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Former Manager "Frank DiLeo" Back On Board
18/01/2004
Michael Jackson's arraignment has sent his lawyers and advisers into a scramble. John Hiscock, in Los Angeles, investigates the singer's loyal servants
It was one of the most publicised "secret" conferences ever held. Twenty-seven of Michael Jackson's closest advisers convened in a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Monday for lunch to discuss strategy for his coming trial. But the leading character in the drama was missing.
Jackson was at his nearby newly-rented home, meeting secretly with Frank Dileo, the manager who had shepherded him through two hit albums, two world tours and whom he had abruptly fired 15 years ago.
Jackson has never given a reason for getting rid of Mr Dileo, who had managed him for nearly six years; and Mr Dileo himself has professed to have been angered and disillusioned by his dismissal.
Now, however, all appears to have been forgiven. Monday's meeting was one of several that the two men have had in the past two weeks, fuelling speculation that Mr Dileo is back in favour and is set to take his place once again in the court of the self-styled King of Pop.
It is a typical series of moves by Jackson, who has long believed in ruling by fear and intimidation. He has hired and fired his way through hundreds of business advisers.
It may come as a surprise to those who only see him as a somewhat pathetic figure with a remodelled nose and a high, quavering speaking voice, but Michael Jackson is master of creating uncertainty and discomfort among his entourage.
Those of us who have had any dealings with him over the past two decades have filled Rolodexes with names and telephone numbers of people who at one time or another have been members of Jackson's inner circle. It is not uncommon to contact someone believed to be close to him to be told: "I don't have anything to do with him anymore."
The 27 lawyers, accountants and advisers who gathered for Monday's strategy conference have Jackson's ear. Such is the singer's mercurial temperament, however, that several could be out, and Mr Dileo and others could be in, before the end of the week.
"Michael is paranoid and thinks that if he turns every member of the team against each other he will have more control and will have a better team," said one former adviser who is hoping for reinstatement.
Even Jackson's family have in the past been banished from his circle and then reinstated. Although his brothers have publicly spoken out in his support and were among the hundreds who travelled in a "caravan of love" of buses, limousines and other cars to Santa Maria on Friday for his arraignment, their seemingly united front is roiled by resentment and jealousy.
Brothers Jermaine, Marlon and Jackie reportedly harboured a grudge against Michael for several years because he refused to help them by joining them for reunion performances of the Jackson Five.
However, his leading counsel, Mark Geragos, the Los Angeles criminal defence lawyer, is believed to be racking up billable time conservatively estimated at $640 an hour. Mr Geragos was at the singer's side as he arrived, 21 minutes late, at the Santa Maria courthouse on Friday.
Then there are the music lawyers, the business lawyers, the accountants and a somewhat motley crew of friends and hangers-on Jackson has accumulated over the years.
It is difficult to get an official comment on the current situation as last month he fired his publicist and loyal supporter, Stuart Backerman, who was the latest in a long line of public relations men entrusted with the thankless task of enhancing the Jackson image.
Previous spokesmen have included Lee Solters, who also worked for Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, and Howard Rubenstein, the noted New York public relations executive who charged him £6,000 a month for two years and whom Jackson later professed not to remember.
The slew of high-priced managers who have come and gone over the years include Sandy Gallin, who for six years was involved with all phases of his business, the billionaire music mogul David Geffen, and Dieter Wiesner, the German entrepreneur. Now, however, the man making most of Jackson's business decisions is Charles Koppelman, a veteran music publisher who joined the Jackson team a year ago.
He is one of the three confidants who, at the moment, are closest to Jackson. The others are John Branca, one of the music industry's most powerful lawyers, and Al Malnik. Mr Malnik is thanked by Jackson on his latest Greatest Hits album.
Mr Branca was an obscure 29-year-old tax lawyer when he was first assigned to work on the Michael Jackson account in 1979. Over the next decade, he assumed a much larger role in Jackson's affairs, ushering him through his meteoric rise to fame in the 1980s.
In the process, Mr Branca reaped millions of dollars in fees - not to mention, as thank-you presents from Jackson, two Rolls-Royces. He didn't, however, remain in favour. Jackson and his then-advisers fired Mr Branca in 1990, but he rejoined the team when the star was battling child molestation charges three years later.
Why anyone should support Jackson is probably attributable to the song-catalogues he owns - including that of the Beatles - and which still generate a huge income for him.
Joining the three at the head of the table at Monday's meeting was Leonard Muhammad, a high-ranking official of the Nation of Islam - a Chicago-based Afro-American Muslim separatist movement - and the son-in-law of Louis Farrakhan, the organisation's leader.
Members of the group have been acting as Jackson's bodyguards but Mr Muhammad and Jackson's advisers claim that it has no role in directing Jackson's business affairs.
"Michael is in complete charge," insists Mr Branca. And to help prove it, on Thursday Jackson added another heavyweight lawyer to his legal team. He approved the hiring of Benjamin Brafman, the New York lawyer who successfully defended the rapper Sean Puffy Combs on charges of gun possession and bribery.
One person who was there but has no professional expertise is Frank Tyson, a young man now in his twenties who was 13 years old when he met Jackson. Since then Mr Tyson has travelled the world with the pop star and is rarely far from his side.
Source: Telegraph [UK]
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