MICHAEL JACKSON ESTATE Claims MJ's Manager Royally Screwed Him

[pepper]

From Larry King Live Transcript, CNN, November 18, 2009-

"We had announced previously that Tomei Tomei the mystery person in the Michael Jackson relationship was going to be with us tomorrow night. He's had a dental problem, so he will be with us on Thursday night December 3, two weeks tomorrow."

(whoever transcribed this spelled the name "Thome" like the actress named Marisa "Tomei")

If you go to the link, scroll down all the way to the end.  It is the last comment of the night.

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[AKHTONI]

From Larry King Live Transcript, CNN, November 18, 2009-

If larry king is not in the hoax I am sure the day that michael BAM he will say "Jermaine fooled me with his lacoste tears  :lol:

[pepper]

Thome speaks to Today Show - July, 2009


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao_cmMxrOUw[/youtube]

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[pepper]

Thome also ended up not having to show for the trial...

March 28, 2011 - Los Angeles (CNN) -- "Michael Jackson's former business manager, Tohme Tohme, must testify in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, who is accused in Jackson's death, a judge ruled Monday.

Tohme's attorneys argued their client was not properly served the subpoena, but a process server testified she handed it to Tohme at his home March 3. A used car dealer testified Monday that he was with Tohme at an auto auction at the time.

"I am satisfied there was service in this case," said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor after hearing both witnesses."

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______________

April 21, 2011 - (CNN) - "Judge Pastor did not order estate executors to give the defense detailed financial information about money the singer owed when he died. But he did say that Jackson's former business manager, Tohme Tohme, must testify in Murray's trial."

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______________

Yes, from "The Daily Beast" - but it's all I could find that addresses Thome NOT having to testify after all!

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Sep. 29, 2011 4:49 PM EDT

"...Two weeks ago the presiding Judge Michael Pastor disallowed the testimony of many of the defense’s key witnesses...

Tohme Tohme Ramses:

Tohme Tohme—MJ’s manager for most of the year leading up to the This Is It tour. People like to say his office is the back booth at the Bel Air Hotel. Of Lebanese descent, it has been reported that he claimed on his company’s website to be an ambassador-at-large from the country of Senegal, but the Senegalese embassy disclaimed any knowledge of him. Tohme Tohme has often been described by the press as a mysterious fellow. But is he? Really?

In reality, Tohme owned a company called TRW Advertising. Jim Weller, (the W of TRW), creative director and one of the partners, according to the website, has won more than 2,000 awards including Ten Best in America by Adweek, created the “Where’s the Beef” slogan, and the TRW website states he was a former adviser to a president of the United States. The other partner, Sig Rogich, is a businessman from Iceland who was briefly the U.S. ambassador to Iceland.

Is Tohme Tohme really that mysterious or just a businessman who likes his privacy?

It was Tohme who introduced Jackson to Tom Barrack of Colony Capital and set into play the complicated negotiations that would then become the AEG-Live deal for the This Is It tour, which were intended to put back on his feet.

There is no question that Tohme Tohme adored Jackson.

Jackson fired him two months before the This Is It tour and brought back in longtime manager Frank DiLeo (who sadly passed away on August 2, 2011).

Shortly before Jackson’s death, I was told by someone familiar with the events, DiLeo asked Tohme to come back in and help, which would explain another thing that never made any sense at all.

On June 25, 2009, after Jackson was declared dead at UCLA Medical Center, according to multiple witness testimony in the preliminary hearing, Tohme returned to the Carolwood residence, took charge, fired the entire security staff, and replaced them on the spot.

What Tohme Tohme might have testified to is how much financial pressure  Jackson was really under at the time of his death, and whether Tohme had ever had an experience with MJ when he seemed impaired in any way.

Michael’s sister LaToya has claimed on numerous occasions that Tohme removed $5 million from the Carolwood residence (Michael always liked to keep a lot of cash on hand). And according to probate court records, Tohme did return $5.2 million to the estate (albeit a year after Michael’s death) that he claimed Michael had given him so that Tohme could purchase a “dream” house for MJ, a “retreat” of a sort, in Las Vegas.

As it happens, LaToya also went to the Carolwood house after Michael died and spent the night there. (Talk about a contaminated crime scene—although in fairness to the LAPD, they didn’t actually realize it was a “potential” crime scene until a number of days after Michael’s death.) Several people have asked me to ask LaToya about the Post-its. Don’t ask me what the Post-its are though; all I know is they disappeared, too.

Tohme Tohme likes to say that Michael Jackson wasn’t paying him anything.  That’s true. But he did have a piece of the This Is It tour. And rumor has it, he’s about to sue. (Stay tuned ...)

What Tohme Tohme Ramses would have testified to:

The extraordinary talent of MJ."

[Grace]

1) We have black and white cars and respective staff securing the area when moving vans were said to be taking MJ's belongings out of Carolwood on June 27, 2009. So it happened under the eyes and with consent from the police.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLAAEXGrg6E[/youtube]
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2) TT set up a contract to buy real estate in Bel Air on April 16, 2009.
He bought it in July 2009 for $5,8 million.
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Interesting that TT's house is located not far from the Hotel Bel Air complex and at a corner to Tortuoso Way, a small road supposed to be leading as a dead end to some well-mowed lawn property in the valley.  Tortuoso Way is now being closed by a gate at Stone Canyon Rd. as can be seen on Google streetview.
In some pictures on Google streetview, there's a moving truck coming to Tortuoso Way (despite on Google maps there's supposed to be no building at that address).
Well let's blame it on time discrepancy of Google maps...
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[hesouttamylife]

Tohme is a liar.  I believe that the 5 million dollars that Tohme returned was money that was advanced as a loan to Michael upon Michael's company signing and delivering a promissory note against his business assets as part of the AEG contract. 

5 million US dollars was advanced to Tohme as manager of Artisco, for Michael.  He probably kept it for himself or at least planned to .  However, since the concerts didn't commence he had to find a way to get back what ever he had spent before 2 Seas Records LLC sued the mess out of him.  bangbang

[MissG]

RK,
Synchronicity...I too have been thinking about Grace. I was trying to look into Nanny Grace for more recent news yesterday but wasn't able to find anything....
(still off topic, sorry)

add me to that synchronicity line

[RK]

RK,
Synchronicity...I too have been thinking about Grace. I was trying to look into Nanny Grace for more recent news yesterday but wasn't able to find anything....
(still off topic, sorry)

add me to that synchronicity line

Perhaps we will get some news about Nanny Grace now we have been asking about her whereabouts. How 'bout it TMZ?

[MJonmind]

Nice find, Grace!  Who knows, but as new pieces come to us, we'll see more clearly.


PureLove

I really don't know what to make of Thome. He can be the bad guy or the good guy. If he is the bad guy why wasn't he at the trial and why was he with Michael's "body" till they put him in the helicopter? If he is the good guy, why is the estate suing him and why Frank Cascio wrote those things about him?  

That’s where I stand.

[2good2btrue]

Remember this article by Gerald Posner.....MICHAELS MISSING MILLIONS


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As the world awaits Michael Jackson’s autopsy results, along with the expected conclusion on which drugs, and which doctors, caused his death, an equally dramatic mystery is playing out in California courts today:  How did the pop superstar’s massive fortune disappear?
Getting answers to that question has been delayed by the very people in charge of safeguarding the estate, The Daily Beast has learned. The singer’s mother, Katherine Jackson, will be squaring off today against the estate’s official executors in Los Angeles Superior Court, to determine who will control a fortune once estimated to top $500 million. According to several people familiar with the estate proceedings, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, this fight has delayed an urgent probe into what happened to millions of dollars in missing Jackson funds. Some of these sources say they fear that potential leads and evidence may get cold as those involved in any plundering scatter and have the time to cover misdeeds by destroying paper or electronic records.
Once, Jackson made an urgent call for $1 million to buy a piece of jewelry for Elizabeth Taylor—so that she would appear in a rebuttal to the Bashir interview.
Jackson’s 2002 will named two longtime friends, attorney John Branca, and music industry executive, John McClain, as the special administrators—today’s hearing involves a suit Katherine Jackson filed to make herself the third executor. Branca and McClain have spent the past few weeks consumed with negotiating a settlement with concert promoter AEG over refunds for Jackson's canceled London shows, as well as working hard to secure the estates’ major asset, Jackson’s one-half ownership of Sony-ATV, which controls the Beatles songs and other artists and may be worth $1 billion.
But some of the Branca/McClain team’s early discoveries are causing concern about how Jackson’s money was handled during the past several years; a Daily Beast investigation confirms that dysfunction engulfed the King of Pop’s finances over the last few years, a system “with remarkably few checks and balances,” as one insider put it.
Branca was involved in Jackson’s money matters, but had not been close to the singer since 2006, when Jackson let him go after 20 years of working together on and off. Then, on June 17, only eight days before his death, Jackson rehired Branca and reiterated his desire that Branca run his affairs together with McClain. Part of the difficulty in reconstructing the singer’s finances is that he frequently shuffled money managers, often had multiple advisers competing with each other for influence, and even the accounting firms that did the paperwork were changed several times over a decade.
In the early 2000s, before criminal allegations of child abuse were first raised, Al Malnik, a Florida entrepreneur who had been named once by Reader’s Digest as mob kingpin Meyer Lansky’s “heir apparent,” got involved with Jackson’s finances as an unpaid senior advisor. (Other than tax charges, on which he was acquitted, Malnik has never been indicted for any crime.) Malnik became “Blanket” Jackson’s godfather, was briefly Jackson’s trustee on a deal to repair Jackson’s battered finances, and the singer often stayed at Malnik’s oceanfront estate in Florida, the largest waterfront home in America. They had a final falling out when Malnik was later dragged into a lawsuit filed by F. Marc Schaffel, a gay-porn producer who had made two “rebuttal videos” to counter the bad publicity from Jackson’s “it’s OK to sleep with children” interview with Martin Bashir. Schaffel claimed Jackson owed him $3.8 million for his work and for cash he had laid out.
Malnik’s testimony offered a rare glimpse into Jackson’s unusual financial world. He said that the singer seemed “bewildered” by money matters. He frequently loaned Jackson money, all of which was repaid. Once, Jackson made an urgent call to Malnik saying he needed $1 million immediately to buy a piece of jewelry for Elizabeth Taylor.

"The reason was that Elizabeth Taylor would not sign a release for her participation in the Fox special (the rebuttal program to the Bashir interview),” Malnik testified. “He knew her well enough that he knew if he brought a piece of jewelry he could obtain the release, and that's how it was done." This at a time when advisers like Malnik were urging him to control his spending.
“'I think that Michael never had any concept of fiscal responsibility,” Malnik told a reporter. Malnik estimated that some of Jackson's advisers squandered $50 million on deals that never panned out—what he described as amusement-park ideas and ''bizarre, global kinds of computerized Marvel comic-book characters bigger than life.'' Attempts to reach Malnik were not successful.
By early 2004, after the police had raided Neverland and prosecutors were working at building a sexual abuse case again, Jermaine Jackson, who converted to Islam in 1989, introduced Michael to the Nation of Islam. Michael LaPerruque, Jackson’s chief of security, and other top advisers, were soon gone. Malnik was done. Leonard Muhammad, the chief of staff for the Nation of Islam, emerged as Jackson’s senior money adviser. Much later, there were reports that Jackson rented a Nation of Islam house for several multiples of its market price. Although the Nation of Islam was officially gone by June 2005, when Jackson was acquitted of his felony sex charges, the organization’s advisers and security personnel stayed close to to the singer until his death. When Grace Rwaramba, the nanny who took care of Jackson’s children for more than a decade, was fired in 2008 for trying to intervene with him over his drug problem, she was replaced by a woman from the Nation of Islam employed by Jermaine. On the day of Jackson's death, Michael Amir, aka “Brother Michael,” arrived at the house before the body was taken away. Estate administrators say they believe that Amir, who moved up from a film student to become Jackson’s executive assistant, might know where the bones are buried. Multiple calls and emails to him have gone unanswered. Leonard Muhammad did not return a call for an interview.
Randy Jackson, Michael’s younger brother, had organized his affairs during the trial and briefly took charge of the finances as Jackson was losing faith in Muhammad. But on June 13, 2005, Jackson left the U.S. for Bahrain, where he was befriended by Prince Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the son of the king. Jackson’s financial troubles had mounted through the costly trial, and while he was in Bahrain, under the influence of Prince Abdullah and his friend and lawyer, Ahmed al Khan, Neverland was even shuttered for a few days by state authorities over unpaid worker’s compensation.
After a financial dispute with the prince led to forays in Japan and Ireland, Jackson returned to the U.S. full-time on December 23, 2006. The new power player on the money front: Raymone Bain, a Washington-based publicist—also representing former Mayor Marion Barry and rapper Babyface—took over as the general manager of the Michael Jackson Company in 2006. Jackson gave Bain 10 percent of any business she brought in, while spending the first six months of 2007 in Las Vegas, at a $1 million-a-year rental.
That spring, according to a source personally familiar with what next transpired, Ron Weisner, an old Jackson friend who had worked with him during Thriller and was producing the BET Awards, wanted Jackson to do a “25th anniversary of Thriller” performance as well as present Diana Ross her lifetime achievement award. But Jackson was too incapacitated to appear. Instead, he moved to a 200-acre ranch in rural Virginia. There, he was closer to Bain and by August, published reports said Jackson was spending time with a new friend, Barry, best known for being ensnared, on a federal surveillance video, smoking crack while Washington’s mayor.
Although Bain still had influence, her financial control was on the wane after a year. She was replaced in 2007 for several months by Londell McMillan, Jackson’s attorney who now represents Katherine Jackson in the estate battle and the Jacksons in the custody dispute with Debbie Rowe. The Bain relationship finally (she stayed there until 2008) ended in a $44 million lawsuit for 10 percent “of monies which had been generated or were due to be generated,” filed this past May, only two months after Jackson announced his multimillion dollar deal with AEG for the London concerts. Bain contends she was responsible for the AEG deal, having started talks with them in January 2007. That suit is pending.
“Londell’s title didn’t change,” says Bain, “he was still just a lawyer. But the money was transferred to him and he ran things for three to four months.” McMillan, who was traveling and not available for comment, was soon eclipsed by yet another influential adviser: Ron Burkle, the billionaire chairman of the Los Angeles-based holding firm, Yucaipa Co., and a noted pal of Bill Clinton. Steve Mortensen, a Yucaipa partner, had offered some financial advice to Jackson during this trial.

“Burkle was a great friend of Michael’s and really tried his hardest to help him out of debt,” says LaPerruque, the former security chief . By then, Michael was obsessed with buying the Sultan of Brunei’s 150,000-square-foot Las Vegas mansion, and Burkle tried arranging it. But Jackson was too deep in debt to swing the deal. “But it was his dream,” says LaPerruque. “As far as Micheal was concerned, Neverland was tainted ever since the police had raided it in 2003. He wanted to buy the sultan’s home and move to Vegas.”
By 2008, Jackson was back in Vegas, this time at a hotel. Replacing Burkle was a Lebanese raconteur, Thome Thome, who was part of the final negotiations with Jackson and AEG for the London concert series. Thome, who could not be reached, is variously described as an herbalist, and although he says he does not have a U.S. medical license, he has at times intimated he has a foreign medical degree. By the end of 2008, he was Jackson’s sole personal and financial manager, and over several months fired a number of longtime Jackson employees. Although he has told the Associated Press he did it for no pay, sources familiar with the estate executors say they want to talk to Thome about allegations that he asked for large commissions, one over $30 million, as part of negotiating potential Jackson deals. ABC News reported that just a few days ago, Thome turned over $5.5 million in cash and goods from Neverland to the estate administrators.
Beyond the muddle left by so many financial managers, from quality firms to lawyers to people with no experience in handling such a complex and large enterprise, the special administrators have also learned that for more than a decade, whenever Jackson left with his security detail, one of the bodyguards carried petty cash, sometimes as much as $20,000. (The Daily Beast has learned that Jackson only once had a credit card, American Express, and that account was closed due to nonpayment.) At the end of the day, the person responsible for the cash provided a written report of how it was spent to Jackson’s executive assistant.
“When I was there doing that from 2001 to 2004,” says LaPerruque, “there was a meticulous system for providing receipts and reports.” But he had heard “horror stories” that before he arrived, whenever Jackson bought electronics or other high-end items, some of the security guards would order doubles and have the spares sent to their homes. Antique purchases would be marked up by 20 to 30 percent, sometimes with the knowledge of the dealer, and the extra money split. “A lot of money was lost since it was all cash,” says LaPerruque.
At the time Jackson made his will in 2002, his estate was estimated to be worth $500 million. But today it’s his debt that looms largest, at an estimated $400 million. As the special administrators try to make the best of a financial mess, they also are eager to start chasing what they think could be tens of millions in improperly lost funds.
“If Michael was as drugged as often as some reports now indicate,” says one person familiar with the estate proceedings, “then a reasonable question is whether his addiction made it easier for some to squander his money. If we don’t waste our time fighting over control of the estate, we can actually start to put all the pieces back together. It’s just the longer we wait, the harder it will be to find the wrongdoers.”

[voiceforthesilent]

That article was a great refresher from a couple of years ago to now when we see things falling into place, slowly.

I just cannot believe that Michael was that out of touch regarding money. There are even financial people who have stated that Michael was very astute when it came to finances. So which is it?

I also have a hard time believing, still, that Michael was that drugged out. But everything is in such conflict that it's hard to know the truth. Either way, I think it's interesting, though, that Raymone Bain was denied her request for her share of the pie and now they are going after Thome Thome. I wish them, and Michael, victory.

“If Michael was as drugged as often as some reports now indicate,” says one person familiar with the estate proceedings, “then a reasonable question is whether his addiction made it easier for some to squander his money. If we don’t waste our time fighting over control of the estate, we can actually start to put all the pieces back together. It’s just the longer we wait, the harder it will be to find the wrongdoers.”

[suspicious mind]

is there a possible place here where we have to asked did he have an addiction or was he drugged?

[Tink]

That article was a great refresher from a couple of years ago to now when we see things falling into place, slowly.

I just cannot believe that Michael was that out of touch regarding money. There are even financial people who have stated that Michael was very astute when it came to finances. So which is it?

I also have a hard time believing, still, that Michael was that drugged out. But everything is in such conflict that it's hard to know the truth. Either way, I think it's interesting, though, that Raymone Bain was denied her request for her share of the pie and now they are going after Thome Thome. I wish them, and Michael, victory.

“If Michael was as drugged as often as some reports now indicate,” says one person familiar with the estate proceedings, “then a reasonable question is whether his addiction made it easier for some to squander his money. If we don’t waste our time fighting over control of the estate, we can actually start to put all the pieces back together. It’s just the longer we wait, the harder it will be to find the wrongdoers.”

If you suffer chronic insomnia - you can appear to be drugged during the day (It takes me a few hours to reach optimum "wakefulness" without stimulants, since caffeine only fuels the insomnia).

Just FURIOUS that his detail would get the stores to mark things UP, and split the cash! It's supposed to be the other way around, for God's sake - you get a discount for CASH!!

ALL of these leeches need to be made an example of. NOW I know why Michael felt so imprisoned, and unable to trust anyone but his children.
Prayers for you, luv. Wish I could simply wave my magic wand, and fix everything!!

Managers are supposed to take only a flat fee - I see what happened; it's truly criminal, what people did, and attempted to do to Michael. They were bloody damn vampires, sucking the life out of him!

I pray that he's truly turning the tables on ALL of them, and recovering his money.

[everlastinglove_MJ]

Michael Jackson's estate sues enigmatic former business manager

The late singer's representatives have started legal action against Dr Tohme Tohme, claiming Jackson's former spokesman and adviser 'duped' him into signing poor contracts

Sean Michaels

guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 February 2012 13.16 GMT
Article history


Michael Jackson's estate is suing the singer's mysterious business manager, Dr Tohme Tohme. Eighteen months after Tohme himself sued the late singer's estate, accusing executors of withholding royalties, representatives of Jackson's estate have now petitioned to strip Tohme of the musician's property and financial records, as well as any right to his money.


"This lawsuit is necessary to finally put a stop to [Tohme's] abuse," according to court documents filed on 17 February, "[and] to unwind the self-serving and unconscionable agreements [Tohme] encouraged Jackson to enter into." Lawyers claim that Tohme "duped" his client into poor contracts, including an agreement to save the Neverland Ranch from foreclosure, collecting millions in consultancy fees.


Little is known about Tohme, who was described in his own press releases as Jackson's "official and sole spokesperson". He worked for the pop star from January 2008 until March 2009. "I'm a nobody," Tohme said in a 2009 interview. "I'm not important." He also described himself as an "ambassador at large for Senegal".


Tohme sued Jackson's estate in September 2010, shortly before the release of the documentary This Is It. Tohme was billed in the film credits as Jackson's "personal adviser". He is allegedly seeking 15% of the revenue collected by the estate, a sum amounting to almost $50m (

[Tink]

I see "financial advisor" listed as a real job in the USA. Financial Advisor can make as little as $47,000 a year, up to $350,000, normally. If helping a millionaire, perhaps 1%. But it depends on WHAT is in the contract. What few PAs I see listed, seem to be in England; they work up to 37 hours a week, and make under 40,000 pounds a year.