According to a doc friend of mine, LaToya would have signed the Death Certificate as the person furnishing info on the deceased, nothing more. Sad to say, but you have to be careful about her and take much of what she says with a grain of salt.
As for Tohme, I too think there is something there that should have come out, or will eventually come out. Strange that in all his many post 6-25-09 interviews Jermaine has not spoken about him, how and why he introduced him to Michael or whether that's even true. Not to mention why Tohme seemed to be running the show at UCLA....
Here's some info I dug up on Tohme – maybe someone here can get further than I did. I'm copying this from notes from research I did for a couple of YT vid series, that's why it sounds like I'm talking to someone.
Dr. Tohme Tohme has represented himself as:
a Lebanese business man
a Lebanese doctor (there actually is a Lebanese doc. living in the US since 1984 named Jack Tohme)
an orthopedic surgeon from Saudi Arabia
Ambassador at Large for Senegal (the Senegalese embassy in D.C. has never heard of him “we have two Ambassadors at Large and he is not one of them”
is partners with James Weller & Sig Rogich in TRW Advertising. His credentials on the website list him as Ambassador at Large for Senegal.
According to witnesses, Tohme travels on a Senegalese passport and letter of ambassadorship
Per the Associated Press, Tohme is “a financier with a murky past”
Tohme has also said on occasion that he is a US citizen, raised in LA, although his accented English does not sound like his first language
Tohme has a history of real estate fraud and making threats; according to The Today Show, Tohme “has been fingered in connection with many illicit real estate deals”.
In the 1990's Tohme filed bankruptcy but “fought the court, trying to hold back information”
In the spring of 2008, MJ was facing loosing Neverland to foreclosure. We are told his brother Jermaine introduced him to “Lebanese businessman” Dr. Tohme Tohme (always went by Dr., although there is no record of him ever practicing anywhere in the US & he's never said where he received his education/license) Tohme is friends with &/or was paid a fee by Tom Barrak, owner of Colony Capitol. (USA Today calls them “close friends” other reports are that Tohme was on Colony's payroll while he was working for MJ for free) Tohme and Barrak meet with MJ in Las Vegas where Barrak is “impressed by Michael's intelligence and focus” (USA Today May 2008). Barrak purchases the mortgage on Neverland. According to Fox News, Tohme was working for Colony Capitol at the time he was President of MJJ Productions, and took no compensation from MJ. (after the death he returned $5.5M to the estate, around the time Branca was conducting an audit. He alternately said it had been a gift, and that it was money he was holding in secret for MJ to buy a property in Vegas. According to a celebrity real estate site, as of June 29 Tohme was “contracted to buy a $5.8M mansion in Bel Air”
In September 2008: Rev. June Gatlin records a phone conversation with MJ (with his permission) in which he clearly states that he does not trust Tohme and that he is afraid of him (see NBC's report on Tohme on You Tube, various vids), that Tohme has cut him off from just about everyone else. (Tohme says he “built a fence” around MJ to protect him.) Rev. Gatlin advises MJ to have Tohme investigated. In another taped conversation he says that he has.
March 31, 2009: Per Fox News “Tohme has taken down his website for TRW Advertising. It's just gone. This was the website on which he claimed to be Ambassador at Large for Senegal.” The site is back now, but no mention of Tohme. Under “current work” are ads for This Is It and Colony Capital. I have lots of info on Sig Rogich and James Weller of TRW and long story short, they, Tom Barrak and Phil Anschutz are connected via Republican politics all the way back to the Reagan Administration. Sig Rogich is one scary dude, and his brother Ed is VP of Marketing for a hi-tech gaming machine company in Reno, NV and had a contract with Tom Barrak's Station Casinos and.......
In April 2009: Julien's Auction House in Beverly Hills is planning to hold an auction of some of MJ's personal possessions taken from Neverland with Dr. Tohme's authorization. This is apparently news to MJ, who says the items were never intended for sale and were taken from Neverland without his permission. He wants the auction stopped. According to affidavits, Darren Julien, of Julien's Auction House, said that James Weller, (Tohme's partner in TRW) on behalf of Dr. Tohme in his capacity as MJ's business manager, threatened his life if he didn't call off the auction “. . .lives are at stake and there will be bloodshed”. Julien says he has a contract signed by Tohme allowing him to take anything he could sell, even fixtures. According to one report, even MJ's beautiful front gates were to be sold. April 2009, with law enforcement involved, Julien and Tohme issue a joint statement that there will be an exhibit of MJ's things, that keeping them out of the hands of private collectors will give all fans a chance to see them. Julien says that he will return the more personal items to MJ.
May 2009: Julien's Auction House files papers stating that they cannot return property to MJ because Dr. Tohme is also laying claim to it, refusing to sign release papers. As of September 2, 2009 these items have still not been returned to the estate.
In the first week of July, Tohme told several sources “all his stuff is in storage and I am in control of it. . ..hopefully put it on display at Neverland”. Tohme has repeatedly stated that MJ talked often of turning Neverland into a Graceland type attraction “only 10 times as big”. Keep in mind Tohme's friend from Colony Capitol holds the mortgage on Neverland. “Dr. Tohme was charged with one thing, and that was to bring money into Colony Capital.” (Patrick Alacko, NJ promoter ) According to the London Daily Mail, “Barrak and Anschutz had bigger plans for Neverland: a Michael Jackson museum in the style of Graceland, even “Thriller” casinos.”
May 5, 2009: With the help of Frank Dileo MJ fires Tohme. A letter is sent to all MJ business associates that Tohme is no longer authorized to represent him. Despite this, Tohme makes a statement at UCLA on June 25 as though he represents MJ and stands near Jermaine as he informs us that MJ has died, is seen following a body to the helicopter at UCLA on CBS News tape, tells the NY Post “I am his manager” on June 26, and two weeks after the death tells NBC news that he is still in charge of all MJ business dealings. He states that he saw MJ two days before he died and that he looked healthy etc., even says he was at rehearsals. . .?? At being fired, Tohme goes into a rage and threatens to “bring death and destruction on Michael Jackson and the entire Jackson family”. Geraldo Rivera says this is a cleaned up version of the threat. (See Geraldo interview in “MJ Framed Again? Mystery Advisor Tohme Tohme” on YT)
Tohme talked MJ out of a 6 month concert series in Las Vegas and into the AEG concerts in London (AEG also owns Staple's Center and the O2 Arena). He convinced MJ that summer in England would be better for the kids than summer in Vegas (per Tohme interview with Contactmusic) The Vegas shows would have paid MJ $100M
From the London Evening Standard, June 26 2009
“Dr Tohme brokered a deal between Jackson and Colony Capital, a private-equity firm run by billionaire Tom Barrack Jr. Philip Anschutz, owner of AEG Live, the US entertainment giant which went on to handle the final tour, then received a call from Mr Barrack, his friend. Randy Phillips, AEG chief executive, said: "I got a call from Dr Tohme, who said Michael was in bad financial straits." Last December, Mr Phillips presented Dr Tohme with his vision. "Phase one would be 10 shows at the O2," he said.”
Per Fox News:
Yesterday, after many efforts, I finally pinned the 59-year-old Tohme down. A little. He conceded that he is not a licensed physician. “Not at this time,” he said. He refused, after repeated attempts, to say what kind of doctor he might have been at any time. His associates declined as well.
But the story is very much about Tohme, who has not only taken over Jackson’s life but has a certain conflict of interest: he acts as a consultant to Colony Capital LLC, the company now partnered with Jackson in ownership of Neverland. Colony bought Fortress Investment’s $23.5 million note on the ranch last year.
But Thomas Barrack, head of Colony Capital, says Tohme’s a “great guy,” someone’s he known a long time “in the business world, around L.A.” When I asked him how Tohme knew Jackson, Barrack answered: “You’ll have to ask him.” He did say it was Tohme who introduced him to Jackson.
Tohme is fuzzy on this point. “I knew him a long time,” he said of Jackson. At first he said he knew Jackson’s family, then he backtracked and said his relationship was with Michael. We never really figured that one out.
Tohme told me he set up the AEG Live deal, even though he was clearly not around in 2007 when I first reported the story. I asked him if he set up the auction. “I did not set up the auction, the auction is not going through!” This is in direct contrast to my conversation with auctioneer Darrell Julien last winter, who sang Tohme’s praises as the pair worked to put it all together.
“I love Michael,” Tohme said. “I want what’s best for him. When the problems with Neverland came, I was approached to see if I could help. I knew him for twenty to thirty years.”
“We had a certain period of time to empty Neverland last year,” Tohme said. “I was looking for a place for storage, a place to dump a lot of stuff like cars. I called Julien’s and asked if they could do it, come pick it up.” He says an auction could only go through with Jackson’s approval.
Last week, Darrell Julien told this column: “Michael has plenty of storage facilities. He wouldn’t have called me for storage.” True enough: Jackson at different times has had airport hangers at Santa Monica airport filled with his belongings. He’s also had warehouses closer to home near Neverland.
So what about Tohme Tohme, who’s not a doctor? There were a lot of questions I couldn’t ask him because he kept yelling, and refused to answer. I never got to ask him about a 1996 bankruptcy filing on record in the state of California. In the court filing, vs. Marathon National Bank, he listed himself as “Tohme Tohme, Doctor.”
A search of the Lexis Nexis database shows no mention of “Tohme Tohme,” doctor or otherwise, prior to December 22, 2008 when he issued a statement about Jackson’s health.
He was charming in our conversation. He said, “If you play it right, you will be the first one to know everything about Michael Jackson.” I said, thanks, I already was. He said that Michael is in great shape and could easily do 50 shows. “He could do a hundred.”
Per Portland Examiner.com: Just a month after Colony Capital's Tom Barrack held two days of lavish parties and tours to tell locals he had no plans to make Neverland a West Coast Graceland, lawyers for one of his companies filed 20 trademark applications for the names Neverland Ranch, Neverland Valley, Neverland Valley Ranch, and Neverland, asking the US Patent Office to protect their rights to "operating a museum in Michael Jackson's former home and providing tours thereof," among a laundry list of items.
The parties were July 9-10. On August 12, the current Neverland owners filed to protect the following: (Note the dates of the parties, just 2 days after the Memorial, 2 weeks after MJ died)
"Entertainment services; museum services- namely, operating a museum in Michael Jackson's former home and providing tours thereof; providing theme park services; entertainment services, namely, live shows and events; tennis and golf resort services; recreation and sporting club services; organization of meetings and conferences;"
"Providing facilities for business meetings and conferences; retail and online retail store services; mail order catalog services in the field of novelty, gift, and souvenir items;"
"Clothing, footwear, headgear;"
"Printed matter, namely, post cards, holiday/greeting cards, art prints, art reproductions, bumper stickers, stickers, decals, tissue/giftwrap, printed tickets, posters, wall calendars, flags and pennants of paper, printed and paper emblems, brochures, catalogs, and merchandise bags; books, namely, non-fiction books about Michael Jackson, activity books, address books, appointment books, coloring books, picture books, and comic books; paper and paper articles, namely, photographs, stationery, memo pads, notebooks, envelopes; pencil sharpeners, pen and pencil cases and boxes, pens, pencils, erasers, rulers, paper weights, staplers; binders, notebooks, stationery consisting of writing paper and envelopes, memo pads, writing tablets; paper table cloths, paper napkins, paper coasters, and paper mats; money clips;"
"Games and playthings, namely, plush toys, paper dolls, dolls and accessories, toy action figures, toy vehicles, toy cars, toy trucks, toy bucket and shovel sets, roller skates, toy model hobbycraft kits, toy rockets, wind-up toys, toy guns, toy holsters, musical toys, jigsaw puzzles, badminton sets, bubble making wand and solution sets, toy banks, puppets, toy balloons, yo-yo's, kites, baseball bats, balls of all kind; play wands, board games, playing cards, and children's games to play during travel; ornaments, and decorations for a Christmas tree; sporting goods."
The request was hurriedly abandoned September 8 after the story leaked and Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson told the media, "Colony Capital cannot do this without our permission."
According to CNN Money.com, Tom Barrak of Colony Capital owns a 1200 acre ranch/vineyard (Happy Canyon Vinyard) next door to Neverland.
Maybe it's just me, but it still seems like there's something wrong with this picture.
