Murray: I've attached here a revised version of your agreement which incorporates all of the revision you requested. I have redlined the word version so that you can see all the revisionsRedline - It changed the scope of services from 'producer' to 'artist' in the sentence: "Dr. Murray shall also provide such other services as are reasonably requested by Artist from time to time during the term hereof. "It was requested by Dr. Murray," Trell said Trell spoke with individuals from AEG about MJ's physical condition. He said he was told MJ seemed fine and the performances were terrific Email on 6/20/09 from Ortega to Phillips: Finally, it's important for everyone to know, I believe that he really wants this. It would shatter him, break his heart if we pulled the plug. He's terribly frightened it's all going to go away. He asked me repeatedly tonight if I was going to leave him. He was practically begging for my confidence. He broke my heart. He was like a lost boy. There still may be a chance he can arise to the occasion. If we get him the help he needs.Trell said he was in the courtroom when Travis Payne testified. He remembers Payne saying Michael looked like he had flu-like symptoms on 6/19/09. "Everyone mentioned chilling or cold, but no one definitively stated at the time what was going on," Trell said. Bina: "Did you speak with Mr. Phillips about his interaction with Dr. Murray?"He knew one on June 20th, and another one in the beginning of June, but he didn't know the date. Meeting on June 20th: Dr. Murray, Michael, Randy Phillips and Kenny Ortega: "Firstly, Michael indicated he was fine, just fine. Secondly, Dr. Murray scolded Kenny Ortega for raising concern, that he was taking care of Michael and he was just fine. There were no rehearsals on 21st and 22nd and Michael rehearsed on the 23rd and 24th & that he appeared fine and the rehearsals were terrific", Trell saidOn June 25, Trell said there were two people that represented Michael Jackson in some management capacity: Dr. Tohme and Frank DiLeo. Trell said that MJ's Estate ultimately approved the productions advances incurred in the tour Bina: "Does AEG Live does background check on its employees?"Jackson redirect Panish only got about 15 mins of questions in at the end of the day. He immediately went at Trell on his recollection of dates, details. Brian Panish: "Have you seen documents where Dr. Murray is referred to as a consultant?"Trell said he was very, very involved in the This Is It tour He started out by asking Trell if he was certain that Jackson signed the This Is It agreement on Jan. 26, 2009, as he'd testified. Trell said he was certain he'd testified correctly about the events of the day, but conceded toward the end of several questions that he might have been wrong about the exact date. January 26, 2009 was the first and only time Trell met with Michael Jackson. "I'm sure it was the only time I met Michael. I won't forget meeting Michael Jackson...He seems very personable when I met him, I thought it was very interesting when he got up and met me at the door," Trell explained. Panish noted the contract signing was on the 28th, not the 26th. Panish: "You were wrong about that, sir?"Hours before Anschutz Entertainment Group executives were heading to Michael Jackson's Holmby Hills home to sign multimillion-dollar contracts for his concert series in London, the firm's top lawyer called Jackson 'the freak' in an email to another company attorney Panish began to built toward a climax, asking Trell if it were company policy to speak in derogatory terms about an artist they were about to sign a huge deal with. "I think people have their own impressions, and thoughts and feelings about Michael Jackson. I may not necessarily agree with some of the life choices he made but I certainly had enormous respect for him as an entertainer", Trell said. Then Panish gave the jury a foreshadowing of what was to come. He asked Trell, "Did Mr. Fikre say to you that Michael Jackson was a freak?" (a reference to Ted Fikre chief legal and development officer and a member of the board of parent company AEG) before slowly unraveling the emails. The email chain starts Jan 28, 2009, with AEG Live executive Paul Gongaware writing Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live: "MJ still on today?"Phillips emails back: Yes. 5 p.m. 100 Carolwood Dr. You and Shawn should be there [referring to Trell]From Trell to Ted Fikre (attorney on the board of AEG) on 1/28/09: FYI...From Fikre to Trell on 1/28/09, in response, three minutes later: Does this mean you get to meet the freak?Trell replies: Apparently. Not sure how I feel about that. Interesting for sure, but kind of creepy Panish to Trell: "This is the kind of respect that your lawyer shows to this artist, referring to him as a freak?"Panish then scolded Trell as he sat in the witness box, "Didn't your mother ever tell you if you don't have anything good to say about someone not to say it?" AEG objected to the question. Some of the jurors laughed. Judge sustained the objection that Panish's question was argumentative Trell returns to the stand in the morning to undergo more questioning from Panish. "I'll see you in the morning," he brusquely told Trell. Outside the court : "That email just exemplifies that AEG had no respect for Mr. Jackson.," Panish said outside of court. "All he was was a vehicle to make money and to promote their concert business to catch up to Live Nation. We're going to continue to prove that for members of the board and attorneys to refer to him as that is disgraceful. We're going to continue to show and prove what AEG is all about. This was just the tip of the iceberg." Jessica Stebbins Bina, AEG's attorney, said the emails were shown merely to embarrass AEG. "We are four weeks into trial and we have yet to hear one piece of substantive evidence," said Marvin S. Putnam, an attorney who is leading AEG's defense Court Transcript |
2023.05.22 06:24 Fallowman09 I can’t hide from the snail any where
 | Send help. submitted by Fallowman09 to warthundermemes [link] [comments] |
2023.05.21 08:46 iblameautocorrect So I was helping my mom organize some things, the other day, when I stumbled across an older paperback dictionary, from 2002 I believe, and this is just more to show we aren't crazy. We were never crazy. They did, in fact, change the definitions. "TrUsT tHe ScIeNcE."
 | submitted by iblameautocorrect to CoronavirusCirclejerk [link] [comments] |
2023.05.20 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 20th
 | 1972 - "Rockin' Robin" enters the UK Top 50 Singles chart where it will peak at #3 during a fourteen week run. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1973 - The Jackson 5 had a two-show gig at Vets Memorial in Columbus, Ohio. Ticket prices were $6, $5, and $4. The next day, The Dispatch published a review with glowing terms, including "undeniably funky." The story, Soul-Swinging Jackson Five Score in Two Shows, said the performances "turned out mostly J-5 patriots" who had waited nearly two years for the Motown rockers to return to Columbus. (Previous shows were at Vets Memorial on 1/30/71 & at the Ohio State Fair on 8/28/71) The evening performance featured 18 songs, including Stevie Wonder's "Superstitious" & The Temptations' "Poppa Was a Rollin' Stone." "Individually, Michael and Jermaine lead the vocal work," reported Jack Willey of The Dispatch staff, "with Michael's striking flexibility acting almost like a lead instrument for the band. Whether fronting his brothers ... or soloing ... his style is clear, precise and very much his own." The opening band was a new soul group called the Commodores 1975 - On their Destiny Tour, The Jacksons play the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee 1997 - Michael Jackson's Blood On The Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix was released in the US https://preview.redd.it/kmwzq14lvt0b1.jpg?width=239&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a12ef95db24b2a8d5dab498927d9c35a7345e9c 1997 - Michael Jackson's video HIStory On Film Volume 2 was released https://preview.redd.it/0707949mvt0b1.jpg?width=274&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b70be97d199c1a3c2da5f755e05d7b4e97e09391 2003 - Michael Jackson arrives in Indianapolis with his cousins Rijo, Simone, Elijah & Levon. He came to give a deposition in court following a lawsuit brought by Steeltown Records boss Gordon Keith. The lawsuit accuses the Jackson Five and others of infringing the trade name of Ripples and Waves, another Gary band from the 1960s, and two of their songs. The time and place of the deposition are being kept secret, but some fans thought they knew where it would take place.Jackson's attorney has also asked to keep the transcript of the deposition sealed, bar media from the deposition room, and prohibit recording devices other than those utilized by the court reporter and videographer. WISH-TV reported that a few dozen fans gathered outside the Canturbury Hotel, where Jackson had rented out the entire 12th floor, in downtown Indianapolis in hopes of catching a glimpse of him Fans got their first closeup glance of him as he toured Circle Centre Mall https://preview.redd.it/mu94qp7ovt0b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d43e11fe4f15d6cd07c40ff54a001a0047c4f2e7 People who waited to meet Michael say he was nice and courteous. He signed several autographs and even at one point ended up in the middle of the crowd while trying to get out of the mall. https://preview.redd.it/yjuuzxipvt0b1.jpg?width=653&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6af96bdfbd5e99b3952a92bea36b36230afd452b He's expected to spend most of tomorrow afternoon giving his deposition But fans just wanted to know if his Indiana roots are still in tact. "Michael, what's it like to be back in Indiana? What's it like to be back in Indiana?' "It's the best! Best baby, yea." https://preview.redd.it/6oj9nauqvt0b1.jpg?width=199&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff6e5bca01367da268f085f998c8a7f78ad65f2c 2005 - Trial Day 57 Michael goes to court with Katherine & Randy. https://preview.redd.it/k97h9f5svt0b1.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6061b7999c44e21febccbe86642266119d2e8811 Amidst speculation that the trial could wrap up as early as next week, Michael's former defense attorney resumed his testimony. Mark Geragos told jurors last week that he had ordered the surveillance of the Arvizo family because he was concerned they were meeting with a lawyer to make some accusation or sell their story to tabloids. The lawyer also said he did not remember being told that the Arvizo family had returned to Jackson's Neverland Ranch in mid-February and said he was uneasy about that possibility because he "was concerned about a false story or a concocted one." Geragos testified that he gave a broad directive to investigator Brad Miller to follow the family, instructing him to find out who they're meeting with and what they're doing. However, he said he did not specify the particular surveillance methods to be used. Prosecutors have previously shown surveillance videos of the family to support their allegations that Jackson & his associates were attempting to hold the Arvizo family captive. Prosecutor Ron Zonen tried to link Miller to the alleged kidnapping conspiracy. He asked Geragos if he was aware that an employee of Millers is alleged to have thrown rocks at the house of the accuser's grandmother. Geragos responded, "I don't send people out to throw stones at people's houses" Prosecutors also questioned Geragos about the Arvizo familys interview with the DCFS in February, 2003. In previous testimony the mother, Janet Arvizo, claimed that Miller & a man she knew as Asef had attended the interview. She said Asef, whom she believed was a part of Jacksons security team, had asked her to secretly record the interview. She further claimed that Asef had threatened the safety of her parents should she not comply. Geragos testified that he was aware the interview was taking place but said he did not direct Miller to attend or to secretly tape the interview. Importantly for the defense, he also said that Asef Vilchic in fact worked for Miller and not for Jackson. Once again, exchanges between Zonen and Geragos were often heated. At one point, Judge Rodney Melville criticized the prosecution for approaching the witness stand too often without permission. Geragos had refused to answer certain questions during his testimony last Friday due to a limited waiver of his attorney-client privilege. Judge Melville had been under the impression the waiver was complete, but in fact it only covered Geragos for events leading up to Jacksons arrest. Judge Melville said I feel deceived by Mr. Mesereau and I am considering ... sanctions of some sort against Mr. Mesereau. Mesereau had apologized for the confusion, explaining that he had not thought the period after the arrest would be relevant. Court observers expected the sanctions to include a fine. The Judge said that he could have stricken Geragos testimony from the record but did not feel this was viable as the jury had already heard his testimony. However, he said he would entertain the prosecution's motion to strike the testimony from the record once completed. Judge Melville also stated that a condition of his allowing Geragos to resume testimony was that whenever prosecutors asked him about events after November 2003, he was to tell the jury, "I refuse to answer that question based on attorney client privilege." Zonen stated in court Friday that the defense may rest their case as early as next week. "We're approaching the end of trial," he told Judge Melville. The defense has indicated they may be resting as early as next Tuesday." Defense attorneys did not contradict the statement but did not comment on it. Court Transcript 2006 - Michael meets with Prince Abdullah (Bahrain) for the last time and informs his host that he is travelling to London and Tokyo. Shortly after producer Bill Bottrell and drummer Brian Macleod arrives in Bahrain to work on new songs for Michael’s project 2009 - Michael goes to Dr Klein’s in Beverly Hills https://preview.redd.it/2ws1gziuvt0b1.jpg?width=739&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02791f5acd4b47f51dd87a56213c49bae440283b 2009 - Kenny Ortega and Randy Phillips announce in a press conference that the 4 opening O2 shows have been rescheduled from July 8 to July 13 due to production delays 2009 - In a letter signed by Michael, Leonard Rowe is prevented from working or speaking on his behalf. Frank Dileo is now Michael's one & only manager. https://preview.redd.it/vzzcjeixvt0b1.jpg?width=235&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cc453658f710d532bc7f4a5b3b5d34f2f8ddbab The letter was only publicized after Michael’s death. Leonard Rowe also claims (Like Tohme Tohme) that he never received such letter. The letter did have a Michael Jackson signature. By whom & when was this letter was actually signed is unknown. 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 14 Katherine, Rebbie and Trent Jackson are at court. LATimes reported that Jacksons offered a settlement. Kevin Boyle , a lawyer for Katherine Jackson and Michael's kids , said they offered to settle the lawsuit against AEG, but that they never got an answer. Kevin Boyle said the family made the offers in January & March. Boyle would not provide details but said AEG's insurance would have paid, which means they could have settled the case without them paying a dime of their money. He said AEG has never offered to settle & they haven't apologized. Marvin Putnam, an attorney for AEG, said it was inappropriate to discuss settlement discussions, "We don't settle matters that are utterly baseless. We believe that is the case in this matter. I can't see why we would consider a settlement as anything other than a shakedown" CNN Reports there was a snack controversy during trial: AEG lawyers gave a bag of peppermint candy to the bailiff to hand out to the jury this week. Even Katherine Jackson enjoyed the treat but Jackson's lawyer raised an objection, suggesting jurors might be influenced if they realized the source of the sweets. A compromise was reached. Each side can provide snacks for jurors, but they'll be placed at the bailiff's desk before jurors enter court so they have no clue who brought it. Shawn Trell Testimony Jackson direct AEG Live General Counsel, Shawn Trell, told jurors that he had forgotten that Kenny Ortega was working under a signed contract. Trell said he met with his attorneys last night and reviewed one doc -- Kenny Ortega's contract. "He had a written contract," Trell said. "I remember the email dynamic. I'm not too proud to admit that I didn't recall the cover contract," Trell said he was changing his previous testimony to add that Ortega had a written contract, not only emails between him and AEG Next topic was Insurance: Cancellation/Non-Appearance/Sickness. Trell said he started working on insurance for the tour in November of 2008. Panish showed several chains of emails where the parties talked about the insurance for the tour Email from Bob Taylor insurance broker to Trell on 1/7/09: Prior to speaking with carriers we ask the artist to attend medical with a doctor...A full medical with both blood/urine tests. The doctor also wants to review the medical records over the last 5 years to ensure full disclosure. Insurers require further medical examination to be carried out by their nominated doctor. They may restrict illness coverage or death from illness coverage until this examination has taken placeEmail from 4/30/09 - Wooley to Trell : "We have no coverage against Michael sickness unless and until he submits to another medical in LondonEmail from 5/28/09 - Trell to Taylor: "We really need to get that medical done"Email from 6/23/09 - Trell to Taylor : "Any update on the availability of Term insurance?" (life insurance)Trell said if they secured life insurance, they would get money if Michael died. "We would get the money owed to us, yes," Trell testified. Trell also said he continued discussions with an insurance broker about additional coverage to recoup AEG Live's investment if the tour had to be canceled. Email from 6/24/09 -Taylor to Trell : Insurers have refused to move on this. Huge amount of speculation in the media regarding artist's health. They feel if they're to consider providing illness to cover this particular artist, they must have very through medical reportEmail from 6/25/09 - Gongaware to Taylor : "If we don't get sickness coverage, we are dropping this policy"Email from 6/25/09 - Taylor to Gongaware : The consultation in London is critical. The doctor is holding the afternoon of the 6th July open at Harley St. But keep in mind the visit could take 2 hours plusNext topic: Budget/Costs. Panish showed an email from AEG's Rick Webking to Michael's estate with 1st report of artist advances/expenses. This was a letter sent to the estate containing the expenses incurred, Trell said. "It seems to me we submitted this report for their review, I don't see any request for payment," Trell said. Trell said he spoke with Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware about Michael's physical condition prior to coming to testify. "I had heard about rehearsals in which Mr. Jackson was fantastic," Trell said Trell said he's aware of email from Ortega saying doctor was not allowing Michael to attend rehearsal on June 14, 2009. "I was aware of the doctor not allowing him to attend rehearsal," Trell said Email from 6/17/09 from Phillips: "...Ortega, Gongaware, Dileo, and his doctor Conrad from Vegas and I have an intervention with him to get him to focus and come to rehearsal"Email from 6/17/09 from Gongaware to Phillip's assistant: "We need a physical therapist and a nutritionist"Email from Production Manager - Gongaware/Phillips on 6/19/09 : "Paul/Randy I'm not bring a drama queen here. Kenny asked me to notify you both Michael was sent home without stepping foot on stage. He was a basket case and Kenny was concerned he would embarrass himself on stage, or worse yet, be hurt. The company is rehearsing right now, but the DOUBT is pervasive"Email from Randy Phillips to Tim Leiweke on 6/19/09 : "We have a huge problem here.""I think he recognized there was a problem on the 19th," Trell said. "I would take it seriously, as I believe Mr. Phillips did." Trell agreed with a statement by plaintiff's attorney, Brian Panish, that company executives knew by then there was a "deep issue" with Jackson Does Trell consider that exchange a "red flag" that AEG Live should have noticed, Panish asked. "I would take it seriously, as I believe Mr. Phillips did," Trell answered. "I don't know I would use the word 'red flag' One of the emails shown to the jury was from Jackson estate co-executor John Branca, sent 5 days before Jackson's death & marked 'confidential': "I have the right therapist/spiritual advisosubstance abuse counselor who could help (recently helped Mike Tyson get sober and paroled) Do we know whether there is a substance issue involved (perhaps better discussed on the phone)The email was sent the same day that a meeting was held at Jackson's home with Murray. No further info given to jury. Trell said Mr. Phillips never told him about this email Email from Ortega to Randy Phillips on 6/20/09: (chain of emails) "I honestly don't think he is ready for this based on his continued physical weakening and deepening emotional state"Trell said he didn't see these emails. He said he spoke with Randy Phillips about Phillips' perception of Michael, in order to prepare for testifying, but not about specific emails. Trell has been designated as the most qualified person to speak on behalf of AEG Email from Phillips to Gongaware on 6/20/09 at 1:52 am : "Tim and I are going to see him tomorrow, however, I'm not sure what the problem is Chemical or Physiological?"From Gongaware to Phillips, on 6/20/09 at 5:59 am : "Take the doctor with you. Why wasn't he there last night?"From Phillips to Gongaware, on 6/20/09 at 2:01 pm : "He is not a psychiatrist so I'm not sure how effective he can be at this point obviously, getting him there is not the issue. It is much deeper"Trell said Randy Phillips went to a handful of rehearsals, three at the Forum and two at Staples Center. The head of the marketing department attended rehearsal on June 23, 2009. "She was blown away by it," Trell testified. He said he was unaware of issues with Jackson at rehearsals."I knew of no problems with Michael Jackson at all",Trell testified. Trell said he never saw the emails from Phillips directing people to exclude images from This Is It of Michael looking "skeletal" while rehearsing. "What were his observations of Michael's physical condition during rehearsal," Trell said. "I asked for his (Phillips) personal opinion." Next line of questioning is about human resources and background checks. Trell said they can be valuable and useful tools when hiring. Background check costs around $40 to $125. Trell said AEG Live could afford this fee. "We don't do background checks on independent contractors," Trell said. Trell said he was involved in the hiring by AEG Live for the This Is It tour. His department was responsible for retaining independent contractors. Trell said he is not familiar with background check process for hiring. "I am not familiar with the process of doing background checks," Trell said. "No training." Panish: "There was no hiring criteria for the This Is It tour, correct?"Trell testified that when it comes to independent contractors, they have either worked with the artists, AEG or known in the industry. Trell agreed that no background check was done on anyone working on the This Is It tour. AEG Live General Counsel Shawn Trell told jurors that no legal or financial checks were done involving Conrad Murray or anyone else who worked as an independent contractor on the This Is It shows. Depending on the nature of the position, a background could be done, Trell said, like for potential employees in the financial area. Trell said he thought a background check would be appropriate for people working in financial roles, but not tour personnel who weren't employees of AEG As to independent contractors, Trell said there's no supervision and monitoring like there's for employees Panish: "You don't do anything to check into background, supervise or protect the artist?"Trell said that AEG did not hire Murray, that the doctor was like many independent contractors, "When they leave the environment, what they do on their own time is their own business. Trell testified he doesn't believe the artist is more at risk because AEG Live doesn't do background checks "We did nothing to monitor Dr. Murray," Trell said. "We did not monitor whatever it was that he was doing, no." "It called for Michael Jackson being able to terminate Dr. Murray at will," Trell said about the contract. "If the concerts didn't go forward, and he was terminated under this provision, Dr. Murray would not be paid going forward," Trell explained As to Dr Murray being under dire financial straits, Trell said that he doesn't know if he agrees with it, everyone's perception is different Trell: "I certainly wasn't aware of it at the time"Email from Kathy Jorie to Shawn Trell on 6/24/09 at 12:54 am: Subject: Revised agreement with GCA Holdings/Dr. Murray It had two attachments Attachments: Revised Michael Jackson -AEG GCA Holdings Murray Agreement 6-18-09 Final MJ -- AEG GCA Holdings Agreement (Dr. Murray) 6-23-09 Email chain from 6/23/09, 5:39pm from Jorrie to Wooley, Murray Subject: RE: Michael Jackson - Revised Agreement with GCA Holdings/Dr. Murray Email: I have redlined the Word version so that you can see all of the revisions. In addition, I've attached clean PDF version for execution" (The email says that if Dr. Murray approved it, he was to print it, sign and send it back to Jorrie) Panish: "Did Ms. Jorrie call this contract a draft?"Panish showed emails exchanged among AEG executives that contained drafts of Murray's contract. Although Murray had signed a contract with the company, neither Jackson nor anyone from AEG had added their signatures. Trell testified that a copy of the contract had never been sent to Jackson With Trell on the stand, Panish played part of an interview that AEG Live President Randy Phillips gave to Sky News television soon after Michael's death. "This guy was willing to leave his practice for a very large sum of money, so we hired him," Phillips said. Panish also showed jurors an e-mail between AEG lawyers suggesting that Phillips told other interviewers AEG Live "hired" Murray. Panish: "Isn't it true that Randy Phillips made numerous comments that AEG Live hired Dr. Murray?" Trell: "I know he has made that statement"Panish said AEG higher-ups became concerned after Phillips made such admission. Trell said he didn't know if that was true. Bruce Black is the General Counsel for parent company of AEG and AEG Live. Michael Roth is AEG's media relations Email from Kathy Jorrie to Bruce Black and Michael Roth on 8/25/09: Subject: AEG Live president says AEG Live hired Dr. Conrad Murray Panish shows Trell a deposition, under oath, given by insurance broker Bob Taylor on another case. Trell said he has never seen or read it. Trell denied having a telephone conversation with Mr. Taylor where Trell asked him if a doctor's compensation was covered in the insurance. Panish: "Does that refresh your recollection that AEG was employing Dr. Murray?"After lunch break, Brian Panish asked if Shawn Trell wanted to change anything else in his testimony, to which he said "No" Bruce Black, attorney for Anschutz, was present in the meeting with LAPD. Trell met with the police on 1/12/10. Trell told the police that day that Dr. Murray would receive $150,000 compensation per month. Trell also said that Dr. Murray requested and AEG would provide necessary medical equipment and a nurse. More than five months after Jackson's death, Trell said, he informed LAPD detectives that Murray initially requested $5 million to join the tour but eventually agreed to a salary of $150,000 a month for 10 months. Panish: "As far as you know, all the agreements written for TII tour was done under AEG Live Productions, right?"Trell said Dennis Hawk, who represented Michael, was in touch with Taylor regarding the insurance Panish: "As of June 2009, you don't even know whether Mr. Jackson had a personal manager working for him, right?"Email on 6/2/09 from Randy Phillips to Jeff Wald: "Jeff, remember getting Michael to focus is not the easiest thing in the world and we still have no lawyer, business manager, or, even real manager in place. It is a nightmare!"Trell said the only time he saw an artist's signature required to retain an independent contractor was for Dr. Murray. Trell said his understanding was that Dr. Murray worked for Michael for 3 years; didn't know how many times MJ saw Dr. Murray. "I've never spoken with Dr. Murray ever. And I met/spoke with Mr. Jackson once," Trell said. "He was a significant expense," Trell testified about Dr. Murray. Trell said AEG Live didn't do anything to check Dr. Murray's competency as doctor, other than checking his physician license. Trell said AEG didn't do anything to determine Dr. Murray's financial conditions in 2009. Jury was shown an email that Phillips sent to Kenny Ortega on night of June 20, 2009. It was email urging Ortega to stand down. Email on 6/20/09 Phillips to Ortega : Kenny it's critical that neither you, me, anyone around this show become amateur psychiatrist/physicians. I had a lengthy conversation with Dr. Murray, who I am gaining immense respect for as I get to deal with him more. He said that Michael is not only physically equipped to perform & discouraging him to will hasten his decline instead of stopping it. Dr. Murray also reiterated that he is mentally able to and was speaking to me from the house where he had spent the morning with Michael. This doctor is extremely successful (we check everyone out) and does not need this gig so he is totally unbiased and ethicalPanish asked Trell whether Phillips "characterization to Ortega, given no background check was done, was a lie". Trell responded that he didn't know what Phillips knew or was thinking when he wrote that email to Ortega. Trell also said he expected Randy Phillips to testify at some point during the trial, so he could address the email himself Panish then asked Trell, "Sir, you never checked out one single thing about Dr. Murray -- you've already told me that, correct?"When pressed by Panish, Trell said that Phillips' statement that Murray had been checked out, along with the executive's claim that the doctor 'does not need this gig' were inaccurate. "I don't know where Randy's understanding or impression comes from", Trell said. Trell testified that Phillips might have been "misinformed" or simply was stating his impression of the Las Vegas cardiologist Panish: "But no one at AEG checked Dr. Murray to see if he was successful or not, isn't that true?"Panish then asked several pointed questions about whether Shawn Trell agreed with Phillips telling Ortega they'd checked Murray out. One of Panish's questions was whether Trell thought Phillips' email was 'acceptable conduct' Panish called Phillips' statement "a flat out lie" and asked Trell whether he agreed with it or if it signified how AEG did business. Trell said he didn't know what Phillips thought he knew when he wrote the message. "I know this statement is not accurate, but you'd have to speak with Mr. Phillips about what he thought or meant in saying it," Trell said. Panish: "That's a flat out lie, isn't it sir?" Panish: "You don't know if he was successful or facing bankruptcy, did you?" Trell: "I know the statement is not accurate. You have to speak with Mr. Phillips about what he meant to say"Trell said Phillips never told him that he checked Dr. Murray out. As to reference in Phillips' email about Dr. Murray being unbiased, ethical, not needing this gig, Trell said it was Phillips' impressions. He said AEG typically only runs background checks on candidates applying for full-time jobs with AEG, not independent contractors. Panish: "Isn't it true AEG Live does not do background check on independent contractors?"Trell said that no one from AEG interviewed Dr. Murray because he was an independent contractor. "Did anyone from AEG ever at any time interview Dr. Murray", asked Brian PanishPanish showed a document used by AEG entitled "Disclosure and Authorization to Conduct Background Check". Doc is used for employment, promotion, retention, contingent or the rate staffing, consulting, sub-contract work, or volunteer work. Panish asked if there was any reason why Dr. Murray was not given a background check. "He wasn't an employee, he wasn't applying for a full time position with the company," Trell explained. Trell said theoretically they could've asked to check Dr. Murray's background and credit. AEG Cross Jessica Bina began her examination by showing the letter submitted by AEG's CFO to the Estate of Michael Jackson for their review. She asked Shawn Trell about the estimate presented to Jackson's estate that included Murray's $300k fees. She asked why it was prepared. Shawn Trell said it was done at the request of the estate. He said Jackson's estate wanted to know state of tour finances when Jackson died. Trell said the report was requested by the Estate after a series of meetings after Michael's death. "The purpose of the meeting was to wind up the business affairs of the tour due to Michael's death", Trell said. "It was my understating in June Tohme was back in the picture in some capacity. I'm not sure which, Mr. DiLeo was in it too," Trell said Bina: "Is there any request for payment?"Stebbins Bina asked about the inclusion of Murray's fee in the document. Bina showed the report that was attached to the letter. Murray's fee on the document had a footnote. Trell read what that footnote said, and explained why estate wasn't asked for Murray's fee. Next to "Management Medical" there's a reference to footnote 3. Note 3: 'Contract is not signed by Michael Jackson and such signature was condition precedent to any payment obligation' - Footnote on Murray fee. Trell testified Webking, the CFO for AEG, did not ask Michael's Estate for payment of Dr. Murray's salary "You testified you were somewhat confused (by the inclusion of the $300,000)?", Bina asked Trell as she projected the list, dated July 17, 2009, on a screen for jurors. "Do you see there's something in parentheses?', Stebbins Bina asked, zooming in to blow up a footnote from AEG CFO Frederick Webking that stated Michael Jackson never signed Murray's contract, so its terms were not enforceable. "Is Mr. Webking asking the estate to pay?", Stebbins Bina asked Trell. "No", he replied, explaining that upon reflection he believed Mr. Webking was just being 'thorough' by including the $300,000 as a budgeted cost. "Did Mr. Webking make a mistake as you thought yesterday?",she asked.Second report made to the Estate on 9/18/09, there was no amount next to management medical. Stebbins Bina then showed a Sept. 2009 report of This Is It's finances to Michael Jackson's estate. Murray's fee is not listed in that document Trell went through his job description with AEG. He said he has five lawyers in his department and has worked on thousands of agreements. Trell explained what PMK is -- Person Most Knowledgeable, identified by the company to testify on its behalf. Trell said he didn't know about all the topics he was designated, so he had to do some studying and interviews with people As to Ortega's contract, Trell said he was aware of a string of emails being at least a part of the original agreement with Kenny. "When we were done here yesterday, I looked at Kenny Ortega's original agreement," Trell said. Trell noted he hadn't looked at Ortega's agreement since it was entered into in 2009. Before the afternoon break, Trell and jury were shown Kenny Ortega's tour agreement. It was signed in April 2009. The agreement was three pages of legalese, with several pages of emails attached that confirmed the terms. The first three pages included some paragraphs that described who owned the rights to This Is It content. A large number of emails are part of the agreement as exhibits. Trell said he recalled the emails exchange and admitted again not being proud of forgetting the cover contract portion. Bina showed Ortega's executed contract with everyone's signature on it. Trell said Kenny Ortega was paid after his contract was signed. Trell, Phillips and Kathy Jorrie were involved in drafting and negotiating the contract with Michael Jackson. For MJ, Trell said Dr. Tohme Tohme and attorneys Dennis Hawk and Peter Lopez represented him. He said there were multiple drafts. "It's my understanding they were talking to, or at least receiving offers from, a competitive of ours, Live Nation," Trell said. Trell also said that before signing an agreement with AEG, Jackson had been considering a tour offer from its main competitor, Live Nation. Bina showed the jury the final tour agreement. Trell said he went to MJ's home at Carolwood to sign it. Upon arrival, Trell said Mr. Jackson got up from where he was seated, and said 'Hi, welcome, I'm Michael." Trell said it was pretty funny, since he was a very distinct person. Trell said they shook hands, he had a good firm handshake and his voice was not what people think "He popped up, came over, introduced himself, was very cordial, there was a real positive energy, good vibe in the room," Trell said. "He seemed genuinely enthused," Trell added. "He had the contract in front of him, said he read every page, seemed very enthused." Trell said they all signed it and Mr. Jackson was really keen on the 3-D stuff, that he was already down the road in his mind. "I was probably there just a little less than an hour. And that was the only time I met him," Trell recalled. Bina discussed the contract for the tour agreement: A first class performance by Artist at each show on each of the approved itineraries. Contract: Artist shall perform no less than 80 minutes at each show, and the maximum show length for each show shall be 3.5 hours. Artist shall approve a sufficient number of shows on itineraries proposed by promoter or producer as to recoup the advances made. Trell said compensation was agreed on 90-10 split. Artist received 90% of what's defined contingent compensation.Trell explained to jury how concerts get paid for. One scenario is artist pays for production up front. A second scenario is that the promoter gives artist an advance, and then they use the money to put together the show. The third option, Trell said, is the artist pays someone like AEG Live to produce and promote the show, with costs to come out of their pay. Trell called the second and third option like an interest-free loan. In Jackson's case, AEG agreed to a 90/10 split of show's proceeds. Jackson would have received the 90 percent portion, Trell said. Jackson was also on the hook for a 5% production fee AEG Live was promoter & producer. "We advanced the money necessary to mount the tour," Trell explained. "It's interest free money". Trell testified that Jackson's advance, which covered his $100,000-a-month rent on his mansion and a $3-million payment to settle a lawsuit that would free up his performance rights, was considered a loan to be paid back to AEG. Part of the advance was to pay off the settlement agreement of $3 million in London court. The underlying dispute was that a company owned the rights for Jackson's live performance. "The rights needed to be freed up," Trell said. The advances were to be paid back to AEG Live before the split of revenue. Production Advances were capped to $7.5 million. Contract: Artist was responsible for all the production costs in excess of the cap and had to reimburse promoter."Michael Jackson was known to have very elaborate productions," Trell said. "Production values can get significant, for lack of a better word, it really depends on how many bells and whistles they want," Trell said. Trell said AEG would not advance money without the artist requesting it. Trell said it's not only typical and customary, but standard and artist needs to secure either non-appearance or cancellation insurance. Their interest in the policy, Trell said, was to cover the advances and production costs incurred with the production of the show. "If the were no obligations to AEG, the payout would go back to the artist", Trell explained, "It just recoups our loan made to the artist." Trell was also asked about elements of tour insurance policies and an agreement with former manager Tohme Tohme. Jackson's contract called for him to represent to AEG that he didn't have any health conditions that would keep him from performing. Contract: Artistco hereby represents and warrants that artist does not possess any known health conditions, injuries or ailments that would reasonable be expected to interfere with Artist's first class performance at each of the shows during the termOh Tohme's $100k per month agreement, Trell was shown a January contract that Jackson signed to pay that amount. However, Trell said Tohme's agreement was predicated on Jackson getting tour cancellation insurance by a certain date. Deadline passed and by that point Tohme was no longer Jackson's manager, so he wasn't entitled to be paid his monthly fee. January 24, 2009 -- agreement entered with Dr. Tohme Tohme. Trell said Michael was involved and signed this agreement. "This agreement was entered into January 26, Trell testified. "There are conditions that needed to be met before any payment could be made." One of the the conditions was placement of non-appearance insurance, Trell said. That placement was done in late April, early May. In May, AEG received letter from MJ saying Tohme didn't rep him anymore. "No payments were ever made under this agreement," Trell explained. Julie Hollander Transcript Shawn Trell Transcript |
2023.05.19 13:02 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 19th
 | 1973 - The Jackson 5 play at the Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1977 The Jacksons perform “Show You The Way To Go” on Top Of The Pops in London. 1979 - On their Destiny Tour, the Jacksons play the Atlanta Civic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. 1979 - The Jacksons song "Shake Your Body Down To The Ground" peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 1984 - The song "Thriller" falls off the Billboard Hot 100, ending a run of hits from the Thriller album that started on 11/6/82, when "The Girl Is Mine" entered the chart. In that stretch, only two weeks went by without a Thriller song on the chart. 1993 - Michael receives the first ever lifetime Achievement Award from Norris McWhirther, the Editor of the Guinness Museum of World Records in Los Angeles. He also was presented with a plaque from the Michael Jackson Observer Fan Club. https://preview.redd.it/jsq63l0ooo0b1.jpg?width=2065&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=284d9a4bd825f5380532f142fda18794ba0a41c2 1995 - 'Scream", the first single from the album HIStory is officially launched on radios worldwide. The song was leaked to radio stations early, despite Epic Records' attempt to keep it off air until the release date of May 29th. "Scream" would become the first single in the 37-year history of Billboard to debut at #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked 1998 - During the Forum Summit, Michael has a private meeting with President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo. https://preview.redd.it/bxxfsbbqoo0b1.jpg?width=735&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c4890ae168ce0821151c3d758c8b09db10f5730 Kabila and Jackson met privately for about 20 minutes over water and orange juice at the World Economic Forum's Southern African summit in the Namibian capital. Most reporters were kept out of view by guards protecting the two men, but a Congolese television team travelling with Kabila was allowed to film the encounter. https://preview.redd.it/et8btogsoo0b1.jpg?width=240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b5d55964175786b1dd52ff9b38978117bc7e6f3 They told reporters that Kabila had proposed an anniversary concert in Kinshasa. One said Jackson promised to "seriously consider the invitation." 2005 - Trial Day 56 Michael goes to court with Katherine. https://preview.redd.it/aupc3lttoo0b1.jpg?width=408&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b537cca1810b803a58416dd8452355ef68f9ee51 Judge Melville ruled that the jury would be unable to hear the testimonies of CNN talk show host Larry King and publisher Michael Viner as impeachment material against civil attorney Larry Feldman. Melville's ruling effectively handicapped the ability of Jackson's defense team to counter testimony offered by Feldman under oath. Feldman represented Jackson's current accuser some time between March 2003 and June 2004. The attorney also represented Jordan Chandler, the first boy who brought accusations against Jackson in 1993 During direct examination on 4/1/05, DA Thomas Sneddon used Feldman to drive home the notion that the accusing family was not out for money, as the defense contends. Feldman stated that the family was not seeking to file a lawsuit, and that he had never been asked to file a suit against Jackson on behalf of the family. On cross-examination, lead defense attorney Thomas Mesereau attempted to undermine Feldman's credibility by asking him about a conversation that allegedly transpired between himself, King, and Viner. Feldman repeatedly denied ever meeting with King and Viner at an eatery in Beverly Hills some time in 2004, where he purportedly relayed to the two men his belief that the accuser's mother was fabricating the allegations against Jackson. He also denied even personally knowing who Viner was, claiming that he had "never had a meeting with Michael Viner in [his] life." However, according to a memo attached with a defense motion, Viner recalled Feldman stating that he didn't believe the accuser and referred to the boy's mother as a "flake." Feldman had also allegedly stated that both mother and son were sent out to "another expert and they failed the smell test," and felt they were into the case solely for "money." When asked by defense investigator Scott Ross if this was a statement actually made by Feldman, Viner replied, "Absolutely." Upon being told by Ross that Feldman had testified that he didn't know who Viner was, Viner stated that was untrue, that they had met many times. Viner added that he was clueless as to why Feldman would deny knowing him. In a hearing outside of the jury, King stated that Feldman had told him during this lunch that the accuser's mother was "wacko," was "in it for the money," and that the accusations against Jackson "didn't hold water." King added that Feldman met with the mother and "didn't want to represent her," advising that she contact authorities with the allegations. The civil attorney did end up representing the woman and her family, but later withdrew as counsel for reasons unknown. Viner testified that he "walked away believing that [Feldman] did not believe the allegations." When cross-examined, Viner could not recall Feldman directly quoting anything the accuser's mother may have told him, which would have been a violation of the attorney-client privilege. After listening to the proposed testimonies, Judge Melville declared them to be "irrelevant," stating that it was unclear if Feldman was sharing an opinion or if he was quoting the accuser's mother. Depending on the media slant, various reasons have been given as to why King and Viner were rejected, including references to the testimony as "hearsay" and an inability to "verify" the statements as "fact." There have been a number of statements offered during the course of this trial that were allowed in, but not "for the fact of the matter" be it "verifiable" or not. The judge could have allowed both King and Viner to testify to having met Feldman for lunch and to state that the attorney had in fact expressed negative opinions about the accuser's mother. That would not have been hearsay, and it would have been enough to impeach at least a portion of Feldman's testimony, particularly since King and Viner's statements seemed to corroborate one another. Given this recent ruling, it seems that there is a differential application of law in the case, one that puts Jackson at a disadvantage. Statements offered by any number of prosecution witnesses, particularly those of the accuser and his family, are not in a different category than the testimonies of King and Viner. It should be clear by now that there seems to be two sets of standards operating here: one set favoring the prosecution, and one that appears to impair Jackson's constitutional right to a fair trial. The highlight from the day was Azja Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant & the girlfriend of Chris Tucker. Early in her testimony, Pryor broke down and cried when about the family. “It’s hard for me because I really do love the kids a lot,” she said in an apparent reference to her reluctance to testify against them. Pryor became friends with the boy’s family after she was introduced to them through Tucker when Gavin was battling cancer & a number of celebrities became involved in efforts to help them. Pryor testified that she met the family at the Laugh Factory club in Hollywood in 2001. Pryor said she and Tucker began taking the children places. Tucker took them by private jet to an Oakland Raiders game and invited them to his brother's wedding, she said. Under questioning from Mesereau, Pryor said Janet Arvizo had asked her to take the family back to Neverland in February 2003, just after the family met with a social worker investigating possible child abuse. On that trip, Gavin & Starr spent the day playing at Neverland & even asked the ranch manager to be allowed to stay in Michael's bedroom at a time when the entertainer was away. She told the jury the accuser's mother complained to her in early March 2003 that two German associates of Jackson had stepped in to keep her family away. "I asked, "Does Michael know anything about this?' She said, "They won't let us around him because they know the children tug at his heart strings' ", Pryor testified. The time period she cited is critical because prosecutors allege the abuse happened between Feb. 20 & March 12, 2003. When Janet testified in the trial, she spoke out against "the Germans" and said they were conspiring with Jackson to hold her family captive. Pryor testified she and the boy's mother would talk for hours on the phone, but the mother never complained to her about Michael. Pryor said that she never spoke critically of Jackson and praised him in lavish terms. “It was something to the effect (of) what a great man he is. He is an angel. His love is great,” Pryor said. The woman also talked with excitement about heading to Brazil for Carnival, Pryor said. That countered prosecution claims Jackson had planned to spirit the boy’s family away to head off trouble The mother’s participation in a “rebuttal video” in Jackson’s defense was voluntary, Pryor said. “She was very anxious to tell the world that this beautiful friendship was nothing more than they saw -- a beautiful friendship,” Pryor said. Court Transcript 2009 - Michael Jackson visits the American Idol rehearsals at to the Nokia Theatre then he visits Dr Klein in Berverly Hills. |
2023.05.19 11:43 FyrestarOmega Lucy Letby trial, Defence day 7, 19 May 2023
Dan O'Donoghue: https://twitter.com/MrDanDonoghue/status/1659487759600320513?t=O871KwUGpUOLL3HohaAs-w&s=19
Andy Gill: https://twitter.com/MerseyHack/status/1659488662361350144?t=ylXRsHALhwUJREa1wX8dmw&s=19
Sky News live: https://news.sky.com/story/lucy-letby-trial-latest-nurse-accused-of-murdering-babies-giving-evidence-12868375
BBC live: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-65602988
Chester Standard: https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23532994.live-lucy-letby-trial-may-19---cross-examination-continues/
Default will be Chester Standard
submitted by FyrestarOmega to lucyletby [link] [comments]
Andy Gill: https://twitter.com/MerseyHack/status/1659488662361350144?t=ylXRsHALhwUJREa1wX8dmw&s=19
Sky News live: https://news.sky.com/story/lucy-letby-trial-latest-nurse-accused-of-murdering-babies-giving-evidence-12868375
BBC live: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-65602988
Chester Standard: https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23532994.live-lucy-letby-trial-may-19---cross-examination-continues/
Default will be Chester Standard
Child C (continued)
Mr Johnson says text messages were exchanged between Letby and Jennifer Jones-Key between 11.01pm and 11.09pm.
Letby says she does not accept she was in room 1 at the time of Child C's collapse. She says she has "no memory" of it.
Nurse Sophie Ellis had said she was in room 1 at the time, and Letby said in police interview, based on that, she was in room 1.
Letby says she "disputes" that, as she has "no memory" of it.
"Do you dispute being born?" Mr Johnson asks.
"No." Letby replies.
NJ: "But you have no memory of it?"
LL: "No."
Letby is asked why she let a band 4 nursery nurse look after her designated baby.
Letby says it's "not unusual" for band 4 nurses to assist her in her duties.
LL: "I have no memory of that".
NJ: "Did you have something better to do?"
LL: "No."
Mr Johnson says the text at 11.01pm sent by Letby to Jennifer Jones-Key meant she must not have been in a clinical area, and would not have had time to feed her designated baby in room 3.
LL: "I can't answer that."
Mr Johnson says it took her out of the nursing area. Letby said she would have been "in the doorway" of the unit.
Mr Johnson says Melanie Taylor, in evidence, described Letby as "cool and calm".
Letby does not dispute that.
She disputes saying to the Melanie Taylor that Child C had had a brady, as she has no memory of it.
Notes by Dr Katherine Davis are shown to the court for Child C's collapse.
At the time of arrival, "chest compressions in progress"
"Occasional intermittent gasps noted".
"Unable to pass ET Tube as cords++" - the court hears the cords were "swollen".
*Mr Johnson asks Letby if it was a "theme" that when doctors went to intubate, they had difficulties, with swollen cords and/or bleeding. Letby accepts that was the case. She denies putting anything down Child C's throat. *
Mr Johnson: "Do you agree something caused [Child C]'s stomach to dilate before the collapse?"
Letby says the stomach dilation "could have been caused by the Neopuff resuscitation".
Letby is asked if she had seen the kind of decline as seen by Child C before. Letby says she has, but not the way Child C 'clinged to life'.
NJ: "You enjoyed the aftermath of this, didn't you?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "Why were you so keen to spend time with the [Child C] family as they cradled their dying child?"
LL: "I don't agree with that, I wasn't there a lot of the time."
Letby disputes being "repeatedly" in the family room afterwards, adding: "I don't recall [colleague] having to pull me out [of there]."
She disputes the statement made by her colleague.
Letby is asked "what useful function" she was contributing to the family during the "dreadful situation" they were going through.
Letby said she cannot recall, other than gathering the mementos, which is a two-person job.
Letby says she would have to see the bereavement checklist charts to see if there was anything she had co-signed, as otherwise she does not recall and has no memory.
The judge asks if hand and footprints are collected when the baby is still alive. Letby replies they can be, or after they have passed.
Letby denies that she was "enjoying what was going on".
Child D
Mr Johnson now moves on to the case of Child D.
Letby's defence statement said she did not believe she had any involvement with Child D until the baby girl's collapse.
Letby says she was affected by Child D's death, as were all staff on the unit.
In police interview, Letby had said she could not recall Child D.
Letby recalls looking after two babies in room 1 on the night of June 21-22. Caroline Oakley was the designated nurse for Child D and a baby in room 2.
Letby accepts "from time to time" she would have been alone in room 1 as Caroline Oakley split her time caring for the two babies between the two rooms.
Part of a statement from Child D's mother is read out.
Letby disputes she was the nurse who held a phone to Dr Andrew Brunton's ear while resuscitation efforts were going on.
Letby says she can recall there was such an incident, as it was talked about after the event. She agrees it happened, but she disagrees it was her who made the phone call.
Mr Johnson asks about a series of Countess nursing staff's descriptions of the "unusual" skin discolouration and an 'odd' rash. Some of them said it was something they had not seen before.
Letby says she does not dispute the staff's descriptions.
NJ: "Do you still not remember [Child D]?"
LL: "I didn't recall at the time of my police interview, no."
NJ: "Do you remember her now?"
LL: "Yes."
NJ: "Do you remember the circumstances surrounding her death?"
LL: "No."
Letby messaged a colleague on June 22: '...[Child D] came out in this weird rash looking like overwhelming sepsis'.
Letby said she had not seen the type of rash often before, but she had seen something similar in her training years before.
The message added: 'Then collapsed and had full resus. So upsetting for everyone. Parents absolutely distraught, dad screaming'
Mr Johnson asks if Letby was lying to police when she said she didn't remember Child D.
Letby: "No."
Letby's message added: 'Andrew [Brunton] and Liz [Newby] said it'll be probably be investigated'.
'Hmm well it's happened & that's it. Got to carry on...'
Mr Johnson said he had earlier asked if that was Letby's reaction to Child D's death.
Letby: "I don't think it was meant in the context you are suggesting...we've got to move forward...it's not meant to be any insensitivity to the parents or [Child D]."
Mr Johnson asks about the Facebook search for Child D's mother on June 25, 2015. He asks how she remembers the name of Child D's mother if he did not recall Child D in police interview in 2018.
Letby says she recalled the name of the mother in June 2015.
NJ: "You have got a good memory for names?"
LL: "Yes."
NJ: "You carry them in your head?"
LL: "Yeah."
NJ: "Would you say you've got a good memory?"
LL: "Yeah."
Letby is asked about messages she had exchanged with Minna Lappalainen on June 26 in which she said: "What I have seen has really hit me tonight."
Minna Lappalainen suggests a counsellor for Letby.
LL: "I can't talk about it now, I can't stop crying..."
The reply suggests Letby take time off and consider if she should be at work during this time. Letby replies she has to keep carrying on working after saying "I just have to let it all out".
NJ: "This was a very memorable time of your life, wasn't it?"
LL: "Yes."
Messages between Letby and a colleague are exchanged.
The colleague said there was "something odd" about what had happened.
Letby is asked if 'What do you mean?' was what she really thought, as per her response.
NJ: "Were you worried that people were starting to put two and two together?"
LL: "No."
Letby had messaged: "Odd that we lost 3 in different circumstances?"
Letby tells the court the circumstances were different.
The colleague: "I dunno. Were they that different?
"Ignore me. I'm speculating."
The colleague says there was talk of doing a joint post-mortem for three babies who had died.
Letby searched for the father of Child D on October 3, 2015.
"You didn't really forget [Child D], did you?"
LL: "I didn't recall specific details in interview."
Mr Johnson says Facebook does not archive the name searches beyond a certain number, so every time Letby searched a name, it would be from memory. Letby accepts that.
Letby says Child D "did not have appropriate treatment at the start of her life" and that "may have had an impact" on her later in life.
NJ: "The [lack of antibiotics early on] don't cause an air embolous, do they?"
LL: "No."
Letby is asked if Caroline Oakley's notes showed Child D was stable prior to the collapse.
"Do you accept the evidence that [Child D's designated nurse in room 1] Caroline Oakley was on a break when [Child D] collapsed?"
Letby says she cannot recall. "I cannot say either way because I don't know."
"Do you want to make any further comment about it?"
"No."
Letby accepts that if Caroline Oakley was on a break, the other nurse in room 1 was herself.
Kathryn Percival-Ward had also given evidence saying Caroline Oakley was on a break, Mr Johnson tells the court.
NJ: "Do you accept that Caroline Oakley was on a break?"
LL: "Yes."
The neonatal schedule is shown to the court.
Mr Johnson says there is nothing for Letby's name between 1am and 1.30am - the latter when Child D collapsed.
A blood gas record is shown for Child D at 1.14am.
NJ: "That was done by you, wasn't it?"
LL: "I don't know."
NJ: "That's your writing, isn't it?"
LL: "It could be?"
Mr Johnson asserts it is.
Letby: "It looks like my writing, yes."
Mr Johnson asks why it isn't signed by her.
"It's just an oversight, like the next line [which also isn't signed], it's an error."
Observations for Child D are shown, including readings at 1.15am. It is signed by Caroline Oakley.
Mr Johnson says Caroline Oakley had told the court she got those details for the 1.15am observation "from the girls".
Letby says she does not remember that bit of evidence.
Letby says she does not recall who was looking after Child D when Caroline Oakley was on her break.
An infusion chart is shown where Child D is given a saline bolus. Letby says the handwriting in the 'date and time started' column is likely to be hers
"Did you take the opportunity while Caroline was out to sabotage [Child D]?"
"No."
Mr Johnson says "You were standing over her when the alarms went off, weren't you?"
LL: "I don't recall."
Mr Johnson says who the 'candidates' could have been. One of the nurses says she wasn't there in evidence. Another is Kathryn Percival-Ward, and Letby agrees she could have been there. Another nurse is discounted.
Letby says she cannot recall if it was her who was in room 1.
A fluid balance chart is shown to the court, with the note 'oral secretions++'. Letby says the handwriting "could" be hers.
Letby said it could have been something she had documented alongside Caroline Oakley.
Mr Johnson suggests Letby was "babysitting" Child D.
Letby adds she "cannot comment" if she had been in nursery room 1 throughout.
The neonatal schedule is shown to the court.
Letby denies she has "ever" falsified paperwork to make it look like she was doing one activity at one time when doing another.
The schedule shows Letby was involved in giving medications to Child D before the second collapse at 3am.
NJ: "Do you remember that?"
LL: "No."
An infusion for Child D is made by Letby and Caroline Oakley at 3.20am.
NJ: "[Child D] died because you injected her with air, didn't you?"
LL: "No, no...I did not give her air."
Letby said she was looking after other babies, "not just [Child D]".
LL: "I tried to be as co-operative as I could be [to police in interview]."
Letby asks for a break.Here's this last exchange as reported by Sky:
Mr Johnson says he just requires to tidy up something which should take two minutes, in the case of Child C.
He refers to the bereavement checklist.
Letby says hand and footprints were taken before death in certain cases.
Mr Johnson says the checklist is 'for staff following neonatal death'.
The judge says there will be an early lunch break, and court will resume at 1.45pm.
Mr Johnson tries to continue with questioning but Letby requests a break.And the same exchange from BBC:
Before a break is granted, Mr Johnson first asks Letby about her previous claim that it is possible to take hand and footprints from a baby before they die.
(Letby previously told the court this is what she was helping Child C's parents do, which is why she was in the room as he was dying.)
But a document shown to the court says these are usually taken after death. Letby says it is not unusual for it to be done before a child dies.
"You shouldn't have been having anything to do with Child C at this point, should you?" Mr Johnson says.
Lucy Letby has just asked for a break.
She is told that she will be allowed a break, but before she has one she is asked about the matter of taking hand and footprints of a baby after death.
The nurse says that sometimes it's done before the baby dies.
Nick Johnson KC says: "I am going to suggest to you that that is untrue, that you are lying about it." She says: "I do not agree."
The court has now risen for an early lunch break and will reconvene at 1.45pm.
Trial is concluded for the day
The judge is informing members of the jury the trial will not resume today. He says the adjournment is for reasons that should not concern them.From Sky:
The next day the trial will be held, as planned, will be Wednesday, May 24.
Members of the jury are being reminded not to conduct independent research or communicate with anyone involved in the case.
Court ends early with Letby in dock
Court has temporarily resumed but only so the judge, Mr Justice Goss, can formally adjourn it for the day.
"I have made the decision that we shouldn't continue this afternoon," Justice Goss tells the jury.
Lucy Letby did not return to the witness stand but was back behind the glass-fronted dock.
Court will resume next Wednesday at 10.30am.
2023.05.18 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 18th
 | 1973 - The Jackson 5 play at the Spectrum (closed -2009) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1979 - On their Destiny tour, The Jackson's play at Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee https://preview.redd.it/368l843lph0b1.jpg?width=1059&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0f68d6090e46190c7ae5aa2744d59a9c6eac0e2 1987 - Michael decided to leave the Jehovah's witnesses.Their headquarters in Brooklyn, NY issued a statement dated today that they "no longer considered Michael Jackson to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses," by mutual agreement. The final breakup would take place on June 6, 1987. Per LaToya Jackson in La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family ′′ On Victory's turn,..., [Michael] hired someone whose sole job was to place a Kingdom venue in every city so that Michael would not miss a single meeting... Michael...won these records eight honors at the 1984 Grammy Awards. The next morning, an old man gave him an ultimatum that my brother had to choose between music and the [Jehovah's Witness] religion... Because Michael diligently studied the Bible, by I could usually quote chapters and verses supporting their claim that entertaining people was not wrong. ′′ I continue to live by the (Jehovah' s Witness) teachings," he noted, as he had done so many times before. 'I still go door to door wherever I am, even though I'm on tour. I can't stop people from hanging up my poster on the wall or booting up my picture from a magazine. I'm not asking you to idolize me. I just want you to enjoy my music. .... Many Jehovah's Witnesses often gathered outside the Kingdom Hall in hopes of seeing Michael Jackson, knowing full well that this type of flattery was forbidden. Michael did everything humanly possible to prove his devotion to Jehovah. Once, when an old man criticized him, 'Your movements on stage suggest sex; don't do them anymore,' my brother accomplished without protest and quickly changed the routine. He also invited an old man on tour to see for himself that he lived in harmony with all the rules of the faith, survey. Door to door, and and attended all the meetings... One day I walked into Janet's room and found Michael crying in living tears. LaToya,... I can't talk to you anymore... There was a big meeting, and they told me never to talk to you because you hadn't come to the Kingdom Hall.... They said if I didn't stop talking to you, they would kick me out religion. ... Michael decided to disobey the elders' edict and after that he never attended another meeting... he then severed his ties with the organization via a formal letter. What made this painful episode even more agonizing was that for a long time I thought Michael might be one of the remnants, the 144,000 selected"1988 - Michael moved out of Hayvenhurst, the family's Encino home, to his recently purchased ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. The 2,700 acre Sycamore Valley Ranch was soon renamed Neverland Valley Ranch from Michael's favorite book,Peter Pan 1988- Michael’s first movie Moonwalker is previewed at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Michael does not attend the preview. The movie is scheduled for a Christmas release https://preview.redd.it/8kak9ljvph0b1.jpg?width=184&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b977a053d881846b09b145fef1d7f9954376afa9 1993 - Michael receives two awards total for "Black or White"and "Remember The Time" at the BMI Pop Awards Dinner at the Regency Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. BMI awards honor the year's top songwriters & publishers. He did not attend 1998 -Michael & Don Barden visit an orphanage at the SOS Village in Komasdal outside Windhoek, Namibia. As he arrived at the orphanage, he was mobbed by the children, who according to the finance coordinator idolized him. "Some can do perfect imitations of him", she said. He brought gifts for the 123 children housed there. He also donated a large screen television, a video recorder and $20,000 https://preview.redd.it/7vcqznpwph0b1.jpg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c663766e9be6f166033d82d1b3f43dd0fb24a65d 2005 - Trial Day 55 Michael goes to court with Katherine & Randy https://preview.redd.it/hpg3clmxph0b1.jpg?width=408&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d56cbb4bed0fafbfe05215c6bdd4aa5735723f5 The parade of defense witnesses continued as two more of Michael's relatives and a videographer took to the stand to defend him First up was the soft spoken 12-year-old, Rijo Jackson, the younger brother of Simone Jackson who took the stand yesterday. He testified to seeing the accuser and his younger brother watching naked women on television while appearing to masturbate under the covers. When confronted by the then 10-year-old Rijo, the Arvizo boys allegedly urged him to join them in masturbating. The youngster said he refused and opted to retire in his famous cousin's bed that night. Rijo testified: "they said, 'Why don't you do that, too.' I said, 'I don't want to because it's nasty and wrong" During cross examination Rijo said that he had told Michael about what the boys were watching on television but that he didn't take his comments seriously. "He didn't believe it. He thought they were cool and they wouldn't do that",he said. Prosecutor Ron Zonen asked whether he had told Jackson specifically about the masturbation. Rijo said he had not, saying "I didn't wanna like tell him 'cause I was scared." After testifying to spending the night in Jackson's bed Zonen asked, "did you do that often?" "Yes," replied Rijo. The incident, which occurred in 2003, contradicts testimony previously given by the Arvizo boys who claimed that Jackson had introduced them to alcohol, pornography and masturbation. Rijo then told of another incident that took place when Michael had ordered wine to his room. The bottle was delivered to the lower quarters of his bedroom suite by chef's assistant, Angel Vivaco. Rijo said he then saw the Arvizo boys take the unopened bottle of wine up to the second floor of the bedroom while Michael was in the bathroom & later return downstairs before leaving. He said that the bottle had been opened and some wine was missing. The boy said that when Jackson returned, he did not question why there was wine missing. He did not tell him what he had seen because he could not be certain the boys had consumed the wine. Rijo also testified to witnessing the Arvizo boys stealing money belonging to Neverland employees from a kitchen drawer and also stealing other objects from Jackson's office. Following the young witness was yet another Jackson relative. Michelle Jackson, Michael's aunt and Rijo's grandmother. She told jurors about a conversation with Gavin She said that he told her that "we don't want to go to Brazil. That's my mother who wants to go. We want to stay here." Gavin's mother claims that Jackson planned to whisk the family away to South America in an attempt to get rid of them. In other testimony, star of the 90's hit series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, testified to becoming suspicious of the accuser's mother. Vernee Watson Johnson said she became uneasy about the woman's fund-raising activities for her then cancer-stricken son in 2000. She was called to support the defense claim that the mother has a history of schemes to get money from celebrities and that Jackson was merely another target. Johnson testified that she had been the boy's acting teacher and was asked to help raise money for him but abandoned plans to help the mother "because I didn't trust her." Johnson said that she had asked Janet Arvizo to set up a special bank account for donations to her son but that Arvizo had asked her to put the money into her own (Arvizos) account instead. She also testified that the family had once visited her home and that the children had run around, gone through her things and jumped on her son's bed. She said she never allowed them back. Next on the stand was videographer= Christopher Robinson, who had a part in filming Jackson's Take 2 rebuttal video. The Arvizos claim the video was highly scripted, right down to every laugh and gesture. "Were any of the answers scripted?", asked Jackson defense attorney Robert Sanger. "No," Robinson said. "Did he (Robinson) have any of the answers in advance?" Sanger queried. "Of course not," Robinson said, adding that he had given the family the questions beforehand but had not discussed the answers. "Was there anything that you saw that indicated she [Janet Arvizo] was unwilling to do the interview?" Sanger asked. "She was adamant about wanting to do the interview," Robinson said, but he noted that she was hesitant to sign a release form that would allow the video to be aired. The family's interview was never aired due to time constraints. He said he was asked to emphasize a series of talking points: Jackson was a good person; he'd made the accuser's family part of his own; he was a father figure to them; he was a good parent to his own children; he was misunderstood as a person and he helped the accuser overcome a bout with cancer. Robinson described the family as "very eager" and "very happy" at the taping and said their answers were "spontaneous." He said there was no indication that they were being held against their will or being mistreated, as the prosecution alleges. Before court was adjourned, Judge Rodney Melville ruled that the defense could not present testimony from two people about the family's alleged beating by J.C. Penney security guards. The family received a settlement of more than $150,000 in that case. Sanger said one of the guards would have testified that the family was restrained but not beaten and that the mother even returned the next day, gave him a hug and apologized. He said a bystander would testify that the family was non-violently restrained. Sanger told the court that the defense team had eliminated a number of witnesses from their list but he did not estimate when the defense would conclude its case. Jackson's spokeswoman,Raymone Bain, has denied reports that the defense may rest as early as next week Court Transcript 2009 - A new video is premiered on Michael's official website showing the dancers’ auditions. 2013 - Cirque du Soleil opens the third of four nights of the Michael Jackson The Immortal International Tour performance at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama 2014 - Michael , in hologram form, performed “Slave to the Rhythm” at the Billboard Music Awards, with a five-piece band and 16 dancers live onstage. John Branca on the performance: “It’s so important to experience Michael Jackson in a live setting. This is something where we wanted a live performance in front of a live audience and nothing speaks to that more than an awards show.”https://youtu.be/jDRTghGZ7XU |
2023.05.18 00:33 TwongStocks <
 | LINK For PART 2 (Q&A) submitted by TwongStocks to CTXR [link] [comments] Leonard's Remarks:  So with that, let me just give you an overview of the company and what we have here. So presently, we are a development stage biopharma company, so we're not realizing revenue yet, but our goal is to get to the revenue stage as quickly as possible. So with that in mind, the very first asset that you see there is is I/ONTAK, it has a biological license application filed BLA, which is equivalent to an NDA. If it was a small molecule, this is a protein. So as a result, it's considered to be a biological drug. It's a purified reformulation of an IL2 diptheria toxin fusion. For cutaneous T cell lymphoma, which is a very rare rare cancer. That's part of something known as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, it's a type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. So we also have in phase 3, Mino-Lok, which was really our first asset that we we started the company with. And this is in phase three at the moment, we're in the process of doing everything we can to get that clinical trial completed so that once it is approved, that would be the first and only FDA approved drug to salvage infected catheters that are the cause of something known as CLABSI, or central line associated bloodstream infections. We also have in phase 2B a hemorrhoid drug, which was a legacy drug that we acquired when we merged in with with Citius back a number of years ago. And this one has, again does have the potential to be the first and only FDA approved prescription treatment for the treatment of hemorrhoids. What's interesting in the 21st century, there isn't a single prescription drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of hemorrhoids. You have the over the counter side of the market, which has preparation-H products of that type, which comport to the to the the over the counter monograph. But on the prescription side, there's nothing there and it's a giant market with lots of opportunities. So the other assets that we have are all preclinical assets. I'm not going to describe those at the moment because we're really not spending hardly any money or time. Our emphasis is on, really it's on Mino-Lok and I/ONTAK for the most part plus, we spent a smaller amount of funds on the Halo-Lido drug. These are the market opportunities here are substantial. The CTCL market even though it's a rare disease market, it's at this point about $300-$400m and has been growing with each new entry that's come in that market has shown the potential to take on the entry and, and grow with each new entry. The CLABSI/CRBSI market, there's nothing there at the moment. We're estimating that that market is half of it is in the US 900 million, and the rest of it is outside the US where that problem is a lot worse. The prescription hemorrhoid market, it could be $2B, it could be $10B for anybody knows what would happen once something like this gets gets approved. So we've had some major cattle catalysts and 2023 that are occurring. The most important catalyst for us right now is, is getting an approval from the FDA. So for I/ONTAK, that decision date on that is July 28. The FDA has given us what's known as a PDUFA date. And so that's the date by which they come back to you and they give you an indication of where your application is in terms of approval, or other modifications to your work. We, in 2023, we will be completing the phase 3 trial for Mino-Lok. We're not targeting a date, it's somewhere in the course of this year. The Halo-Lido of phase 2b trial is last patient is already in, everything's being calculated for a top line data readout, which we're targeting the end of June. So in terms of financial profile, as of 3/31, which we just recently released, the company has $29 million cash. We also raised capital, we did a $15 million raise, which would be added to that. And something that really separates us out probably from everybody else in this market. And that is that we put our own money on the line here. So this is not money for stock options or anything like that. We invested directly side by side as we did our raises. So I have $22.5 million invested. Myron Holubiak, co-founder and Vice-chair of the company has $4 million invested in the company. https://preview.redd.it/yv9tri10fg0b1.png?width=786&format=png&auto=webp&s=82e51217c1a9b5301e2af4cd6be787a935dbbc1f So I call this our mugshots. So basically, this is the team. I'm not going to describe my background because I think everybody's heard enough of it. But I've been in the industry for a fair number of years. My background is a combination of working at midsize to large size Pharma. And then ultimately, I went the entrepreneurial route and formed my own company with with successful exits. Myron Holubiak, who's our vice chair and co founder, spent the bulk of his career at Hoffman LaRoche left there after he rose to become vice president of marketing. He really launched all the major antibiotics for them and went off form his own company and then sold his company at Dunn and Bradstreet when he was running that unit for DNB. Roche called him and asked him to come back to the company as as president of Roche Labs us which he served in for a number of years before he and I got together formed, formed our company. So I'm not going to highlight everybody, let me just tell you a little bit about Dr. Myron Czuczman, who we brought on board of just about two years ago, probably. So Myron's background is really impressive. He's an oncologist. He spent 23 years in practice at Roswell Park and Buffalo where his expertise was he was the chief of lymphoma myeloma. He published over 180 papers while he was there, so he's really considered to be a true KOL or key opinion leader. He then left academia and joined Celgene where he was vice president of Global Research for for lymphoma myeloma as well. When they were acquired by Bristol Myers. He no longer was interested in being being part of a large company prefer to work on a smaller company where he thought there was significant potential so he came on board with us. So I also like to draw your attention to Kelly Creighton, who's our VP of manufacturing, CMC. Kelly has probably worked on more filings related to the manufacturing side than just about anybody. We we took him out of Clinipace, which was a consulting company that we were working with. And he came on board with us, along with Katherine Kessler, who's EVP of Regulatory Affairs she was with Clinipace as well and has a strong background on the on the Regulatory Affairs side. Nick Burlew also is our EVP of Quality Assurance and great experience with Clinipace, has great knowledge there. So we have a, we have a great team of people on board, I would like to highlight for you that at this point, we're at about 21 people in a company. We have no interns, no training programs, every person in the company is a professional and highly experienced in their field. https://preview.redd.it/w7la6bnpfg0b1.png?width=843&format=png&auto=webp&s=817f839b7541952fd132d2cf126c85e84d1b20a7 So the milestones that, that we have ahead of us here, as, as you can see, we've indicated the July 28, date and the importance of that. With respect to to Mino-Lok, the Mino-Lok trial, as you'll hear shortly, is an event driven trial. And we are at 85 to 90 out of 92 required events. So we're, we're very close at this point, we're within probably within 10 percentage points of getting there. So we're keeping our fingers crossed, we've expanded that trial to India to really bring it across the finish line as quickly as we can. The Halo-Lido trial, that's completed, it's just going through calculations now. Putting all the data together. So we'll see, hopefully, we'll see. We'll see results on that shortly before before this quarter is over. So as I indicated to you before, we've got $29 million cash as of 3/31. $15 million through the registered direct offering that just took place a little while ago. That offering I should highlight for you is something that I know that I've made comments before about the fact that I don't want to dilute the company I am I have as much a stake as, as everybody else. I'm the single largest shareholder in the company at the moment. And, and so for me, our position and what we have as shareholders is really important to us. But also I recognize that given all the financial uncertainty that was going on, it has been going on. Nobody knows where where everything is heading, we don't know if we're gonna wake up but a month from now, and suddenly two banks have failed and there's no money out there, there's nothing. So this opportunity came up with two funds came in on that raise one for $10m, one for $5m. And I thought we would take that just to give ourselves a little bit more dry powder. So with that we have a cash runway going through May 2024. And we're also we've indicated that the plan is to take I/ONTAK and place it into a spin off company. That would be a cancer company. We're working with the with the financial advisors, at the moment advancing that process through that really cannot take place until the process for it can't take place until I/ONTAKis approved. So after that, everything would then start to accelerate as far as that whole spin off process. https://preview.redd.it/rwpuu1s7gg0b1.png?width=817&format=png&auto=webp&s=dec59650610f3aade3ff299eef782f82388223c6 So let me start with Mino-Lok which is the antibiotic lock solution that we we licensed from MD Anderson and why we went we liked this drug is the fact that there's nothing else in the market for at the moment. So there are 7 million, as you can see, central venous catheters inserted annually in the United States. 4 million of them are long term, and most of those long term patients that have these central venous catheters inserted are cancer patients and so this central venous catheter really becomes a lifeline for them. These patients because it, it brings nutrients and brings chemo and brings other types of therapeutics that treatment that they're gonna require. The difficulty is that somewhere around 500,000, close to 500,000 of those 4 million long-term catheters get infected. And when they get infected, the only standard of care today is is to remove that catheter and replace it, which requires two separate surgical procedures. So what most people don't realize is that that catheter is the way it's inserted, it gets initially inserted into by the collarbone area, and it's threaded to the heart to the superior vena cava. So, if it gets infected, what occurs is that that catheter has to be it has to be removed surgically, because it was surgically implanted, and then it has to be a new site has to be found for it. A lot of times, what will happen is, the catheter will be replaced, a new catheter will be placed by the groin area and threaded back up to that superior vena cava, causing complications thrombotic and mechanical. There's a high rate of, of discomfort, adverse physical, and psychological symptoms that can arise from that. As well as there's about an 18-20% serious adverse event profile associated with remove and replace. Also, there's a cost that we're estimating maybe a little bit higher, and some places have $10,000. To do both of those procedures. And across have an overall episode of this is anywhere, depending on the hospital, $45,000 to $65,000, it's a very serious issue. When that catheter gets gets infected for these patients, some of these patients can actually die as a result of having an infected catheter. So what we have is, it's as you saw before, it's, it's it's simple to, to administer because the nurse will come in and inject that solution into the catheter, the catheter itself gets locked. So the solution does not go into man, it does not enter into the human body at all. So the catheter gets locked. It's the solution stays there for up to two hours. At the end of two hours, a nurse will come in aspirate out the contacts and flush the line and a patient then has 22 hours of uninterrupted IV flow, which is really critical. One of the challenges that that the inventor had of this, his name is Dr. Issam Raad out of MD Anderson, was going to come up with something that could be administered in a short short period of time and not compromise the IV flow. So he finally hit it with that special combination of three ingredients, namely an antibiotic minocycline, sodium EDTA as a chelating agent and alcohol. So once that was done once he figured all that out, and he ran his tests, he found that this was the solution that really, really worked well and nobody had been able to do before and he filed a patent for it and ultimately, we licensed this technology from MD Anderson. So we ourselves, myself and Myron, we had a private company at this point and we funded all the phase 2B work to get that completed. And the phase 2B trials you can see the data here, it was a comparison of the Mino-Lok treatment arm to a remove and replace arm and all types of cancers whether they were solid tumors or blood cancers, gut bacteria, that was gram positive gram negative, all this was was included in that trial. And as you can see here, we had 100% effectiveness in the sense that we had no side effects, no complications, nothing no serious adverse events related to to this as opposed to about an overall adverse event profile 18% for the remove & replace arm. https://preview.redd.it/ykaed3ivhg0b1.png?width=819&format=png&auto=webp&s=182c28d3e17f125f5acf1dffe8d1dba312a8ccdd So with that what we did, we went to the FDA, we submitted our data. After a period of time we worked out a protocol with them the protocol was to compare the Mino-Lok solution to what I call a homebrew and that is, it's a solution at the hospital mixes up and what what happens in certain cases, when a patient, they're not able to do a remove and replace because there are no more access points left, they will try a mixing their own antibiotic mixture to see if they can't salvage that catheter. So that's the comparison arm that we have here. The endpoint is, is it's time to catheter failure, which is the event, it's a failure event. So the trial lasts about six weeks, and then basically, we analyze the data after that, to that point. So we have clinical sites, but we started here in the US. And the reality of it is that we would have been done, this trial would have been complete and over and we would have been approved by now in all likelihood, if it hadn't been for COVID, COVID came along, and it really stopped us in our tracks. The reason being is because most of the trial was administered in hospitals, and I don't have to tell any of you what happened in hospitals over this three year period. Nobody was getting into the hospitals, nobody. So that included anybody doing clinical research or, or anything like that. So. So consequently, what we decided to do is is to, after examining our alternatives to go to India, where this problem is significant, and we'll be finishing up the trial, even though we still will start getting some data in from here on the US side, but the bulk of the data that remains is going to be coming out of out of India. So what we like about this drug also is the fact that the FDA was was really impressed with this. And they recommended that we offer something called QIDP or Qualified Infectious Disease Product. It's a special status that's given to just for antibiotics only where that are considered to be breakthrough. And the review time for when you file your new drug application is reduced from 12 to six months. So most people probably don't realize this. But when you have a drug and you submit your approval, just like we did on the BLA for I/ONTAK, that that review time is 12 months normally. And here with this because again, they consider these to be breakthroughs, they want to get them on the market quickly, they reduced the review time to in half to six months, most critically and which which we really liked about this is that we get five additional years of market exclusivity. So here, what happens is, most most drugs, when they're approved, they'll get three years three to five years, depending of market exclusivity under the Hatch-Waxman Act. With this, this adds another five years on top. So this means that no one no generic, nobody can come in, you can't get hit with something known as Paragraph 4 or anything like that. You have regulatory exclusivity is but the best way I can describe it. So we'll have somewhere between nine and 10 years is our estimate, once this is approved, and that that is that's going to give this it'll give the drug a lot of value at that point in the marketplace. We also have fast track, and also supplementary protection in in Europe where we get patent protection extended for up to five years. https://preview.redd.it/dz9ry0rnig0b1.png?width=792&format=png&auto=webp&s=7ed0060d42c17e388ad6f055aca1c6ec89324cf6 So with that, I'll move into into I/ONTAK or E7777 we have various nomenclatures for this, this drug has has some history to it. In a sense that will be our history. And that is that we acquired this the license to this from from Dr. Reddy Laboratories and it was an Eisai license. So we had a license with with Eisai Pharmaceuticals, a big Japanese company that that acquired this drug a number of years ago from Ligand. Ligand was the original developer, and we closed the transaction towards the end of September '21. We were very confident about this drug because of the fact that number one, it was on its very last patient when we completed that license when we acquired that license. So we knew that this was heading towards the best completion and we would be BLA viable as you can see, last patient it was December '21. September of '22, we submitted the BLA and the FDA has 60 days to respond. They came back in November told us we had a July 28 PDUFA date. So those, those are the standards that timeline as you see here. So we expect that our launch will take place somewhere in '24. So what is cutaneous T cell lymphoma? It's a disease that starts out really as a dermatological disorder. So a lot of times, as you can see, it's at when it's in a plaque stage. Most of the time, that dermatologist is treating this with a variety of different topicals, mostly, and may include photo-therapy as well. And it's more prevalent in men and women and usually appears in patients in their 50s and 60s, as I indicated before, as a part of something known as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which covers about 80, some other lymphomas, for those of you that are curious about that. So when this drug, when the disease itself moves into the tumor phase, that's when it will become the province of the oncologist. So, the history here is this prior to us, and I should we should explain this to the prior to our getting the license. What happened here was Eisai was the one that acquired it from Ligand. It got approved, it was on the market for three years. And what happened was that as part of their the approval from the FDA, the company as a Phase 4 requirement was required to reformulate the drug. And they had to remove some unfolded proteins. There was no there were no side effect issues or anything like that. And this drug is very hard to make. And the company had at that point, a low amount of inventory. So they decided to they had to make a choice either they kept selling it and could do nothing with it or they had to pull the drug off the market so they could use the inventory to do the reformulation work. When a they took the drug off the market, they reformulated the drug. They came back to the agency, the FDA said, thank you very much. But you have a new drug here. And so you got to you got to do another phase 3 trial for this, which is what they did so. And that phase 3 trial was difficult to complete, they started somewhere in 2014, it took all this time to return for a very low number of patients. COVID didn't help either. In terms of situation. So here we are, and in 2023, just about nine years later, and this drug is getting finally approved. So put the history on it, it will work in our in our favor. It's an orphan indication, small market. What we like about it is that the prescriber base is really small, they're only about 5000 oncologists in the whole entire United States. And out of that the number of prescribers for this are even smaller, we think there's we do have some good protection here in terms of as far as market exclusivity and it is a very complex manufacturing process and expensive to initiate. https://preview.redd.it/2en01b0qjg0b1.png?width=792&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8775fad4373e76ee515a4f3594274734ffeb697 So, the upside potential here is that we can expand this indication ultimately into something known as peripheral T-cell lymphoma, which is a larger indication, and we can we we already have something known as investigator initiated trials with using our drug combined with with the Keytruda and also with with CAR-T. So, so the mechanism of action we have is, is differentiated from from anybody in the marketplace. The drug itself targets malignant cells by binding to IL2 receptors to deliver the diptheria toxin killing the tumor cells directly, it eliminates immunosuppressive T regs by reducing them subsequently enhancing anti-tumor immunity. https://preview.redd.it/yu938fqzjg0b1.png?width=913&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6a5d4e423137f44881a11bf522ba839fac22916 So, there is competition in that market. As you can see, Seagen has the has the leading product in the market called Adcetris. To Kyowa Kirin, which is a Japanese company has Potilegeo so these two drugs, Bristol Myers has more or less backed off this drug because they had other larger priorities. So the two primary competitors are Seagen and Kyowa Kirin. And we think we have advantages against them. But at the same time, what we know in terms of our surveying of the market, and we've seen how, how these drugs behave when they were introduced. https://preview.redd.it/27a89dmfkg0b1.png?width=773&format=png&auto=webp&s=f95f06e4a8d367ee8c762f531664485375d1dfcc So this market segment when when ONTAK had it to itself was about a $30 million segment. So as each entry came in, it added to the overall size of the market. So the market right now is $300-$400m split among these, these entities. So we, we think there are some really good good growth drivers here, we think we can penetrate this market with a small number of sales books, most of the most likely will be using medical service liaison reps. We like the fact that it's an add on type of market that basically will be added to the existing treatments that are in that market. https://preview.redd.it/tahhmv9kkg0b1.png?width=991&format=png&auto=webp&s=05c0c19d1b8450eb9e3bdabd73db9773adb0ea83 So the clinical trial that I spoke about, actually, it was that there was a lead-in study of 21 patients. And then the main study itself was 71 patients. With stage one through four CTCL. We had we submitted the data to the FDA. https://preview.redd.it/iigeghsmkg0b1.png?width=797&format=png&auto=webp&s=34a4c5713675bd48a4ab92272e39cddd3d27faa5 And as you can see here, we had an overall objective response rate of 36.2%. Nearly half the patients on the trial experienced a complete or partial response and or stabilize their their disease. https://preview.redd.it/obvew1pykg0b1.png?width=788&format=png&auto=webp&s=368ba16a78b04e17d65f9ecaca78806b23855424 So what also was a plus here is that the skin burden itself was reduced as far as in about 1/3 of the patients and also we had a rapid response time to the patients that were on a trial that got so 1.4 months and a durable response meaning that the disease was controlled among patients who responded for 6.5 months. There were no new safety signals. What I should also point out before I get into that is what everybody should be aware of is that none of these entities cure. So all that the oncologist is trying to do is extend that patient's lifespan. https://preview.redd.it/m0sk8xg3lg0b1.png?width=840&format=png&auto=webp&s=5501d6012b2f9cbd86c61ef9c143e92e4e8e4028 So the low we had no evidence of cumulative toxicity was very low grade in terms of low and low numbers of side effects. As you can see here, capillary leak syndrome being the highest one at 5.8%. And an infusion reaction, which you will see most of the time, once this has been infused, you'll see that in any drug study. https://preview.redd.it/ulpo47g4lg0b1.png?width=805&format=png&auto=webp&s=454bde84906b3bfb4fa04c9a41d3a1549df61405 So as I indicated before, that the upside potential here is as PTCL, but that PTCL indication has already been approved in Japan. By Esai. And we would require a clinical trial to get to to expand that potential, we're going to be examining that but but also we have these two investigator initiated trials with I/ONTAK combined with Keytruda, or I/ONTAK combined with CAR-T cell therapy. So what what's happening give me an example here in the University of Pittsburgh trial, which is the the Keytruda. One, what the investigators looking at is he's taking the Keytruda failures, those that have failed on teachers is not CTCL, it's, it can be any indication that they're studying. And the patients that have failed on it are also administered ion tack, to see if there's been any material benefit as a result. So I can't predict what the outcome of this is. So we're, we're supporting that study. And those two studies. And if, if there is any sign of any positive activity, the plan would be then to to expand that trial to other centers around the country. https://preview.redd.it/v6xhyofblg0b1.png?width=931&format=png&auto=webp&s=0917de3fd55281debd1f9dfbf252eb8e49c391f2 So with that, I'd like to move into Halo-Lido, which is, for those of you that don't know the history of this, we this drug came to us really it's a legacy drug. We were private, we merged in with Citius, which was public, this, this drug was inside of Citius at the time. We almost didn't keep it but then after looking at what what the market itself looked like, we decided to go ahead with it. Ultimately, we wound up with a formulation that is a very high potency steroid, known as Halobetasol combined with with Lidocaine. So we've had where we formulated a drug, we're getting a patent on it, we've applied for patent protection on it because it has a unique delivery system. And the phase 2B trial has been completed. So it's undergoing now all the statistical gathering of everything and calculating everything it was 300 patients five arms. The primary endpoint was a reduction in hemorrhoids symptoms. We used a Self-reporting Questionnaire where the patients had or subjects had either a laptop or not a laptop, or an iPad, or their cell phone, which they could enter in a daily data daily as they completed the trial. So we're expecting that top line data read out at the end of this half. But as I indicated before, the potential here is tremendous. Because there are more than 10 million patient visits probably, or thereabouts in the United States for this and the only thing that's available for these patients are some older drugs or a combination of lidocaine and hydrocortisone, which is which is a very weak steroid. https://preview.redd.it/d8v13hytlg0b1.png?width=809&format=png&auto=webp&s=264f0e59c90c9c4b79031932ef7d8f599a5418c5 So with that, let me summarize. And indicators show you basically here the the catalysts that we see on the horizon. I've indicated these before. So the first one up will be the Halo-Lido trial at the end of targeted for the end of June. The Mino-Lok phase three completion is here, we're not going to predict any date for you here, except that we're shooting for 2023. We'll have the spin off in a standalone oncology company, as well as that PDUFA date of 7/28, which is really important for the company. https://preview.redd.it/j2fa311ylg0b1.png?width=898&format=png&auto=webp&s=a02c400dd950400450ad4ec785956b108833531a In terms of the financial profile. The overview of the company is that presently, we have 146.2 million shares outstanding. But I'm looking at the wrong chart, we have 158.8 million shares outstanding. And with that fully diluted 219 million shares outstanding. As I indicated before $29 million cash plus the $15 million that we raised along with the fact that our own money is in, myself and Martin Holubiak are significant shareholders in a company. So with that, I'll open the floor now or for some questions. |
2023.05.17 13:03 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 17th
 | 1969 - The Jackson 5 are recording "Stand!" for Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1972 - The Jackson 5 release a new album, Lookin Through the Windows, on Motown Records https://preview.redd.it/nj4suuwjba0b1.jpg?width=226&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ecfeabbd31be0dcbec32a1d40ece494e56e979b9 1977 - The Jacksons are in Glasgow, Scotland for a Royal command performance for Queen Elizabeth II, with proceeds of the show going to the Silver Jubilee Fund (now The Queen's Trust). The Fund was established 1977 to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee. It's purpose was to enable a small number of senior students in Cumbria’s schools and colleges to undertake work experience projects of academic nature overseas, connected to industry, service to the community, the arts, sport etc. The Jacksons perform “Forever Came Today”, “Show You The Way To Go” and a Motown medley medley at Kings’s Theater in Glasgow. The group meets Queen Elizabeth for the second time. https://preview.redd.it/3y80657lba0b1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ec272c4052fbcbd363c00b8ba72325e8cfee3b5 1979 - On their Destiny Tour, The Jacksons play at the Columbus Municipal Auditorium (now closed -1996)in Columbus, Georgia. 1988 - Michael starred in five Pepsi Cola commercials aired in the Soviet Union to an audience of 150,000,000 people from May 17 to 23rd. The commercials were seen during a week-long series called "Posner In America" hosted by Vladimir Posner, Russian journalist/broadcaster. This was the first time in history that an American commercial was shown behind the Iron Curtain. This made Michael the first non-Soviet to be featured while advertising a product on Russian television. According to pop music historian Dmitry Babich, "Video culture was not very developed in Russia, there were very few VCRs. Michael Jackson became a legend without people seeing him a lot. "So when Russian television became liberalized, young kids of 17, 18, 19 years of age wanted to watch only him." A spokesman for Pepsi stated that the Soviet officials asked specifically for Michael Jackson's commercials. 1998 - Michael joined African leaders in Namibia in a call for debt relief and in urging for a new era for the world's poorest region, especially the children. Michael told the annual Southern African Economic Forum summit that he would donate funds to make the world a better place for its children. He said that he and his new business partner, Barden International, would be looking at global investments that would bring economic empowerment to the the people, and enrich the lives of children.Michael is invited to the State House, official residence of the Namibian President Sam Nujoma and he meets two presidents Theo-Ben Gurirab and Nangolo Mbumba.. We are going to put our money where our mouths are!", he said https://preview.redd.it/snkhzsimba0b1.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12e555b1114e577465118e7e151a6b198618d855 1999 - In NYC Michael attends a private screening of Star Wars Episode 1 in Manhattan with his son (Prince) and magician Uri Geller. 2003 - Michael relived the 70's era at a 70's style themed party held at Miami's Forge nightclub for owner Al Malnik’s 70th birthday with Aldo Cascio, Chris Tucker, Brett Ratner & Wiesner among others. https://preview.redd.it/cnlnz7pnba0b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39bebe67c76e8794e3b2468462f6e16666db7533 2005 - Trial Day 54 Michael goes to court with Katherine & Randy. https://preview.redd.it/0e2gvm6sba0b1.jpg?width=448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=216e3e44f1cfdadffbcc21977bca9af3b490d78e Irene Lavern Peters, a social worker for the Department of children and Family Services, testified Tuesday concerning an interview of Mr. Jacksons teen-age accuser and his family. She and two other social workers interviewed the family on February 20, 2003. The accusers mother requested that the interview be held at Neverland, however, she was informed that Peters wanted to see where they lived. As a result, the interview was held at the home of the mother's boyfriend. A Jackson bodyguard and several other people were present at the apartment where the interviews took place, but Peters conceded that they all left before the interview began. The interview, which took place one day after the taping of the rebuttal video, began with the accusers mother playing a video tape of Mr. Jackson interacting with her sons. "She denied all allegations of general neglect," Peters said. "I asked her about the relationship with Michael Jackson. She went on to say he was like a father to her children and she felt he was responsible for helping (the boy) to survive his cancer, for his cancer to go into remission. "I asked her if the kids ever slept in Michael Jackson's room and she said 'no, that never happened'." Despite allegations by the prosecution that the family was coerced, Peters testified that the children "all seemed to be in agreement with their mom, adding that the family seemed happy and well-adjusted" and "they all seemed spontaneous in their comments". The accuser and his siblings, who were interviewed separately, described Mr. Jackson as a father figure. When asked if he had been touched inappropriately by Michael, Gavin answered no & seemed to be quite upset by the question. He then told her about how his schoolmates had been taunting him because he was seen holding hands with Mr. Jackson in the Bashir documentary, Living with Michael Jackson. During the interview the accusers mother expressed that she was not pleased with Bashir filming her children without her consent. Peters testified that the mother told her that "Michael wanted to send them to Brazil and she didn't want to go." Peters said the mother referred to Brazil as "that dump." A travel agent has testified that she arranged a March 1, 2003, flight but the trip was abruptly canceled. Peters told the jury that the family never complained about being held against their will. Even after bumping into the family two months after the interview at a hamburger stand, they all seemed fine. Simone Jackson, a 16 year old cousin of Mr. Jackson testified that as she sat in the corner of the large Neverland Ranch kitchen area playing a video game, the accuser and his brother entered and took a bottle of wine. "They didn't see me, I was sitting off to the side," Simone Jackson said, speaking softly from the witness stand. "They grabbed it and Starr got a wine glass and Gavin just took the bottle." When the boys then saw her, she said, "I told them they weren't supposed to do that, and they told me not to say anything." Judge Rodney Melville refused to reverse a decision he made to limit the testimony of Angel Vivanco, a former chef's assistant at Neverland who, the defense claims, developed a relationship with the accuser's sister. Court Transcript 2007 - It is reported that Michael has secured a temporary restraining order in an effort to prevent an upcoming auction of Jackson family related memorabilia at the Hard rock Cafe in Las Vegas,Nevada 2009 - Michael goes to an art festival in Beverly Hills with Prince, Paris & Blanket https://preview.redd.it/7v6y0wotba0b1.jpg?width=487&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b12545f903cb0003c411f087a2da8851dd340184 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 13 Katherine, Rebbie and Trent Jackson are in court. Jackson attorney Brian Panish has decided not to call Dr. Emery Brown, a propofol expert. Panish told ABC7 he thought Dr. Brown's testimony wasn't going to add anything new to the jury. There's no witness available now to testify in the morning session, so Panish plays video deposition of Marty Hom, defense expert witness Marty Hom Video Depostion Marty Hom has been in the music industry 25-30 years. Hom is a tour manager who's worked with the Eagles, Bette Midler, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson & other big-name acts. The artist is usually who hires and pays him, Hom said. He gets a check from the artist. Hom doesn't know if MJ was paying Gongaware. Hom said his role changes from one tour to the next. He has to adapt quickly to the artist's needs, since they are just very different. Live Nation and AEG Live are the biggest companies in the business, Hom said. He's been friends with Randy Phillips for probably 10 years. Hom said he worked with Phillips and AEG Live once on the Bette Midler Tour in Las Vegas. Hom has no social relationship with Phillips. Hom said he knows AEG executives Paul Gongaware and Randy Phillips, who he called a friend. Hom said he and Phillips weren't close -- they didn't visit each others homes or otherwise socialize. The music business in general is very small, Hom said, and Randy Philips used to manage a former client of his, Lionel Richie. Hom said he's never worked with Paul Gongaware. He's known him for many years, ran into each other all the time. He considers Gongaware a friend Jacksons attorney Kevin Boyle asked if Hom's friendship with Phillips and Gongaware, defendants in the case, would sway his testimony. Hom said he worked with Janet Jackson and met Mrs. Jackson as well. "I probably know everyone in the business, this is a very small business" This is Hom's first case serving as an expert witness. Hom said defendant's attorney called him asking if he'd be interested in being an expert witness in this case. Hom thought about it, agreed. Hom told the atty he didn't know what an expert witness makes. He was told they make between $400 - $500 an hour. They settled on $500/hour. Hom: "They just wanted me to testify in general scope on what I do for a living. I think they were looking for someone who knew the tour biz" Hom said he's seen artists travel with physical therapists, masseuses, cooks, but he's not been on tour where artist takes doctor on the road. Hom said he hired doctors in individual cities when artist was ill, wanted B12 shots, crew was sick. Hom said the tour paid the doctor. Boyle asked Hom whether he'd ever hired a doctor to go on tour. Hom said "No". Hom said he knew the Rolling Stones had a physician on tour, Blink-182 also had doctors on tour, but he didn't know what their agreements are "The doctor should look for the best interest of the artist," Hom opined, "I'd never put artist on stage if it wasn't for his best interest" Boyle asked if Hom knew Kenny Ortega. Hom said yes. Boyle asked if Ortega would ever falsely sound alarm about artist health. Hom said "no" Hom said it was not appropriate for the tour manager or promoter to inject themselves into the doctor-patient relationship. He said he never injected himself in doctor-patient relationship. He said he didn't believe it was appropriate for concert promoters to do it. Hom: "Is it appropriate? I don't know, but it's a question I have to ask for best interest of the show. I think it's a legitimate question" Hom said he didn't see a problem asking the doctor questions. It's up to the physician to set the limits, he opined. Asked if it would be OK for someone to speak to the performer's doctor without the artist present, he answered, "I thought it was the doctor's responsibility to say no." He said he knew of no instance where a promoter or producer had a private conversation with the artist's doctor. Hom said he needs to know if the artist can perform and/or for how long he needs to be on leave. That's why he'd ask doctor status of the artist. Hom said he would ask the doctor questions to determine what kind of condition the artist/dancer would be and his capability to do the tour He testified that when performers were ill, "my natural instinct is to go to that doctor and ask him, 'Is that dancer going or musician going to be able to make that show in a week?'" Hom said it was proper for AEG lawyers to inquire of Murray whether Jackson would be able to perform all of the scheduled shows in London. He' s also worked with AEG on a couple occasions, including the Alicia Keys tour. He was approached about working on the Rolling Stones tour. Timm Wooley contacted Hom earlier this year to ask if he would be willing to be the tour manager for the Rolling Stones show. Hom said he was pretty busy this year, but since it's the Rolling Stones, he would like to throw his resume in the pot. Hom said AEG ended up hiring someone else to be Rolling Stones' tour manager. Hom said that Dr. Murray asking for $5 million raised a red flag. "It's outrageous." Hom said he's never seen a draft agreement between promoteproducer and a doctor. He's been in the business for 30 years. Hom said he wasn't aware of the promoteproducer ever paying artist personal manager. Plaintiff says they have evidence AEG paid Michael's manager(Panish said outside court that he will later introduce evidence that AEG was paying Jackson's managers, which could be a conflict of interest) Boyle: "Would you ever hire a doctor to give an opiate-dependent artist Demerol?" Hom: "No" Boyle: "Would you hire a doctor to be feeding the chemical dependency of the artist?" Hom: "I would not" Hom also said he would never tell a director he had checked out a doctor if he hadn't, a reference to claims by the Jackson family about an AEG executive Hom said he had no opinion whether the defendants hired Dr. Murray. Hom never talked with Phillips, Gongaware or Wooley about MJ. Boyle asked Hom several questions about whether he wanted to work with AEG Live in the future. Hom said "Yes". Hom said he'd like to work "with AEG Live in the future, not for them". He said the promoters don't have any saying on who hires him. Hom said he works for an artist, he's hired and paid by the artist, promoters have no say on his contract. Hom noted that AEG and Live Nation are the two biggest concert promoters. He wants to keep working with both of them, he said. Julie Hollander Testimony Katherine and Rebbie Jackson was not present for the afternoon session. Jackson Direct Brian Panish walked her through This Is It concert budgets, both those generated before and after Michael's death. The documents show that AEG budgeted to pay Murray for his work with Jackson as 'pre-production cost'; Murray was never paid. (AP) Panish showed Hollander a document from April 30, 2009 - it shows management medical for $300,000. Hollander said her job was to facilitate payments and sometimes she approved payment as well. Panish asked Hollander if people worked for AEG without fully executed contracts. She said "Yes, they may start work in general terms. Standard company policy is that no payments are made without a fully executed contract. The contract could get executed later" "People commence work before their contract is executed, yes" Hollander said. Panish said people did the work before Michael died, but got paid after he died. Hollander said she didn't recall specifics. Hollander said there were people who had contracts renegotiated after MJ's death. Hollander said AEG renegotiated contracts after Michael died to mitigate the burden on MJ's Estate Panish shows email from 7/10/09 asking Hollander to sign a tour contract so vendor could get paid. Hollander signed it after MJ had died. Panish shows email from 8/4/09 showing another vendor who negotiated contract after MJ died and got paid for prior services. Panish also displayed several emails about how other vendors were paid, including makeup/hairstylist Karen Faye. The emails show some vendors were complaining about that they weren't being paid after Jackson's death. Hollander said many were paid. One of the emails was regarding $11,500 that Karen Faye charged AEG for wigs she purchased for Jackson. After he died, AEG stopped a payment. Faye was upset that they rescinded the payment and was threatening to go to AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips. Email from 6/30/09 from Randy Phillips to Holland: "This is from Karen Faye who did Michael's hair and makeup. She bought three wigs for use in the tour and one of them is going to be used for his final rest. He was copied in on a message.Pay it immediately. Do not stiff any vendors" The amount for the wigs was $11,500, which Hollander said it's a nominal amount, thus there's no need for contract. From time to time, Mr. Gongaware asked Hollander to expedite payment, she testified. He's an impatient person, vendors are important to him As to Tohme Tohme, Hollander knows who he is, but is aware that at some point he was released from duties as Michael's manager. Hollander says she knew Tohme was terminated before MJ died, therefore had no legal power to sign on his behalf Panish said $36 million was spent in MJ's project. He asked if Hollander knew AEG filed claim against Lloyds of London to collect insurance. Hollander said she knew it through the press. She doesn't have recollection of specifically providing information for an insurance claim Panish shows Pre-Tour Cost Projection from 5/20/09 where AEG was to pay Dr. Murray $300,000. "It was pursuant to the contract", Panish said. Budget prepared by Wooley, approved by Gongaware showed "Management Medical" and amounts to be paid to Dr. Murray are listed "Per Contract" On 6/18/09, Hollander received email from Brigitte Segal, who worked on the tour for the estimated cost for some living arrangements in London. AEG pays for entertainment arcade & bowling alley because of precondition in terms of what Michael needed at the house and as part of the bargain. AEG pays for 3 of the local houses: Bush, Faye and Murray (wardrobe dresser, make-up/hair & personal physician). Pays for additional furniture, staffing, security, nanny, food. Gongaware response on June 19, 2009: "I agree with Timm's allocation and the charges. Approved" Hollander said AEG had to pay those costs pursuant to the terms of the contract for the tour, as advance payment. Panish shows a pre-production budget vs what was paid. Dr. Murray still appears budgeted on 7/1/09 for $300,000. Hollander said she did not see a contract with Dr. Murray signed by AEG. Panish: "If the $300,000 was supposed to be advanced for Michael to be repaid, it would be under the category 'Artist's Advances'?', Hollander agreed. There was $300k listed for Murray under 'pre-production costs' in This Is It's budgets. It wasn't listed under terms Michael was supposed to pay Panish: "Dr. Murray was supposed to be paid $150,000 per month, correct?" Hollander: "Yes, according to the un-executed contract" Panish ended his direct examination of Hollander by playing testimony from her deposition about 20 tours she'd handled finances for. Hollander said that the This Is It tour was the first time she saw the situation where AEG Live hired a physician for the tour. It was also the first time she saw AEG Live pay for an artist's personal physician. AEG Cross AEG attorney Jessica Stebbins Bina started her questioning of Julie Hollander. Her early questions focused on money advanced to Jackson. Hollander told Stebbins Bina that it was her first time testifying and that's why she was so nervous answering questions Hollander explained what advance meant, it was like cash advance and, depending on the contract, it would be paid back by the artist. Hollander testified that Michael was responsible for 100% of the production costs should the concert not go forward. But if the tour went forward, MJ was responsible for repayment of 95% of the costs and AEG would pay 5%. Hollander said that if something is on the budget, it means it was planned to be paid. But things changed very often. In the This Is It tour, Hollander said she had contracts with staging, lighting, choreographers, sound equipment, etc. She testified that only the contract that had been drafted for Dr. Murray required Michael Jackson's signature. "My understanding was that Mr. Jackson had asked to include Dr. Murray in the tour personnel. Mr. Murray was requested by the artist, and that was my understanding," explained Hollander. "I was instructed that no payments were to be made until Michael signed the contract," Hollander said, due to the personal nature of the services. "Tour manager maintains the budget, negotiates some of the vendor's contract, may be involved in mitigating tax exposure. My role (in TII tour) was to make sure the items created were in line with the budget made," Hollander described. Hollander said she never saw a version of Dr. Murray's contract signed by AEG or MJ. "AEG never paid Dr. Murray", Hollander said. Before court adjourned, Hollander made the point that a budget is a guide for a concert tour. "A budget is just a tool. Sometimes an executed contract differs from the budget. In that case, the contracts terms dictate the payments", Hollander said. Marty Hom Transcript Hollander Transcript |
2023.05.16 15:07 clover_heron Warning: Have you noticed an increase False Memory Syndrome Foundation content in the media? Particularly cult-related content?
I recently created this post intended for a general audience, but I think I've seen enough weird stuff to feel like it's time to alert all providers who haven't noticed this dynamic. (I already posted this information to therapists, check it out if you're interested in the comments)
I've been engaged with cult-related content for a bit now and I started noticing a strange dynamic: cult content creators (a majority of whom have no mental health training, no research training, and no professional background in anything trauma- or memory-related) have been reporting that charismatic leaders can implant memories into followers.
Cult content creators have also been communicating the message that reports of child abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) cannot be trusted because therapists and other authority figures can implant false memories of abuse.
When I first heard this, I was like . . . um, what? After hearing it multiple times I was like . . . what. the. f*#@.
Hopefully, most of us are already know that
- - -
The belief that false memories can be implanted goes back to the 1940s-50s, when the idea arose to explain the dangers of Communist influence. The false memory narrative as related to memories of sexual abuse, however, seems to have first showed up during the Satanic Panic, which arguably started in 1980 with the release of Michelle Remembers.
Providers may find it interesting to note that this book was released six years after the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was first passed in 1974, after individual states had started instituting mandated reporting laws. Subsequent CAPTA history:
In 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was established. Its express purpose was to disseminate the idea that memory is unreliable and cannot be trusted absent external corroboration, and that this is particularly the case in regard to memories of sexual abuse.
New York magazine published an excellent article about the history of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - it's worth the read. This Nick Bryant podcast episode discusses related information and is also worth the time.
Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board, such as Elizabeth Loftus, Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, were active throughout the 1990s and 2000s generating material that promoted the false memory narrative. (so much material to possibly include here - I encourage you to just start googling. If you come across a research study that is confusing in some way, please post it and we can work through it together)
Reputable news sources including The New York Times and Frontline also published content supporting the narrative.
yada yada yada (I've found nothing particularly interesting after 2010 yet . . .)
Evidence suggests that the foundation's efforts were effective. Here's a summary of its impact, as well as criticisms, from the foundation's Wikipedia page:
- - -
Despite the fact that the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved in 2019, its ideas are currently being disseminated all over the place. In the cult content world, it feels almost like a flood.
Content creators I've noticed promoting or uncritically platforming the false memory narrative include:
Additionally, stuff about false memory is still showing up in traditional media like The New York Times (authored by False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board member Ethan Watters), BBC, and Forbes. Elizabeth Loftus, now in her mid-70s, recently performed the noble duty of assisting in the defenses of Ghislane Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein. (she has testified as an expert witness and consulted on hundreds of cases, but I haven't been able to locate a complete list)
So . . .
- - -
I hope you agree that this dynamic is definitely something about which all providers should be aware. The Satanic Panic required a therapist boogeyman, and I think that idea is less likely to work in today's context, considering most mental health providers are social workers (in the U.S. anyway), a vast majority of social workers are women, and all of us (fingers crossed!) are trained in trauma-informed and evidence-based practices. Nonetheless, I think we should take this dynamic seriously. (sidenote: maybe because therapists are no longer an easy target, there's currently a focus on so-called "cult leaders," the definition of which is loose, which may be by design)
The possible damage to people who have experienced abuse is still very present, in my opinion. I worry about all of the people taking in this content who have a trauma history, and what it could do to their self-concepts and their ability to function in the world.
- - -
After fielding many comments from users that support the false memory narrative (particularly on therapists and cults), I figured it would be helpful to include an example of the cutting-edge science that is currently being used to support the narrative:
After reading Calado's paper (pay attention to the methods section), consider that Otgaar, Howe, and Patihis (2021) summarized the findings as follows:
If you have questions about these papers or any other research you come across, please comment below and we can work through it together.
- - -
Two other things you might find interesting:
Please do link any other content you think is relevant. Thank you!
submitted by clover_heron to socialwork [link] [comments]
I've been engaged with cult-related content for a bit now and I started noticing a strange dynamic: cult content creators (a majority of whom have no mental health training, no research training, and no professional background in anything trauma- or memory-related) have been reporting that charismatic leaders can implant memories into followers.
Cult content creators have also been communicating the message that reports of child abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) cannot be trusted because therapists and other authority figures can implant false memories of abuse.
When I first heard this, I was like . . . um, what? After hearing it multiple times I was like . . . what. the. f*#@.
Hopefully, most of us are already know that
- the false memory/ implanted memory narrative serves primarily to silence and discredit victims
- the dynamics of memory following trauma (particularly extended sexual trauma) are complex
- evidence for false memory implantation is weak (and if implanting false memories was easy enough for any random charismatic leader to do, it would be easy to demonstrate experimentally)
- - -
The belief that false memories can be implanted goes back to the 1940s-50s, when the idea arose to explain the dangers of Communist influence. The false memory narrative as related to memories of sexual abuse, however, seems to have first showed up during the Satanic Panic, which arguably started in 1980 with the release of Michelle Remembers.
Providers may find it interesting to note that this book was released six years after the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was first passed in 1974, after individual states had started instituting mandated reporting laws. Subsequent CAPTA history:
Additional requirements were added by the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984 (P.L. 98-457, 10/9/1984). The Children’s Justice Act program was added to CAPTA by the Children’s Justice and Assistance Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-401, 8/27/1986). CAPTA was completely rewritten in the Child Abuse Prevention, Adoption, and Family Services Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-294, 4/25/1988). It was further amended by the Child Abuse Prevention Challenge Grants Reauthorization Act of 1989 (P.L. 101-126, 10/25/1989) and the Drug Free School Amendments of 1989 (P.L. 101-226, 12/12/1989).(sidenote: The Franklin Scandal came to light around 1988 and the investigation was over by 1990. Never heard of it? Here's one book and another book about the topic.)
In 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was established. Its express purpose was to disseminate the idea that memory is unreliable and cannot be trusted absent external corroboration, and that this is particularly the case in regard to memories of sexual abuse.
New York magazine published an excellent article about the history of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - it's worth the read. This Nick Bryant podcast episode discusses related information and is also worth the time.
Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board, such as Elizabeth Loftus, Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, were active throughout the 1990s and 2000s generating material that promoted the false memory narrative. (so much material to possibly include here - I encourage you to just start googling. If you come across a research study that is confusing in some way, please post it and we can work through it together)
Reputable news sources including The New York Times and Frontline also published content supporting the narrative.
yada yada yada (I've found nothing particularly interesting after 2010 yet . . .)
Evidence suggests that the foundation's efforts were effective. Here's a summary of its impact, as well as criticisms, from the foundation's Wikipedia page:
Reception and impactIn 2019, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved. (See ISSTD for a discussion of the foundation's rise, why it likely dissolved, and implications for the future.)
Stanton states that "Rarely has such a strange and little-understood organization had such a profound effect on media coverage of such a controversial matter."[7] A study showed that in 1991 prior to the group's foundation, of the stories about abuse in several popular press outlets "more than 80 percent of the coverage was weighted toward stories of survivors, with recovered memory taken for granted and questionable therapy virtually ignored" but that three years later "more than 80 percent of the coverage focused on false accusations, often involving supposedly false memory" which the author of the study, Katherine Beckett, attributed to FMSF.[7]
J.A. Walker claimed the FMSF reversed the gains made by feminists and victims in gaining acknowledgment of the incestuous sexual abuse of children.[25] S.J. Dallam criticized the foundation for describing itself as a scientific organization while undertaking partisan political and social activity.[2]
The claims made by the FMSF for the incidence and prevalence of false memories have been criticized as lacking evidence and disseminating alleged inaccurate statistics about the problem.[2] Despite claiming to offer scientific evidence for the existence of FMS, the FMSF has no criteria for one of the primary features of the proposed syndrome – how to determine whether the accusation is true or false. Most of the reports by the FMSF are anecdotal, and the studies cited to support the contention that false memories can be easily created are often based on experiments that bear little resemblance to memories of actual sexual abuse. In addition, though the FMSF claims false memories are due to dubious therapeutic practices, the organization presents no data to demonstrate these practices are widespread or form an organized treatment modality.[25][26] Within the anecdotes used by the FMSF to support their contention that faulty therapy causes false memories, some include examples of people who recovered their memories outside of therapy.[2]
Astrophysicist and astrobiologist Carl Sagan cited material from a 1995 issue of the FMS Newsletter in his critique of the recovered memory claims of UFO abductees and those purporting to be victims of Satanic ritual abuse in his last book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.[27]
- - -
Despite the fact that the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved in 2019, its ideas are currently being disseminated all over the place. In the cult content world, it feels almost like a flood.
Content creators I've noticed promoting or uncritically platforming the false memory narrative include:
- Julia Shaw (and her Bad People podcast)
- the hosts of Conspirituality
- Jennings Brown
- the host of Cult Vault
- the hosts of Trust Me
- the creators of the Sarah Lawrence documentary (director Zachary Heinzerling)
- Rachel Bernstein's IndoctriNation platformed Zachary Heinzerling
- the hosts of You're Wrong About
- the host of The Origins Podcast
- the hosts of A Little Bit Culty
- the host of Shadow of Doubt
- (anyone else to add to the list?)
Additionally, stuff about false memory is still showing up in traditional media like The New York Times (authored by False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board member Ethan Watters), BBC, and Forbes. Elizabeth Loftus, now in her mid-70s, recently performed the noble duty of assisting in the defenses of Ghislane Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein. (she has testified as an expert witness and consulted on hundreds of cases, but I haven't been able to locate a complete list)
So . . .
- - -
I hope you agree that this dynamic is definitely something about which all providers should be aware. The Satanic Panic required a therapist boogeyman, and I think that idea is less likely to work in today's context, considering most mental health providers are social workers (in the U.S. anyway), a vast majority of social workers are women, and all of us (fingers crossed!) are trained in trauma-informed and evidence-based practices. Nonetheless, I think we should take this dynamic seriously. (sidenote: maybe because therapists are no longer an easy target, there's currently a focus on so-called "cult leaders," the definition of which is loose, which may be by design)
The possible damage to people who have experienced abuse is still very present, in my opinion. I worry about all of the people taking in this content who have a trauma history, and what it could do to their self-concepts and their ability to function in the world.
- - -
After fielding many comments from users that support the false memory narrative (particularly on therapists and cults), I figured it would be helpful to include an example of the cutting-edge science that is currently being used to support the narrative:
After reading Calado's paper (pay attention to the methods section), consider that Otgaar, Howe, and Patihis (2021) summarized the findings as follows:
The issue of whether repeated events can be implanted in memory has recently been addressed by Calado and colleagues (Calado, B., Luke, T. J., Connolly, D. A., & Landström, S., & Otgaar, H., 2020). In their experiment, they falsely told adult participants that they lost their cuddling toy several times while control participants were told that they only lost it once. Strikingly, they found that repeated false events were as easily inserted in memory as suggesting that the event happened once. So, this study not only showed that repeated events can be implanted, it raised doubts about the idea that repeated events might be harder to implant than single events.That's it, that's the evidence that some academics are using to argue for the implantation of memory involving repeated events. Yikes is right.
If you have questions about these papers or any other research you come across, please comment below and we can work through it together.
- - -
Two other things you might find interesting:
- I came across a recent article that calls for an end to mandated reporting. Seems like the argument as well as the implications are worth thinking about/ discussing.
- This article suggests that the peer review process in the area of false memory/ recovered memory/ dissociative amnesia scholarship is particularly vicious, and may have resulted in the suppressing of authors who haven't aligned with the false memory narrative over the past few decades. Even if that's true, Loftus and colleagues noted in 2019 that people are refusing to buy the false memory idea. It's almost like the scientific evidence doesn't support it, and neither does clinical experience?
Please do link any other content you think is relevant. Thank you!
2023.05.16 13:02 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 16th
 | 1966 - Katherine gives birth to Janet Damita Jo Jackson in Gary, Indiana. She's the youngest of 10 children (including Brandon) submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1970 - The Jackson 5's "ABC", enters the UK Pop Singles Chart where it will stay for 16 weeks, peaking at #8 1979 - On their Destiny tour, The Jacksons play at the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium (now Boutwell Memorial Auditorium) in Birmingham, Alabama. 1981 - "One Day in Your Life", a single from Forever, Michael, peaks on the Billboard Music Chart at #55 1981 - "Can You Feel It", a single from The Jackson's Triumph Album, peaks at #77 on the Billboard Hot 100 1983 - Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever aired on NBC and was a celebration of Motown Records' 25th anniversary. The program was taped before a live audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California on March 25, 1983 https://preview.redd.it/s7st5lmn210b1.jpg?width=648&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e43cafcca8ef19d69379c0dc28593538fae46e4 Organized by Suzanne De Passe, the event was to feature all of the most popular Motown acts, both past and present. The Motown stars were to reunite for one evening, to pay tribute to Berry Gordy and acknowledge his effect on their lives. It featured, for the first time since 1975, a performance of the six Jackson brothers for a medley of the Jackson 5 hits then when left alone on stage Michael addressed the audience and then went into "Billie jean".He wore black pants, leather penny loafers a black sequin jacket, and a single white rhinestone glove. He then executed a move which many claim to have sealed his status as an icon forever. https://preview.redd.it/ergjh6bp210b1.jpg?width=185&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a4769b44d56f783b2870f74df3b0e4aa5bae569 It was the first time Michael Jackson had performed the moonwalk in public; he had practiced it in his kitchen prior to the show.At the end of the show, Michael joins Diana Ross and all the Motown stars on stage to pay tribute to Berry Gordy. Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever was watched by over 52 million people and Michael's routine earned him an Emmy nomination for this iconic performance. The day after the show aired, Michael received a call from his childhood idol, Fred Astaire, who commended the singer. Another childhood idol, Sammy Davis Jr., had admired Michael Jackson's black sequined jacket during the performance and later received it as a gift. It was reported that the black sequin jacket Michael wore for the show actually belonged to his mother Katherine. https://preview.redd.it/5pa90vgq210b1.jpg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf8704555420e428d23c7b8b21788ceff0b002f4 1984 - Michael's "Thriller" jacket had become the "hottest outerwear fad of the mid-1980s" and was widely emulated. Since counterfeit copies of the jacket could sell at over $500,Michael filed a lawsuit in NYC to prevent unauthorized copies of the jacket and his other merchandise. https://preview.redd.it/1l2ulc6u210b1.jpg?width=440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73ccba243dff7e04bb3762f7eeeb2025105bf35c On 27 June 2011, the real jacket sold for $1.8 million at Julien's Auctions. The buyer, Milton Verret, described the jacket as "the greatest piece of rock and roll memorabilia in history". The proceeds from the jacket were donated to the Shambala Animal Kingdom (Australia - permanetly closed in 2013) where Michael's Bengal tigers (Thriller & Sabu) were housed when he left Neverland Ranch in 2006 Sabu & Thriller 1988 - Michael is on the cover of Jet magazine https://preview.redd.it/m5uv1t8f310b1.jpg?width=184&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec642700f861c7a341b95bb99b7005564213603f 1990- Michael loses his Hero & long time friend, Sammy Davis Jr.,who dies in Beverly Hills, California of complications from throat cancer. Michael is named as an honorary pallbearer along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin & Bill Cosby. https://preview.redd.it/17kkey8i310b1.jpg?width=267&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d07f86eda0378156911e3d9c7973b3026c5ccf3e https://preview.redd.it/xk061x6j310b1.jpg?width=340&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffd3b0ff61788c6dcbf82ea34e73d12ecd58565a Davis and Jackson were extremely close. When Michael was just in his twenties, he would often show up at Davis’s house unannounced to immerse himself in "the archives', a room downstairs that contained videos of Davis’s performances over the years. Davis would give advice to Michael, even at a very early age. Jackson recalls when Davis told him “Don’t ever do drugs,’ they told us. I never forgot it.” https://preview.redd.it/sl4s5e9m310b1.jpg?width=563&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04d3b8603f8bc91ec25b92a07a63466e6e7936a8 “Michael Jackson is more than a friend, He’s like a son." - Sammy Davis, Jr. https://preview.redd.it/3avtnmdn310b1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cdd8b4e6e57f2070d6b8a32dab8aa2915e7a5b92 https://i.redd.it/63cps0ao310b1.gif 2005 - Trial Day 53. Week 12 Michael goes to court with Katherine & Randy. https://preview.redd.it/ni53shxq310b1.jpg?width=408&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=baf36e064e0b7dff437e1af3b403814abfbbfa8c Witnesses in the trial chipped away at the prosecution's theory that Michael conspired with associates to hold his accuser & the boys family captive. Maria Gomez, one of Jacksons housekeepers, testified through a Spanish language interpreter, that the accusers mother praised Mr. Jackson as a blessing to them and said he was like a father and she wanted her children to call him Dad. But about a week later, Gomez said, the mother started to complain about being held against her will and wanted to leave Neverland because three of Jackson's associates were interfering and coming between her and Mr. Jackson. One of the three associates was Dieter Wiesner, who has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defense team has sought to suggest that the associates were actually conspiring against Michael to profit off of his troubles rather than conspiring with him Ms. Gomez also stated that while cleaning a guest unit where members of the accusers family stayed, she saw adult magazines in an opened backpack belonging to the accuser's brother. Angel Vivanco, a chefs assistant, also testified that the boys showed him sexually explicit material when he delivered food to them in one of the guest cottages. The prosecutions idea that Michael used alcohol to lure his accuser was also challenged by former security guard, Shane Meredith, who said he once found the accuser and his brother in the wine cellar unaccompanied with a half empty wine bottle. "I saw the two children laughing, giggling. I could see them with a bottle of alcohol. I told them to get out of that area right now. ..They were pretty shaken up", Meredith said The accuser & his brother previously testified that the only time they were in the wine cellar or drank alcohol was when they were in the presence of Michael Vivanco also testified about an incident he claimed to have had with the accuser and liqueur. He stated that the accuser once demanded that he put a liqueur into a milkshake. "He said if I didnt do it, he would tell Michael and I would be fired", Vivanco testified. The defense, who maintains that Vivanco developed a relationship with the accusers older sister, wanted to question him about comments she allegedly made to him critical of her mother & other family members but Judge Rodney Melville severely limited that line of questioning saying it was inadmissible hearsay. Orthodontist, Dr. Jean Seamount, testified that she removed braces from the Gavin and his brother on February 24, 2003, during the time frame the mother says the family was being held captive In earlier testimony, the mother stated that the appointment was a ruse for them to get away from Neverland and seek help, which she abandoned because the family was being watched. However, Seamount said the family never asked for help, tried to call for help or attempted to leave the office. She said she saw no body guards. When asked if the family members appeared afraid, Seamount answered "Not at all" Seamount said the mother told her she wanted the braces removed and sent back to the orthodontist who put them on the boys because that dentist was hassling her and wanted to charge her more after discovering their connection to Mr. Jackson. "I spent quite some time explaining to her the need for treatment but the mother insisted on removing the braces", she said. Seamounts assistant, Tiffany Hayes, described the accuser as "rude and kind of a brat". She said her impression of him was that "he believed he was better than us". Hayes also said Neverland's property manager, Joe Marcus, who called to make the appointment, waited for the family in the lobby and that Neverland was billed for the treatment. Carol McCoy also testified that she gave the accusers mother a full body wax at a Los Olivos day spa on February 11, 2003. "Her legs, brow, lip and face were waxed, and she got a bikini wax", McCoy said. Did she say anything or do anything that suggested she was being restrained in her liberty? asked defense attorney Robert Sanger. "No", said McCoy, who performed the $140 waxing procedure on the mother. Neverland worker, Kathryn Bernard, testified that she took the mother to the waxing appointment and arranged to pay the bill. Bernard said, during a conversation on the way, the mother, whom she barely knew, started divulging personal information. She said the woman told her she was trying to get away from her husband and commented on how well Michael was treating her at Neverland. "She was just praising Michael and telling me how bad she had it with her ex. I kept thinking, I dont know this lady and why is she telling me this?", Bernard said. Ms. Bernard also said the mother "never" complained that the family was being held prisoner. None of the witnesses who testified said they saw a film crew following the family on their trips away from the ranch as the mother had previously testified in court Outside court, Jackson spokeswoman, Raymone Bain, said the defense expects to call CNN talk show host Larry King to testify this week. The defense is expected to ask King whether attorney Larry Feldman once said during a breakfast meeting that the accuser's mother made up the molestation story. Feldman has denied the story. https://imgur.com/a/Ew7C01n Court Transcript 2008 - Michael takes Prince, Paris and Blanket to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at Brenden Theaters at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas 2009 - Michael invites his fans Robert and Talitha Linehan to his Carolwood home 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 12 Motions There was a motions hearing during the morning session about Frank Dileo emails and Conrad Murray's police interview. The Jacksons team are trying to get Frank Dileo's emails. Jacksons believe there may be discussions between DiLeo and AEG about MJ & his health David Regoli, a lawyer for Mrs. Dileo (Frank passed in 2011), said Mrs. DiLeo asked him to review the subpoena by Katherine Jackson's attorney, go through the emails & produce anything relevant to the parties. Jackson's attorneys want to make sure AEG turned over all the email conversations AEG had with everyone about Michael. If it's proven they didn't, it could be a problem for AEG's attorney. Everyone is on standby. Judge ruled that Murray's June 27 LAPD interview is considered hearsay and it can't be presented to the jury. Judge said Murray's statement might be admissible if the former doctor testified in court. Julie Hollander Testimony Jackson Direct In the afternoon session Julie Hollander, AEG's VP of Controller and Event Operation, testified. She has been called as an adverse witness by Jacksons 'Adverse witness' is sometimes referred to as a hostile witness - a witness who identifies with the opposing party because of a relationship or a common interest in the outcome of the litigation First part of her testimony was explaining who hired her (Timm Wooley) and what a CEO/CFO does. She works for AEG Live, under AEG Hollander said that in 2009 Wooley was more than just a tour accountant. Wooley came back to work on the This Is It" tour. Hollander says she reports directly to the CFO. Hollander said she was responsible for overseeing 'the books' (accounting term) for anything related to the project This Is It. "I'm responsible for making sure the books are maintained for the tours," Hollander described. The book is an electronic accounting system. Hollander was responsible for the financial/accounting for the This Is It tour. She estimated she worked on about 20 tours --several concerts. Hollander said she didn't prepare the budgets for the tour, Wooley did. Hollander was responsible for overseeing the books and the general ledger of all transactions related to This Is It but said it was AEG executive Timm Woolley who actually created and managed the budget and made sure people got paid She reported the budget primarily to Paul Gongaware. Hollander said budget was the costs expected to incur in the tour with developing the shows, taking show on the road, getting gear to London. Other budgeted costs included traveling for people involved, housing for some people involved and insurance Hollander said the company had a policy manual saying payment would be predicated upon the execution of the contract. "We had situations where contracts were signed later," Hollander said. She said, however, that there were situations where contracts were signed after Jackson's death, "Due to the abrupt end of the tour the contracts were being negotiated." Hollander: "My role was to execute payments pursuant to executed contracts." Hollander: "My understating was that Dr. Murray was part of the budget, is listed on the budget for the tour at the request of the artist." She agreed she saw Dr. Murray's contract, but says it was un-executed, since it was not signed by all parties. Hollander called the doctor's contract with AEG "a draft" because, although it was signed by Murray, neither Jackson nor AEG had signed it. Hollander said that if all the terms of the contract were met and remained consistent, Dr. Murray would be paid retroactively from May 1, 2009 Panish: "You don't know whether Dr. Murray was performing services for MJ?" Hollander: "I don't know, I can't say for sure, not me, personally" "Timm Wooley advised me that Dr. Murray was being engaged at the request of the artist," Hollander testified and added that the budgets were ultimately approved by Gongaware. Hollander testified that Murray's salary of $150,000 each for the months of May and June that year was included in a budget approved by executive Paul Gongaware. "If Michael Jackson didn't die and AEG signed, then AEG would owe the money, right?", Brian Panish, the Jackson family's attorney, asked. "If all parties signed it would have been a fully executed contract, yes, and I would have to, if the costs were approved.It would be no basis for me to say I'm not going to pay that", Hollander said. Hollander: "There was $300,000 listed on the budget for Dr. Murray, yes. That budget was approved by Mr. Gongaware" Panish: "For London there was more than 1 million dollars in the budget to pay Dr. Murray, right?" Hollander:"I don't recall a figure of $1Million" Brian Panish shows Hollander a large binder with 80 documents she reviewed to refresh her recollection Panish: "AEG advanced money to Michael Jackson, is that right?" Hollander: "Yes, it was an advance, recoupable in some capacity" Panish showed an email from 5/18/09 from Hollander to Wooley: "We are in the process of quickly pulling together an urgent re-forecast for Mr. Anschutz and need the latest and greatest on Michael. I recall that you were working on an update. Is it ready for consumption? I need something by tomorrow at the latest. Once the numbers are in, I need direction from you with respect to the split between UK and US. On May 18, 2009, Hollander wrote an email to several executives asking for information that would help give AEG owner Philip Anschutz an idea of the upcoming tour profits. Panish asked Hollander, "They weren't asking you how the rehearsals were going, were they?" "No", Hollander answered Panish : "They wanted to know how much money would be made for the U.S. and how much money would be made for the U.K., correct?" Hollander : "Yes" Panish: "Do you know if AEG ever performed a background check on Dr. Murray?" Hollander: "I'm not aware of anything in that regard" Hollander said she did not know who negotiated the compensation for Dr. Murray. He was the only doctor budgeted for the tour. Hollander: "I talked to Mr. Wooley about the inclusion of Dr. Murray in the budget. I talked to Mr. Trell (in-house attorney) as to the conditions he'd be paid" Panish showed the jury the budget from 5/16/09 for 27 shows: Management Medical --300,000; 450,000; 750,000 Total: $1.5 Million to pay Dr. Murray Hollander verified a document created May 16, 2009, that listed dozens of changes to the This Is It budget. Murray was listed as item 29. "Michael wishes to have a permanent physician available on call throughout the pre-tour period on operational period', the document said. There are 2 months at $150,000 newly budgeted. On April 30, 2009, Panish showed a document with $300,000 budgeted for management medical. Dr. Emery Brown , Propofol expert from Harvard, is announced as the next witness to be called. Court Transcript |
2023.05.15 16:42 smith86n 1.4k Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert Sun, May 14, 2023 at 8:58 PM EDT·2 min read
Amid feud with Putin, Wagner mercenary leader offered Ukrainians the locations of invading troops in exchange for sparing his for-hire army, leaked documents reveal
Amid feud with Putin, Wagner mercenary leader offered Ukrainians the locations of invading troops in exchange for sparing his for-hire army, leaked documents reveal 1.4k
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin
Yevgeny Prigozhin Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert Sun, May 14, 2023 at 8:58 PM EDT·2 min read In this article:
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin President of Russia
Yevgeny Prigozhin Russian terrorist & war criminal Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a statement as he stand next to Wagner fighters in an undisclosed location in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in this still image taken from video released May 5, 2023. Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a statement as he stand next to Wagner fighters in an undisclosed location in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in this still image taken from video released May 5, 2023.Press service of "Concord"/Handout via REUTERS Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been feuding with Putin over supplies for his mercenaries.
WaPo reported leaked intelligence showed Prigozhin offered to sell out Russian troops to Ukraine.
In exchange, Prigozhin wanted Ukraine to ease off his for-hire army on the front lines in Bakhmut.
In an apparent escalation of Yevgeny Prigozhin's public feud with Vladimir Putin over his for-hire army, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group offered to sell out the locations of Russian troops to Ukrainian officials in exchange for their mercy on the battlefield, according to leaked intelligence documents.
The Washington Post reported that US military intelligence documents allegedly shared on a Discord server by Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman at a National Guard unit in Massachusetts, included a briefing on a January meeting between Prigozhin and unnamed Ukrainian officials where the Wagner leader made his desperate offer.
submitted by smith86n to u/smith86n [link] [comments]
Amid feud with Putin, Wagner mercenary leader offered Ukrainians the locations of invading troops in exchange for sparing his for-hire army, leaked documents reveal 1.4k
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin
Yevgeny Prigozhin Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert Sun, May 14, 2023 at 8:58 PM EDT·2 min read In this article:
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin President of Russia
Yevgeny Prigozhin Russian terrorist & war criminal Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a statement as he stand next to Wagner fighters in an undisclosed location in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in this still image taken from video released May 5, 2023. Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a statement as he stand next to Wagner fighters in an undisclosed location in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in this still image taken from video released May 5, 2023.Press service of "Concord"/Handout via REUTERS Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been feuding with Putin over supplies for his mercenaries.
WaPo reported leaked intelligence showed Prigozhin offered to sell out Russian troops to Ukraine.
In exchange, Prigozhin wanted Ukraine to ease off his for-hire army on the front lines in Bakhmut.
In an apparent escalation of Yevgeny Prigozhin's public feud with Vladimir Putin over his for-hire army, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group offered to sell out the locations of Russian troops to Ukrainian officials in exchange for their mercy on the battlefield, according to leaked intelligence documents.
The Washington Post reported that US military intelligence documents allegedly shared on a Discord server by Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman at a National Guard unit in Massachusetts, included a briefing on a January meeting between Prigozhin and unnamed Ukrainian officials where the Wagner leader made his desperate offer.
2023.05.15 03:05 FelicitySmoak_ The La Toya Jackson Factor
 | “Michael and I talk at least every two weeks. He understands why I’ve done the things I have" - La Toya Jackson submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MJInnocent [link] [comments] Michael Jackson detractors often use some of LaToya Jackson‘s 1993-1994 interviews against him despite her being very inconsistent during this time In the wake of the 1993 Jordan Chandler allegations against Michael, LaToya first gave a public interview about them on September 2, 1993 as a guest on the Today show where she said: “I stand by [Michael] one thousand percent…If you think about it he has been convicted before a trial”. Then, within minutes, she said she did not know if the allegations were true or not and that she was not a judge, and could not make such a determination. A few weeks later she appeared on the Maury Povich show and she complained that her brother was being convicted by the public when he had not been charged with anything. She stated that there was nothing unusual about Michael’s relationship with children and that she would only believe these allegations if they came from Michael’s own mouth. LaToya’s turnaround came months later. On December 8, 1993 she held a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israel and this is the press conference that is often cited by Michael’s detractors as “evidence” of his guilt. At the press conference LaToya said: “Michael is my brother and I love him a great deal. But I cannot and will not be a silent collaborator of his crimes against small innocent children… I love my brother but it’s wrong. I don’t want to see these kids hurt” Starting Over, 2011 What “crimes” and what “collaboration” that would be she never clarified, as in subsequent interviews she admitted that she never actually witnessed any abuse or inappropriate behavior by her brother. What she did in this and other subsequent interviews was simply creating innuendo and conjecture She claimed that their mother had shown her checks Michael had written made payable to the parents of children “for large sums”. She also claimed that their mother would refer to Michael as “that damn faggot” (Katherine Jackson later denied these claims). LaToya’s husband-manager, Jack Gordon further told the press that Michael had threatened to kill LaToya and tried to kidnap her twice to keep her silent. In another interview with Maury Povich, LaToya said she never saw Michael in bed with any boy, but she believed that her brother was guilty. She stated she saw a check in the amount of $1 million made out to the father of a young boy. She also stated that she didn’t believe Michael was really addicted to drugs and that it was a made-up story. (By now it is a known fact that Michael’s drug addiction problems at the time were real and it was not a made-up story.) In particular, the story about the checks is used as “evidence” against Michael by detractors until this day. The suggestion is that it was some sort of hush money for sexual abuse. The reality is, though, that even if the story of LaToya seeing checks was true, the jumping to the conclusion that it was hush money for sexual abuse, would be quite a quantum leap into conjecture. There can be a whole lot of reasons why someone might write a check for someone else. In actuality, when LaToya was asked a direct question in an interview about whether it was hush money, she admitted she could not tell that. But let’s examine this check story further! Is LaToya’s claim supported by James Safechuck’s allegations? You might have noticed in the above linked interview that LaToya said she saw these supposed checks in 1984. In an interview with Geraldo Rivera on February 21, 1994 she further specified the story and said that the checks she saw were written to a boy whose father was a “garbage collector”. From this information Michael Jackson’s detractors (among them journalist Diane Dimond) concluded that the boy in question was James Safechuck, since it is his father who had a waste collection company. Jackson detractors then use the current Safechuck allegations as evidence of LaToya’s 1993 claims being true (or LaToya’s claims as support for Safechuck’s allegations). In reality, nothing in this story adds up. James Safechuck’s current allegations do not confirm LaToya’s “hush money” suggestion at all, nor do LaToya’s 1993 claims confirm the Safechuck allegations. On the contrary! Even now, the Safechucks do not claim that at any time they received hush money from Jackson. James Safechuck’s allegation is that he never told his parents about his alleged abuse until he was an adult, so of course his parents could not have received “hush money” to be silenced in the 1980s. Moreover, the Safechucks have not befriended Michael until 1987 and LaToya claimed in her interview above that she saw the checks in 1984. The closest story that comes to this from the Safechuck allegations is the story of a loan the Safechucks got from Jackson to buy their house. They mentioned it in the documentary Leaving Neverland. However, that story does not align with LaToya’s. First of all, the Safechucks did not claim it to be hush money. This is what James’s mother, Stephanie Safechuck said in Leaving Neverland about the loan: “We wanted to buy another house, and Michael gave us a loan at a very low percentage rate. My husband had already had a deposition. We were on Michael’s camp. My son also for Michael. And after that was all said and done is when Michael forgave the debt. Michael said, “No, I don’t want you to pay me anymore,” um, “It’s a gift.” So, he did buy us a house. It’s just coincidental, he wasn’t buying us off, but the timing’s right there. Just sounds bad. Yeah.” According to the loan documents recovered since, the loan was given to the Safechucks by Michael Jackson on May 11, 1992 and it was in the sum of $305,000 (not $1 million, like the sum in LaToya’s story). It is a proper loan, that the Safechucks should have returned https://preview.redd.it/1njgzewz6wza1.jpg?width=624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a528abd13933cc440e6bf2687e70d19552b6407c https://preview.redd.it/i1dgqoj17wza1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=841221d4620e07e1e66f7c2298f4a682e6bdf491 https://preview.redd.it/vx1angw27wza1.jpg?width=639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba257b6c88631756f62668d383903c770bf89742 https://preview.redd.it/b1paavl47wza1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c53901350ecb79e3b7e859daedda75bb4a03e84 None of this correlates with LaToya’s story and what Michael Jackson detractors are trying to make out of it. The loan was in the sum of $305,000, not $1 million and it was given much later than the time LaToya could have seen such checks. LaToya left her family’s home in Encino/Hayvenhurst in May 1988. She was then completely estranged and isolated from her family by her abusive husband-manager, Jack Gordon. She could not have seen and discussed checks in the family home after May 1988. But James Safechuck’s alleged abuse did not even start until June 1988, according to his own story, so obviously no check before that could have been hush money for his alleged abuse. https://preview.redd.it/qimcz18b7wza1.png?width=864&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf129aff224b2c4d6b601bc1e972aa26797fd15c In Leaving Neverland Stephaine Safechuck acknowledges that the loan was not any type of hush money (“it’s just coincidental, he wasn’t buying us off”), but she still tries hard to make it sound somewhat sinister (“but the timing’s right there. Just sounds bad”). The timing for Jackson forgiving the loan, that is. The subtle suggestion seems to be that Jackson forgave the loan immediately after they testified for him as a kind of reward for that. That does not make much sense, since if he tried to bribe them he would have told them in advance of their testimony that he would forgive them the loan if they testified in his favor, and no such thing happened, even according to the Safechucks’ own story. If you read the above loan documents, you will find that Stephanie’s attempt to make the timing look bad is deceptive. Jackson forgave them the loan not in immediate aftermath of their testimonies in 1993/1994, but more than 3 years later, in June 1997. So neither did the date when Jackson gave them the loan (1992) or when he forgave them the loan (1997) had any correlation with the 1993 allegations and the Safechucks’ testimonies then. Nor with LaToya’s story who claimed to have seen the checks in 1984. To sum it up: LaToya claimed to have seen the checks in 1984, and Michael had not befriended the Safechucks until 1987. LaToya left the Jackson family home in May 1988, while James Safechuck’s claim is that his alleged abuse started in June 1988. So LaToya could not have seen alleged “hush money” checks to the Safechucks before May 1988. LaToya left the Jackson family home in May 1988 four years before the Safechucks got their loan in 1992, so she could not have seen that either. The Safechucks themselves – even now – do not claim to have ever received “hush money” from Michael Jackson. The name of James Safechuck was well known for the public at the time. Magazines and newspapers often mentioned his name in reports about Jackson, so if anyone wanted to make up a “hush money” story about Michael Jackson and a boy in 1993, it would have been a no-brainer to use a boy in that story who had often been publicly seen with the entertainer. Why would LaToya lie about her brother? Now that we cleared up that LaToya’s claims in 1993/1994 are not backed up by Safechuck’s current allegations, let’s talk about the circumstances under which LaToya gave these interviews in 1993/1994 Showing bruises from physical abuse by Gordon Like mentioned above, in early 1988 she left her family on the side of an abusive manager-husband, Jack Gordon. LaToya many years later revealed that Gordon was physically abusive with her and forced her to do many things against her will – like cutting ties with her family, posing nude in Playboy in 1988 etc. According to LaToya’s 2012 autobiography entitled Staring Over, Gordon regularly beat her and intimidated her by threatening to kill her or her brother, Michael or sister, Janet. Gordon completely isolated her from her family and the world, she was not even allowed to read anything or watch television. She was completely under the abusive man’s control Gordon hated Michael and rejoiced when the 1993 allegations broke. According to LaToya, Gordon forced her to make that statement at that press conference in Israel and she had to be as convincing as she could be or else Gordon would hurt her. Gordon also threatened that he or his mob associates would kill Michael, if LaToya did not do what he instructed her to do. https://preview.redd.it/yr4jwta38wza1.png?width=928&format=png&auto=webp&s=27b064a819b8d9640da211475d0c06b7837436e3 I later learned that Gordon had attempted to extort money and favors from Michael’s handlers by telling them that if they didn’t comply with his demands, he would have me make this very statement”, she wrote in her book. Gordon then made her appear on a few other shows to speak negatively about Michael. Among them was this interview in which LaToya is caught having an earpiece, through which she was told directly by Gordon what to say. LaToya wrote in her book that she had guilt and regret about what she had done to Michael: https://preview.redd.it/7aadrqwd8wza1.png?width=314&format=png&auto=webp&s=190b6862d3927ba354283e92547446a3df12f9f5 When Leaving Neverland aired in March 2019, some of the media again tried to resurrect LaToya’s 1993 words against Michael. In reaction to that she tweeted: https://preview.redd.it/onansf0i8wza1.jpg?width=445&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32d9104f6986e3b0c7f3c3426eaa08c4a4d23058 LaToya finally escaped from her abusive husband in 1996 – literally escaped as she explains in this video. Since then she is an unwavering supporter of Michael and she often accompanied him to court during his 2005 trial. https://preview.redd.it/a8a5c0rk8wza1.jpg?width=188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a90c7fd7144b824afa91862be4f2339fa1383e0c Considering these facts, it is time for the media and detractors to stop taking LaToya’s 1993-1994 words out of the context of the whole situation surrounding her at the time, and it is time to stop ignoring what she said about it after she escaped the abusive situation she was in at the time of those interviews. The guilters will scream “believe all victims” for two serial liars but ignore La Toya’s story of abuse because it doesn’t fit their narrative (Parts taken from The Michael Jackson Allegations blog) |
2023.05.14 21:39 clover_heron Warning: Have you noticed an increase False Memory Syndrome content in the media? Particularly cult-related content?
I recently created this post intended for a general audience, but I think I've seen enough weird stuff to feel like it's time to alert all providers who haven't noticed this dynamic.
I've been engaged with cult-related content for a bit now and I started noticing a strange dynamic: cult content creators (a majority of whom have no mental health training, no research training, and no professional background in anything trauma- or memory-related) have been reporting that charismatic leaders can implant memories into followers.
Cult content creators have also been communicating the message that reports of child abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) cannot be trusted because therapists and other authority figures can implant false memories of abuse.
When I first heard this, I was like . . . um, what? After hearing it multiple times I was like . . . what. the. f*#@.
Hopefully, most of us are already know that
- - -
The belief that false memories can be implanted goes back to the 1940s-50s, when the idea arose to explain the dangers of Communist influence. The false memory narrative as related to memories of sexual abuse, however, seems to have first showed up during the Satanic Panic, which arguably started in 1980 with the release of Michelle Remembers.
Providers may find it interesting to note that this book was released six years after the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was first passed in 1974, after individual states had started instituting mandated reporting laws. Subsequent CAPTA history:
In 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was established. Its express purpose was to disseminate the idea that memory is unreliable and cannot be trusted absent external corroboration, and that this is particularly the case in regard to memories of sexual abuse.
New York magazine published an excellent article about the history of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - it's worth the read. This Nick Bryant podcast episode discusses related information and is also worth the time.
Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board, such as Elizabeth Loftus, Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, were active throughout the 1990s and 2000s generating material that promoted the false memory narrative. (so much material to possibly include here - I encourage you to just start googling. If you come across a research study that is confusing in some way, please post it and we can work through it together!)
Reputable news sources including The New York Times and Frontline also published content supporting the narrative.
yada yada yada (I've found nothing particularly interesting after 2010 yet . . .)
Evidence suggests that the foundation's efforts were effective. Here's a summary of its impact, as well as criticisms, from the foundation's Wikipedia page:
- - -
Despite the fact that the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved in 2019, its ideas are currently being disseminated all over the place. In the cult content world, it feels almost like a flood.
Content creators I've noticed promoting or uncritically platforming the false memory narrative include:
Additionally, stuff about false memory is still showing up in traditional media like The New York Times (authored by False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board member Ethan Watters), BBC, and Forbes. Elizabeth Loftus, now in her mid-70s, recently performed the noble duty of assisting in the defenses of Ghislane Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein. (she has testified as an expert witness and consulted on hundreds of cases, but I haven't been able to locate a complete list)
So . . .
- - -
I hope you agree that this dynamic is definitely something about which all providers should be aware. The Satanic Panic required a therapist boogeyman, and I think that idea is less likely to work in today's context, considering most mental health providers are social workers (in the U.S. anyway), a vast majority of social workers are women, and all of us (fingers crossed!) are trained in trauma-informed and evidence-based practices. Nonetheless, I think we should take this dynamic seriously. (sidenote: maybe because therapists are no longer an easy target, there's currently a focus on so-called "cult leaders," the definition of which is loose, which may be by design)
The possible damage to people who have experienced abuse is still very present, in my opinion. I worry about all of the people taking in this content who have a trauma history, and what it could do to their self-concepts and their ability to function in the world.
- - -
After fielding many comments from users that support the false memory narrative (particularly on therapists and cults), I figured it would be helpful to include an example of the cutting-edge science that is currently being used to support the narrative:
After reading Calado's paper (pay attention to the methods section), consider that Otgaar, Howe, and Patihis (2021) summarized the findings as follows:
If you have questions about these papers or any other research you come across, please comment below and we can work through it together.
- - -
Two other things you might find interesting:
Please do link any other content you think is relevant. Thank you!
submitted by clover_heron to therapists [link] [comments]
I've been engaged with cult-related content for a bit now and I started noticing a strange dynamic: cult content creators (a majority of whom have no mental health training, no research training, and no professional background in anything trauma- or memory-related) have been reporting that charismatic leaders can implant memories into followers.
Cult content creators have also been communicating the message that reports of child abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) cannot be trusted because therapists and other authority figures can implant false memories of abuse.
When I first heard this, I was like . . . um, what? After hearing it multiple times I was like . . . what. the. f*#@.
Hopefully, most of us are already know that
- the false memory/ implanted memory narrative serves primarily to silence and discredit victims
- the dynamics of memory following trauma (particularly extended sexual trauma) are complex
- evidence for false memory implantation is weak (and if implanting false memories was easy enough for any random charismatic leader to do, it would be easy to demonstrate experimentally)
- - -
The belief that false memories can be implanted goes back to the 1940s-50s, when the idea arose to explain the dangers of Communist influence. The false memory narrative as related to memories of sexual abuse, however, seems to have first showed up during the Satanic Panic, which arguably started in 1980 with the release of Michelle Remembers.
Providers may find it interesting to note that this book was released six years after the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was first passed in 1974, after individual states had started instituting mandated reporting laws. Subsequent CAPTA history:
Additional requirements were added by the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984 (P.L. 98-457, 10/9/1984). The Children’s Justice Act program was added to CAPTA by the Children’s Justice and Assistance Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-401, 8/27/1986). CAPTA was completely rewritten in the Child Abuse Prevention, Adoption, and Family Services Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-294, 4/25/1988). It was further amended by the Child Abuse Prevention Challenge Grants Reauthorization Act of 1989 (P.L. 101-126, 10/25/1989) and the Drug Free School Amendments of 1989 (P.L. 101-226, 12/12/1989).(sidenote: The Franklin Scandal came to light around 1988 and the investigation was over by 1990. Never heard of it? Here's one book and another book about the topic.)
In 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was established. Its express purpose was to disseminate the idea that memory is unreliable and cannot be trusted absent external corroboration, and that this is particularly the case in regard to memories of sexual abuse.
New York magazine published an excellent article about the history of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - it's worth the read. This Nick Bryant podcast episode discusses related information and is also worth the time.
Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board, such as Elizabeth Loftus, Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, were active throughout the 1990s and 2000s generating material that promoted the false memory narrative. (so much material to possibly include here - I encourage you to just start googling. If you come across a research study that is confusing in some way, please post it and we can work through it together!)
Reputable news sources including The New York Times and Frontline also published content supporting the narrative.
yada yada yada (I've found nothing particularly interesting after 2010 yet . . .)
Evidence suggests that the foundation's efforts were effective. Here's a summary of its impact, as well as criticisms, from the foundation's Wikipedia page:
Reception and impactIn 2019, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved. (See ISSTD for a discussion of the foundation's rise, why it likely dissolved, and implications for the future.)
Stanton states that "Rarely has such a strange and little-understood organization had such a profound effect on media coverage of such a controversial matter."[7] A study showed that in 1991 prior to the group's foundation, of the stories about abuse in several popular press outlets "more than 80 percent of the coverage was weighted toward stories of survivors, with recovered memory taken for granted and questionable therapy virtually ignored" but that three years later "more than 80 percent of the coverage focused on false accusations, often involving supposedly false memory" which the author of the study, Katherine Beckett, attributed to FMSF.[7]
J.A. Walker claimed the FMSF reversed the gains made by feminists and victims in gaining acknowledgment of the incestuous sexual abuse of children.[25] S.J. Dallam criticized the foundation for describing itself as a scientific organization while undertaking partisan political and social activity.[2]
The claims made by the FMSF for the incidence and prevalence of false memories have been criticized as lacking evidence and disseminating alleged inaccurate statistics about the problem.[2] Despite claiming to offer scientific evidence for the existence of FMS, the FMSF has no criteria for one of the primary features of the proposed syndrome – how to determine whether the accusation is true or false. Most of the reports by the FMSF are anecdotal, and the studies cited to support the contention that false memories can be easily created are often based on experiments that bear little resemblance to memories of actual sexual abuse. In addition, though the FMSF claims false memories are due to dubious therapeutic practices, the organization presents no data to demonstrate these practices are widespread or form an organized treatment modality.[25][26] Within the anecdotes used by the FMSF to support their contention that faulty therapy causes false memories, some include examples of people who recovered their memories outside of therapy.[2]
Astrophysicist and astrobiologist Carl Sagan cited material from a 1995 issue of the FMS Newsletter in his critique of the recovered memory claims of UFO abductees and those purporting to be victims of Satanic ritual abuse in his last book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.[27]
- - -
Despite the fact that the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved in 2019, its ideas are currently being disseminated all over the place. In the cult content world, it feels almost like a flood.
Content creators I've noticed promoting or uncritically platforming the false memory narrative include:
- Julia Shaw (and her Bad People podcast)
- the hosts of Conspirituality
- Jennings Brown
- the host of Cult Vault
- the hosts of Trust Me
- the creators of the Sarah Lawrence documentary (director Zachary Heinzerling)
- Rachel Bernstein's IndoctriNation platformed Zachary Heinzerling
- the hosts of You're Wrong About
- the host of The Origins Podcast
- the hosts of A Little Bit Culty
- the host of Shadow of Doubt
- (anyone else to add to the list?)
Additionally, stuff about false memory is still showing up in traditional media like The New York Times (authored by False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board member Ethan Watters), BBC, and Forbes. Elizabeth Loftus, now in her mid-70s, recently performed the noble duty of assisting in the defenses of Ghislane Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein. (she has testified as an expert witness and consulted on hundreds of cases, but I haven't been able to locate a complete list)
So . . .
- - -
I hope you agree that this dynamic is definitely something about which all providers should be aware. The Satanic Panic required a therapist boogeyman, and I think that idea is less likely to work in today's context, considering most mental health providers are social workers (in the U.S. anyway), a vast majority of social workers are women, and all of us (fingers crossed!) are trained in trauma-informed and evidence-based practices. Nonetheless, I think we should take this dynamic seriously. (sidenote: maybe because therapists are no longer an easy target, there's currently a focus on so-called "cult leaders," the definition of which is loose, which may be by design)
The possible damage to people who have experienced abuse is still very present, in my opinion. I worry about all of the people taking in this content who have a trauma history, and what it could do to their self-concepts and their ability to function in the world.
- - -
After fielding many comments from users that support the false memory narrative (particularly on therapists and cults), I figured it would be helpful to include an example of the cutting-edge science that is currently being used to support the narrative:
After reading Calado's paper (pay attention to the methods section), consider that Otgaar, Howe, and Patihis (2021) summarized the findings as follows:
The issue of whether repeated events can be implanted in memory has recently been addressed by Calado and colleagues (Calado, B., Luke, T. J., Connolly, D. A., & Landström, S., & Otgaar, H., 2020). In their experiment, they falsely told adult participants that they lost their cuddling toy several times while control participants were told that they only lost it once. Strikingly, they found that repeated false events were as easily inserted in memory as suggesting that the event happened once. So, this study not only showed that repeated events can be implanted, it raised doubts about the idea that repeated events might be harder to implant than single events.That's it, that's the evidence that some academics are using to argue for the implantation of memory involving repeated events. Yikes is right.
If you have questions about these papers or any other research you come across, please comment below and we can work through it together.
- - -
Two other things you might find interesting:
- I came across a recent article that calls for an end to mandated reporting. Seems like the argument as well as the implications are worth thinking about/ discussing.
- This article suggests that the peer review process in the area of false memory/ recovered memory/ dissociative amnesia scholarship is particularly vicious, and may have resulted in the suppressing of authors who haven't aligned with the false memory narrative over the past few decades. Even if that's true, Loftus and colleagues noted in 2019 that people are refusing to buy the false memory idea. It's almost like the scientific evidence doesn't support it, and neither does clinical experience?
Please do link any other content you think is relevant. Thank you!
2023.05.14 13:04 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day In Michael Jackson HIStory - May 14th
 | 1975 - Michael had a private meeting with Berry Gordy to discuss the Jackson Five's future & after being denied creative freedom once again, the brothers started shopping for a new record deal. The Jackson Five had begun to ask to produce, write and record their own material in the previous year but all their requests for creative control had been denied. submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to MichaelJackson [link] [comments] 1985 - Michael Jackson met Ronald & Nancy Reagan at White House for the launch of a campaign against driving under the influence of alcohol. In the spring of 1984, Michael's team received a call from the Secretary of Transportation, Elizabeth Dole, asking for Michael to give "BEAT IT" as background music for a television commercial and a 35 second radio spot on the dangers of driving a car under the influence of alcohol. Even though the initiative was initially rejected by Michael, once he meditated a bit, he explained to his representative, John Branca: "You know what? If I can get some kind of prize from the White House then I will give them the song. How about?". Intrigued, Branca asked: "Like what?" Jackson listed: "I want to know the White House. I want to be on a stage with the president and receive an award from him. I want an event with children. And I also want to meet Nancy. All that. Why not? Can you get it? " Branca was given the task of obtaining a positive response in the shortest time possible, which was not entirely difficult due to the fascination of the Reagans with show business. And so, the meeting was scheduled for the morning of May 14, 1984. For such an important occasion, President Reagan dressed in a navy blue suit, a gray and navy blue striped tie & a white shirt. Nancy,on the other hand, chose a white suit, Adolfo brand, adorned with buttons and gold stripes. Nothing too spectacular to overshadow Michael's attire: an electric blue sequined jacket, adorned with sequined laces, a band of golden sequins, and epaulettes with golden sequins. He also wore his famous white sequined glove. Two thousand people in total, including officials, admirers and security met in the central garden to see Michael. Once everyone was up on stage, the Republican president pointed out that "Michael Jackson is proof of what a person can accomplish through a lifestyle free of alcohol or drug abuse. People young and old can respect that. And if Americans follow his example, then we can face up to the problem of drinking and driving, and we can, in Michael's words, beat it." - a brief speech of just 5 and a half minutes. Then he handed a plaque to Michael, a gesture that he thanked before the microphone with an even more brief intervention, saying a mere 13 words: "I'm very, very honored. Thank you very much, Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan." During his tour of the halls of the presidential residence, he showed his fascination with a portrait of Andrew Jackson, dressed in a military suit very similar to the blue sequins he wore that day. Until Michael's visit, only Elvis Presley, received this distinction, in 1970, when President Richard Nixon opened the doors of the Oval Office. Michael would return to the White House twice more during the terms of George W. Bush, Sr & Bill Clinton https://preview.redd.it/2l63xgrntoza1.jpg?width=406&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d379a245f4676eb1a3bf5ed31284f4be3805a1b1 https://imgur.com/a/blgeRL4 https://youtu.be/6CvGJQhweiI https://youtu.be/Z1CW2Ueg0Xk 1985 - Michael Jackson received a royalty check from Epic Records for $53 Million for sales from his Thriller album. 2004 - The Defense team headed up by Thomas Mesereau have decided to agree with the DA's Office of Santa Barbara to uphold the gag order in the case against Michael. Mesereau wrote that he and his client support the gag order and withdrew any objections to it made by Jackson's prior counsel. In court documents filed , Attorney Theodore Boutrous, who represents the news organizations, criticized Santa Barbara County DA Thomas Sneddon's condemnation of the intense media coverage. "Eliminating the gag order will ensure that more accurate information will be disseminated, and will reduce the amount of rumors, speculation and gossip about which the District Attorney complains," Boutrous wrote. The news organizations have been annoyed by Sneddon's clampdown on information about the case. They have asked the California Supreme Court to overturn the gag order on the grounds that it violates the freedom of speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Sneddon and Gerald Franklin, filed a motion earlier in the week, to the California Supreme Court to uphold the gag order in this case. He argued that the media was hoping to profit by pandering to a "gossip-hungry readership." He proceeded to write in his letter, "Despite the perhaps inevitable leaks, the public knows little more about the facts of this case than that Michael Jackson has been indicted on serious charges and that a jury will be asked to consider the evidence that may be presented to determine his guilt or innocence based on that evidence. And that's the way it should be." Mr. Sneddon's letter was a response to the media's attorneys that wanted the gag order lifted which was imposed by the sitting judge in the case, Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville. The gag order prohibits participants involved in the case to discuss any particulars about the case to the media. Sneddon argued in his letter that the news organizations have no standing to challenge the gag order because it applies only to case participants, not the media. He also said that such an order is required in a case that has drawn sensational worldwide attention. "What is reported as fact becomes the nucleus of intense speculation, conjecture and discussion among commentators, particularly in the tabloid media and the audience they appeal to," Sneddon wrote. "Gossip -- and the 'news' tidbits that are gossip's grist -- translate into income." 2009 - In the last Family gathering Michael Jackson , Prince, Paris & Blanket attend Katherine & Joe's 60th wedding anniversary at the Indian Restaurant, Chakra in Beverly Hills with the whole family including all the grandchildren. Randy is the only one not in attendance. This is when most of Jackson siblings saw Michael for the first time since the 2005 Trial.This is also the last time Michael will see most of his family, including Janet & LaToya https://preview.redd.it/ymta4jsqtoza1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d9db79c1cc1b5e4a6e8a50b87c739c372ec76d3 https://preview.redd.it/30ctpxrrtoza1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=263dc6bc87d46a7867420526e2a16f4db071ed6c https://imgur.com/a/HR7OaxG 2009 - AEG sent a second email to Conrad Murray https://preview.redd.it/yennivkttoza1.png?width=516&format=png&auto=webp&s=abd4412ada1e4772e6171db59dd6295a361096d7 2012 - Katherine Jackson & Brett Livingstone Strong give an interview on Piers Morgan Tonight. They show some of Michael's artwork Brett Livingstone Strong is the artist responsible for "The Book", the only portrait that Michael ever posed for https://preview.redd.it/97wsfsi0uoza1.jpg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2e956deae82ac485436e4f37c6c9732c95e4fad https://youtu.be/pYyJK9d2V7k 2013 - Jackson v AEG Trial Day 11 Katherine Jackson, Rebbie and Trent are at court. Choreographer Travis Payne & Katherine Jackson spoke briefly in the courtroom before the jury came in. They seemed cordial Travis Payne Testimony AEG direct Payne is wearing a black jacket with a gold emblem on the shoulders with the word "MJ" & a pair of wings Payne said he was concerned about MJ missing rehearsals. He didn't know why he wasn't showing up, but MJ was also working on an album and a book Payne said he did not think that Jackson had a problem abusing prescription medications. He acknowledged that Jackson missed rehearsals and he saw the singer shivering or appearing cold in some of his final rehearsals He worked with Jackson beginning in the 1990's and testified that he never saw Jackson drink alcohol or take any medications. Michael also never discussed his medical treatments, Payne said Payne told the jury he advised MJ he was looking thin. "Michael said he was 'getting down to my fighting weight', which I took to mean that he was preparing for the performances", Payne testified. "I had no reason to doubt him", Payne says he was satisfied with the response. Payne said there was one day (6/19) when MJ was cold. He thought the frustration had him on edge. When Jackson needed to be layered in blankets and required a heater to be comfortable, Payne said, he believed Michael was merely fighting a cold. "No one else was cold. He had flu-like symptoms" "Sometimes he was tired and lethargic and had to be, not convinced, but supported throughout rehearsals," Payne recalled Payne said that in April, May & June, MJ missed 5 rehearsals with the whole group. He said one time Ortega sent Michael home Bina shows an email from Ortega to Gongaware on Jun 14: "Were you aware that Michael's doctor didn't permit him to attend rehearsal yesterday? Without invading his privacy, it might be a good idea to talk to his doctor to make sure everything he requires is in place. Who is responsible for Michael getting proper nourishment/vitamins/therapy every day? Personally, I feel he should have a top Nutritionist and Physical Therapist working with him on a regular basis. The demand on this guy is mentally and physically extraordinary! The show requirements exhaust our 20 year olds. Please don't underestimate the need to stay on top of this"Another part of the same email chain, from Gongaware: "Frank and I have discussed it already and have requested a face-to-face meeting w/ the doctor... We want to remind him that it's AEG not Michael Jackson who's paying his salary We want him to understand what is expected of him. He has been dodging Frank so farPayne said his understanding was that AEG was paying Dr. Murray's salary not Michael. The doctor was there to oversee many things, Payne said. Payne explained he didn't have much reason to question Dr. Murray since he thought that a doctor selected to work with Michael was top notch. Bina asked Payne whether he ever met Conrad Murray. The choreographer says he met Murray twice. Payne says the first time he met Dr. Murray was at the Carolwood house. "I was going up the steps, Dr. Murray going downstairs, Michael introduced us." Payne was coming up from the basement to the middle floor. Studio was at the basement. Payne said he never went to the top floor of the house. He says the second time was at the Staples Center, after a rehearsal and Jackson was leaving for the day. Both meetings were brief. When asked how Michael performed on June 23 & 24 - "He was having his process, I didn't expect him to be like he would in front of a crowd," Payne explained. "He was not at show standards ... I didn't expect him to be as he would be in front of a crowd." Payne: "It ebbed and flowed. Some days were good, some days were not as good." The last two days were good. "I thought he was in his way to the goals he set himself," Payne told the jury. He didn't have any question that MJ would be able to perform , adding that he and others were impressed while watching Jackson rehearse at Staples Center on June 23/24, 2009. Payne described the day MJ died: He was headed to rehearsal at Michael's home, got a call from his mother who said she saw reports on the news. Payne heard news on the radio, called Staples Center spoke to Stacy Walker, she said they were rehearsing. He was told to go to Staples. "We were optimistic of his arrival," Payne said explaining they were expecting Michael to rehearse at the Staples Center. Payne said Ortega got a series of calls. He remembers Kenny say 'tell me something that will make me know it's you and that this is true' " I remember him (Kenny Ortega) collapsing in his seat and crying," Payne testified Payne said he never saw Michael drink alcohol or take medication but "Sometimes, in rehearsal, Michael would appear just a little loopy, under the influence of something, but mostly when he would come to the rehearsals from the dermatologist," Payne testified. That happened two to four times in the weeks before his death, he said. Payne told that he didn't think Jackson had a problem with prescription drugs , "Michael was undergoing personal cosmetic procedures, so he could feel great and do a good job," Payne said. Payne also said he appeared groggy in the morning sometimes, which he attributed to lack of sleep Mr. Jackson just explained to me that he had trouble sleeping, that he was tired, and that satisfied me," Payne testified. He stated that he's not sure how much weight MJ had lost Payne mentioned one day in particular at a meeting with Andre Crouch and singers, MJ seemed a little out of it Payne said at one point, he & others tried to bring in a top physical therapist who works with Olympic athletes to help Michael. Jackson didn't work w/physical therapist flown in for him. "At the last minute we realized that Michael was not going to go through with it. He was just not comfortable with the invasion of personal space." Bina played a clip of This Is It from Jun 4 showing the green screen and making of "Drill" and Michael talking about the cool moves, dancing. Payne said the idea was to show the rehearsals and how things came together. The footage itself wasn't altered, but there was editing. Payne said they picked the best of the rehearsal to include in the documentary. He wanted to reshoot some scenes but was not allowed. Payne, who was an associate producer on the This Is It documentary, said the footage of Jackson had not been retouched or altered. Jackson cross Attorney Brian Panish cross examined Payne. He asked if Michael ever performed the entire show from beginning to end. Payne said "No" "Was he ready to perform for an audience?", Panish asked.Payne's impression was that MJ loved being a father. He said he saw the beauty of their relationships, loyalty to one another. "When we rehearsed, we had meals together," Payne recalled, talking about Michael and all three children. Payne thought the relationship between MJ and Prince was awesome, Michael was a proud father, great to see how they interacted. Prince wanted to be a director, Michael would point out things to him during rehearsal should that be his career, Payne remembered. As to Paris Jackson, Payne said he saw a very protective young lady, smart, astute, with knowledge of the production, very hands on. Paris, who was 11 at the time, was "a very retentive young lady who was very, very smart, very astute," Payne testified. "She had full knowledge of the day-to-day operations, from the time of lunch and what it was going to be, she was hands on -- far beyond her age," he said. "She had a lot of responsibility, which I think she welcomed" Payne said she was "the female of the house," and also "a daddy's girl.""She really loved her father," he said. "At that time, she was coming to find out his global successes and presence, so she would wear her Michael Jackson t-shirt, headband and bag," he said. It was Paris who would bless the food when they were have lunch with their father at home, he said. "She was always the most vocal of the three children and was very concerned about many of the details of the house, was the temperature correct, what do you want to eat," Payne testified. "She just handled a lot for her young age" Blanket, who was 7 when his father died, was the most quiet of the three. He liked to watch his father rehearsing his dances with Payne in the basement studio of their home, Payne said. "He was quiet, but always right there with his dad," he said. Michael guided and mentored him. Payne said he would be proud if MJ was his father and agreed the children suffered a tremendous loss. When rehearsing with Jackson at his Holmby Hills residence, Payne said the singer clearly delighted in being a father and shared meals with all three "I saw the beauty of their relationships. I saw their loyalty to their father, I saw his loyalty to them. Their father enlightened them and taught them", he testified. "I was very proud to see Michael as such a loving father." Panish: "Was Paris a Daddy's girl?"His description of the close relationship Paris (15) and Prince (16) had with their father four years ago could foreshadow the significance of the children's testimony later in the trial. Payne always carries a video camera with him and shot videos of rehearsal. AEG took the footage that Payne shot and never returned to him. Email from Randy to Paul: "Make sure you take out the shots of Michael in that red jacket... He looks way too thin and skeletal."Payne said he was not aware of the email. He said Michael looked thin, but not skeletal. He doesn't know if Paul/Randy took any the footage out. The email was not displayed for the jury As for Michael's relationship with Katherine, Payne said there's no secret that he loved his mother very much." It is kind of common knowledge", he said "Karen Faye is a make up artist. She designed the make up, was always there when Michael was there", Payne testified. Payne said Faye and MJ had a long term working relationship. They spent a lot of personal time together. Faye was concerned and frustrated with how Michael looked. She went to Payne kind of in an aggressive way. Payne told her to report to Ortega. Payne said he wanted MJ to have a physical therapist, nutritionist, massage therapist, and have his family around. He said this was a different scenario. "This was the first time MJ was working with AEG," Payne testified, saying he had always been hired by MJJ production before. Payne said this was the first time Michael was not the sole producer of the show. Payne started working without a signed contract. He was being paid by AEG. Panish showed Payne's written contract. It is between Payne and AEG, beginning April 1, 2009. The contract said only AEG could cancel it. He testified that there was a delay in his contract with AEG because the salary was not in line with his standard charges, but that things worked out after he had a conversation with Jackson. Payne also said he believed AEG was paying Murray's salary, not Jackson Payne was hired and paid by AEG. His contract was with AEG. Panish: "Who could fire you. AEG?"Things became heated when Panish inquired about a text message Karen Faye sent to Payne that accused him of lying to the media after Michael's death. He said earlier Faye had approached him in an "aggressive" way about her concern for Jackson's health but he told her to take her concerns to Ortega. "I do not remember receiving a text message from Karen Faye asking why I was lying to the media," Payne explained. Panish: "Were you upset when MJ died?"During cross-examination, Payne was shown several photos of premieres for the This Is It documentary .Panish shows a picture of Payne at the red carpet premiere. He agreed he was happy about the premiere. In one, Ortega & AEG executive Randy Phillips flank Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo, who has a cigar hanging out of his mouth. All three are grinning. Brian Panish, the attorney for Jackson's family, remarked that everyone looked pretty happy Payne said he wasn't privy to details of what was expected of Dr. Murray. AEG was producepromoter, but MJ was the star, had to be happy Panish reminded Payne that he had testified in his deposition that AEG was "trying to protect its investment" "I don't have a dog in this race so I'm not on either side", an aggravated Payne countered adding that he felt Panish was being aggressive. "I'm just saying I don't want to be painted as somebody who's trying to mask anything". After several hours of testy exchanges with Panish, his voice quivered and he dabbed his eyes with a tissue. "I'm just trying to have a conversation with you and tell the truth." Panish asked Payne if defendants' attorney approached him during lunch to show him some documents. He said yes, he saw parts of his deposition Under cross examination, Payne acknowledged that some of Jackson's behavior, including grogginess, lethargy, insomnia and occasional paranoia, were possible symptoms of prescription drug abuse. He also said that despite testifying earlier that he worked with Jackson one-on-one five days a week, he couldn't recall how many rehearsals the singer actually attended Panish after lunch break got Travis Payne to concede Jackson wasn't present for a May 19, 2009 rehearsal. Payne also conceded that Jackson was a no-show for a June 22, 2009 rehearsal. Panish confronted Payne saying that yesterday he said he was with MJ at a dance studio on May 19, that they were up on their feet & danced. Panish: "Sir, Michael was not with you May 19, 2009, was he?"Payne said he may have made a mistake about Jackson's whereabouts & he didn't know his personal schedule. Travis Payne had testified yesterday that he and Jackson ran through certain songs on May 19th. He said today he was testifying based on the schedule and notes he compiled and that his recollection might be wrong "We're human, sometimes we make mistakes," Payne explained, saying he's not disputing that Michael was or wasn't there on those dates. Payne said there was always something for Michael to do. "He needed to come to rehearsal, it was part of the job" Payne said Michael had a hard time picking up some of the material. He was having trouble learning dances, Payne says. Email from Ortega to Gongaware: "He has been slow at grabbing hold of the work"Jackson was having trouble learning dances, choreographer Travis Payne says "Prior to June, I noticed Mr. Jackson was thinner than I recognized him," Payne said, noting he never saw sudden weight change in MJ. Second time Payne saw Dr. Murray was the night before Michael died at Staples Center. "I wanted Michael to go home and go to sleep" Payne recalls. Payne said something about Murray felt off, Payne said. "He didn't feel like an official doctor"Payne knew MJ had sleeping problems and that Dr. Murray was treating him for that. Ortega also knew; Payne thought Gongaware was aware too. Payne also said he and Ortega knew that Jackson was having sleep problems. Attorney Brian Panish asks if AEG executives knew. There were several objections, and Payne was only allowed to answer "No" as to whether Paul Gongaware knew about Michael's sleep problems Panish asked Payne about choosing Jackson's dancers for This Is It. Payne says they were whittled down from 5,000 applicants. Applicants submitted video clips and their submissions were used to cull down potential dancers from there. Payne said they received 5,000 applications for dancers, about 2,500 showed up for the audition.He taught them some dance moves, and the pool was further narrowed down. Michael chose the dancers Panish then asked Payne whether he knew how many doctors AEG interviewed to work with Jackson on This Is It. "No", Payne says. Payne also says he isn't aware how much interviewing or investigation into Murray that AEG did.(Panish's point appears to be that there was more scrutiny of backup dancers than Conrad Murray) During preparations for This Is It, Michael at times seemed "under the influence of something" and once couldn't take the stage because he appeared incoherent, Payne testified. Payne said he was aware that Jackson had problems sleeping and chalked up the singer's sometimes erratic behavior to sleep aids or sedatives from his dermatologist visits. "You have to understand that one always says hindsight is 20/20. In the moment I had no inkling of what, ultimately, what was revealed until Mr. Jackson's passing", he said Payne saw Michael tired and fatigued. He agreed that those symptoms could be signs of drug addiction. Payne was aware that MJ was losing weight during rehearsals and he had not seeing him lose weight like that before. "He was not in great physical shape and was sore,working up his stamina. Lack of sleep and proper nourishment were starting to show", Payne said. Payne says at one point, he told Kenny Ortega that Jackson appeared "assisted" (meaning that he thought he was on drugs\meds) Payne said some people were concerned about the goals not being met, including Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware. Payne learned what Demerol was after MJ died. He also remembers a mention of Demerol in the song "Morphine". Panish asked if MJ knew the lyrics of his songs. "I think he did, he knew most of them, but he wanted to have a Teleprompter for safety.He didn't want to make any mistakes, to refresh his memory. Also to use for sequence of songs",Payne said . Payne agreed that it was very unusual for Michael to have a Teleprompter with the lyrics of his own songs. He never used it before. Payne didn't specify which songs Jackson wanted the teleprompter for Payne said a body double was requested for Michael. Misha Gabriel was his body double, but shorter than him. Some of the scenes in the documentary are with the body double, Payne testified. Payne remembers at the Culver Studios in Smooth Criminal there was a stunt and Misha was asked to jump through a glass plate Payne said most the time, MJ was present at rehearsals. "It wasn't s big deal," he expressed Panish showed an email from the band leader Michael Bearden: "Michael is not in shape enough yet to sing this stuff live and dance at the same time. He can use the ballads to sing live and get his stamina back up, Once he's healthy enough and has more strength I Have full confidence he can sing the majority of the show live. His voice sounds amazing right now, he needs to build it back up. I still need all big dance numbers to be in the system so we can concentrate on choreography."Payne was aware that AEG was considering in mid June pulling the plug on the show. He said Michael looked exhausted & paranoid on Jun 19. Jackson's condition and missed rehearsals led to talk within the last 10 days of Jackson's life that AEG Live LLC, which was promoting "This Is It," might cancel the concert series."It was 'We've got to get this together or the plug may be pulled,'" Payne says Payne was working for AEG and said he relayed his concerns about Jackson's possible prescription drug use and that he was exhibiting troubling signs of insomnia, weight loss and paranoia in his final days to tour director Kenny Ortega. Jackson was struggling to get into shape for the shows, and Payne said his voice coach suggested using a voice track for fast-paced songs until the singer's stamina improved. Payne went to Michael's house on June 20. He was cold and had to light the fireplace and rub his hand and feet to warm himself up Panish showed a picture of Michael on June 24 rehearsing "Thriller"; Payne said MJ improved but was not at his best yet. Panish: "Around June 20, was Ortega in the mindset that Michael Jackson was not ready for this?" Payne: "Yes"Payne said Michael was not ready, it was not the Michael he knew. He died four days later. But he didn't see anything that alarmed him on June 23/24 Panish:" Did you see that Michael was getting pressured to get everything done in the last days?" Payne: "Yes"Payne said he could sense something was wrong, but didn't know what it was. He said Jackson's performances in the final days of his life were impressive, and it felt "like we were definitely on an upswing" "I never doubted Michael because he was the architect of this and he wanted to do it, so part of my responsibility was to help him get there", Payne said, his voice racked with emotion. Panish ended his direct examination of choreographer Travis Payne with three questions. Panish: "Did you see that Michael Jackson appeared to be pressured to get everything done at the Staples last rehearsals?"AEG re-direct Payne's demeanor changed after Panish finished questioning him. He was holding back tears when the AEG attorney started re-direct examination. For the next several moments, Payne blinked and dabbed both eyes with a tissue. It was the first time he'd gotten emotional on the stand. Bina in re-direct asked: "Do you think you could get him there?"Bina asked Payne again about how many rehearsals Jackson attended. Payne said MJ was present a significant amount of the days he was scheduled to work but he couldn't recall dates, precisely how many that Jackson attended. As to Gongaware's email regarding what was expected of Dr. Murray, Payne said the inconsistencies with Michael missing rehearsals warrant a talk. Payne said he thought Dr. Murray was there to care for his patient, making sure right nutritionist was there, to get him ready for the show. Payne never discussed with MJ about his doctors or personal affairs. Payne and Faye were professionals with each other, but not friends. "Production felt he wasn't coming to rehearsals enough, and that was frustrating to some of the staff," Payne testified. "I had a concern we needed to create a show Michael would enjoy doing it," Payne explained She also showed Payne photos from the This Is It premiere. First photo is of Payne shaking Jermaine Jackson's hand at the movie premiere.Bina also showed another image of smiling Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Marlon with Payne at the premiere. Payne cried saying he had been through so much and the rough part was behind them. He was pleased to show the fans what the show was to be. Jackson re-cross In re-cross, Panish notes that none of Michael's brothers are part of this lawsuit. Panish then asked Payne whether Katherine Jackson and the singer's kids went to the premiere. Panish says Katherine Jackson & her grandchildren didn't go to the premiere because they weren't over Jackson's death. Payne said he didn't think anyone was over Jackson's death when the film premiered in late 2009. Court Transcript |
2023.05.14 05:18 JoeKerr19 Operation: HEXEN
 | So a bit of context. i been fascinated by delta green and decided to say "Fuck it.". im working on a scenario based of one particular text/Movie that i been fascinated by for years. submitted by JoeKerr19 to DeltaGreenRPG [link] [comments] The Blair Witch Project Basically i'll be pulling every major piece of document from the players from this. Im working on a general outline and since i cant legally publish this (due to the rights and what not) i want to at least publish this one online for free. -but i do believe that Haxen Films will STILL kick my arse- Any suggestions, ideas etc... please feel free to toss them here! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPERATION HAXEN, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dated April 18, 1994, The Blair Witch Project was to be a documentary about the Burkittsville-area legend of the Blair Witch. Donahue intended to tell the story of the Blair Witch through interviews with Burkittsville natives, local law enforcement officials on the Rustin Parr case, and folklore experts. The heart of the documentary would be a weekend hike into the Black Hills Forest to visit some of the locations associated with the legend. Joshua Leonard was hired as the director of photography and his friend Michael Williams did sound. The three students went missing in the Black Hills Forest and were never found. On October 16, 1995, students from the University of Maryland discovered a bag containing films belonged to the missing students. The footage of the unmade documentary were turned over to the Burkittsville Police as evidence. The police analyzed the recovered footage whom they deemed the last footage showing the last moments of the missing students to be faked. The footage were kept in the police's possession until its legal limit of its classification ran out on October 16, 1997 and turned over to the families of the missing students. Angie Donahue, the mother of Heather, contacted the film company Haxan Films to assemble the footage and piece together the events of October 20 - 28, 1994. https://preview.redd.it/bj6zu5dqqpza1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=60f41b35818389af2dbbb6950a945db2d5e8f096 ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1996. Peter Shannon goes missing in the near area of Black Hills forest. A group is send to find the boy, among them former police and desert storm veteran Ellis Jeremy Lynch and his tracking dog Bullet. During this event, Sheriff Emmet Lanning was found dead as well as Todd Mackinnon (a lumberjack and veteran). Shannon and Bullet were found, he was severely traumatized due to the events. Ellis was Never found. Only ID found in Coffin Rock. https://preview.redd.it/i0kfn5t3rpza1.png?width=444&format=png&auto=webp&s=af7e9fcdf7c62482573f23d933f3d0c1b1db2280 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ During 1999. The Blair Witch movie has caused a nation of youths to head into the Black Hills Forest to try to uncover the truth and discover what exactly happen to the original Crew. Among these are Jeffrey Patterson (Tour Guide, Currently in Psychiatric care in the Maryland's Sheppard Pratt ), Erica Geeson (Wiccan Practicioner, Dead.), Stephen Ryan Parker (Mythology student, Executed in 2004) and his girlfriend Tristen Ryler (Dead), and Kim Diamond (Currently in a Woman's Institute). The group suffered what appeared to be a mass psychosis that leaded to the death of seven german tourists, one guide, and the murder of Tristen Ryler. The Group was soon arrested by Sheriff Ronald Cravens. During the interrogation, the suspects claimed that "The Witch influenced the group." and that "The Camera tells the truth." While this was a interesting deflection of the truth, the tapes showed otherwise. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 2014 James Donahue (Brother of Heather Donahue), Lisa Arligton , Peter Sullivan, Ashley Bennett, Talia Rodriguez and Lane Williams headed into the Black Hills Woods under the impression that Heather was somehow alive. They haven't been seen ever since. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2023. October 3rd, Rachel winslet (age 14) goes missing after meeting up with her boyfriend Derek Stephens (age 16) near Coffin Rock. Derek alleged that they had a fight and a breakup, she decided to walk alone. during the next two weeks, three more people go missing in the woods. Including the son of US Senator Katherine Martin, Jacob Martin. The FBI and the local authorities are send to investigate and find any leads, Among the group is Special Agent Rebecca Vera of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Agent Vera hasn't reported to HQ in 72 hours and its believed that she has gone missing as well, just like so many of the previous victims of the Black Hills Woods. Delta Green is send to investigate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Other events. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rustin Parr. November 13, 1940. Parr abucts Emily Hollands, the first of eight children during the next months. He brought the children down in pairs to his basement; he had one stand in the corner while he killed the first child by disemboweling them and carving symbols into their skin with knives. For reasons unknown, the final child Kyle Brody wasnt murdered. He would then repeat the same process with the corner child. Brody was forced to face another corner while Parr slaughtered the other seven, including Brody's friend, Emily Hollands. After releasing Brody, he followed into town while covered in blood and declared "Im finally Finished." Police hiked for four hours to his house and found the bodies of the seven children in the cellar. Each child had been ritualistically murdered and disemboweled. Brody was the only one who survived. The event tore the town apart. Parr admitted to everything in detail, telling authorities that he did it for "an old woman ghost" who occupied the woods near his house. On July 17, 1941, Parr was tried in court on seven counts of first-degree murder. He confessed to all of them, not knowing the names of the children. Parr expressed his apologies to the parents of the deceased and said nothing in his defense, though he agreed with his attorney to plead insanity. On July 23, 1941, the judge who presided over Parr's death turned up dead. His body was found inside the W.W. Smith general store. The shopkeeper Daniel Kohl was arrested and was considered the prime suspect, but he insisted he had been framed. Rustin Parr was hanged on November 22, 1941. Rustin Parr in Jail --------------------------------------------------------------- Ill be adding more details in the next couple of days, such as other events, clues, stats etc... |