Telling Michael to write his own checks and comparing him to other people's advice is a bit farfetched. MJ is in a different industry, the music industry where it's almost impossible to write your own cheques.
Look at all the musicians, intelligent, knowledgeable, who complain of having been cheated out of their wealth, some bankrupt. Michael was direct when he said this in that deposition, that everyone knows the entertainment industry is full of schmucks and impostors. Some of the greatest, including Osmonds, have been cheated and driven to bankruptcy by this kind of thing. Michael should be commended that he's still standing strong.
Let's say Justin hires a tour promoter. With all that stuff comes a bunch of others, lawyers, costume designers, accountants, producers.
Justin cannot handle all that stuff, as well as stage and performance preparation and a lot of other endless stuff. He has to get a manager or a team to manage. and brief him.
Now when the manager he gets cheats him, the accountants cheat him, the lawyers cheat him, the tour promoters cheat him, if they are not giving him the right information, there is no way MJ can go through the multitude of books, receipts to check that out. Even a forensic auditor takes months as happened in the Schaffel case.
Now picture Michael with his vast music empire. It's a nightmare. As you saw with LeGrand, his managers. His managers tell him to fire LeGrand. Meanwhile, LeGrand is onto his managers for fraud. Then he has Bashir messing him up, Sony messing him up, Steeltown dragging him into a lawsuit that's not his business, and believe me, it's tough to know what to do, you are caught in a spin, who do you trust? who do you mistrust? The manager? The lawyers?
That's why when this stuff happened in 2003, the first thing Randy did was to fire everyone around Michael. Even before that, all the other people were locked out.
The Cheque thing doesn't register because most of these people, MJ has not written a cheque for them. They try to push themselves into his business, or someone tries to bring them in as Schaffel pushed himself in after the Bashir doc, that's when he had been fired. That's a crisis moment when MJ doesn't know who is doing what. It's his managers who have brought Schaffel in. He gets fired again and then sues for millions.
Ayscough is brought in to defend what is a bogus case, he doesn't do satisfactory work and is terminated, then he also sues and in filings, releases what Michael owes others.
Schaffel and Ayscough know the media does not like Michael, so they engage in defamation and slander to give them an edge and force MJ to give in to their inflated claims. They make threats in private and in public. Schaffel begins that stuff of tapes and a lot of other stuff he said and did, including that stuff about adopting kids in Brazil. The media only reports one side of the story which is slander. Have you ever heard the media talk about part 2 of the Schaffel case?
Michael fired Myung Ho Lee for the same reason, attempting to defraud him with a forged signature for $13million. How many in the media report that?
Then he has to deal with negativity that judges and potential jurors read about him.
MJ pays his bills. It has come to a point that to avoid being taken advantage of, he cannot even attend a family wedding so as not to meet strangers.
He gets sued by people he has never met and judges don't throw out what are bogus cases, forcing MJ to spend money. He had to spend money on Kapon, Bartucci and the woman claiming to be the mother of his 2 kids when surely all the judge needs is are the birth certificates from the hospital where they were born and then the weight falls on the woman to prove otherwise. But when MJ sues claiming threats, a judge immediately throws it out saying there is no merit. Why not let the jurors decide if there is no merit? Then wants to force MJ to answer questions.
Everyone comes with inflated figures, the media reports that and one side of the story. Then some here jump on the bandwagon to bash Michael. I wish it was as simple as "writing your own cheques". People get recommended to Michael as trustworthy. When they get to him, they turn and reveal their evil side. Uri Geller referred Bashir as a "respected journalist" and MJ repeated that statement to Bashir. Then what happened? The accountants were referred to MJ as reputable, then what happened? And some here find it easy to say "MJ pay your bills". Would you freely pay any fraudster who walked your way and dragged you into court? Why should MJ do so? Let him fight them in court so that they know MJ will not cough up anyhow. No easy money. No claiming millions. They will have to prove what MJ owes them, which is far better MJ paying that plus legal costs than paying millions for nothing only to attract more leaches that think they will get easy money after Chandlers. All these stems from Chandlers. Everyone who scams MJ knows that was a scam so they also think of easy money but MJ is changing that tide and they now realize they will have to fight in court for every penny
MJ who has about $5million a year legal budget is far better off that way, spending $300,000 here, $200,000 there on legal cases, than giving in to Schaffel's $3million here and another million dollar extortion there.
What it then adds up to is that instead of MJ giving in to Schaffel for $3million, he spends only $900,000 plus legal costs. Not forgetting $200,000 to MJ and stage 2. MJ's current strategy is the best. Fight the cases. Appeal as far as you can. Because only then will these scams subside when they know MJ is ready to go all the way. When these leeches are seated in the cafes discussing who is an easy target to make money off, MJ's name is now starting to get off that list. One leech will tell the other "man, that Jackson is not easy now, I sued him, my case was reduced, and he still appealed, the guy does not relent now".
I would rather have that than "man, I made easy money on that Jackson. You know he fears negative publicity. If you can just get to him then make money, steal from his accounts. If he cuts you off, sue millions, create slander and leak to Roger Friedman, he'll just give in rather than fight and you have made yourself some free millions."
Michael needs to ignore hysterical fans who don't know better and refuse to pay. Fight and appeal all the way. What else can the media do? What more negative publicity can they generate than they did in 2005? Michael does not pay? Someone will pick up the newspaper, read that, drop it and move on with their lives. Let's say the media says Madonna does not pay her bills, who is it going to bother? Someone will read it one day and then move on. They will say, well it's her problem. Only Madonna fans may care. And with that, as long as MJ fans know he's handling his business, there's no need to fret.
And this shows from MJ's lawyer who was happy with the outcome, paying far less than Ayscough asked for.
