Monthly allowances for Jackson’s mother, children will be urged

Michael Jackson provided full financial support to his mother when he was alive and his estate should continue to do so after his death, the temporary administrators of the pop star’s affairs plan to argue at a hearing next week.

In court papers filed Thursday, the administrators asked for approval to pay a monthly allowance to Katherine Jackson, 79. The specific amount requested is under seal.

“The special administrators are informed and believe that Mrs. Jackson has no other sources of income currently available other than Social Security income,” lawyers for administrators John Branca and John McClain wrote in the filing.

Jackson’s mother is caring for her son’s three children, and the administrators requested an additional monthly allowance for them.

According to the court papers, the Jackson children are beneficiaries of an insurance policy “but the insurance proceeds have not yet been collected.”

The allowances are among a host of issues Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff is to take up at a hearing Aug. 3. A 2002 will signed by Jackson appoints Branca and McClain executors and transfers Jackson’s assets to a private trust that benefits his mother, his children and a number of charities. The judge has not yet ruled on the validity of the will, but he gave its executors limited control in the meantime.

The administrators’ lawyers wrote in the papers that they are still analyzing Jackson’s affairs but believe that he owns the family home in Encino where Katherine Jackson lives. The administrators are paying the mortgage, taxes, utilities and gardener fees at the home, their attorneys wrote.

Jackson’s father, siblings and other relatives are not mentioned in the court papers, and the administrators’ lawyers wrote that “no individuals other than the minor children and Mrs. Jackson are entitled to a family allowance in this estate.”

Although Jackson owed creditors at least $400 million at the time of his death, his assets outweighed his debts by more than $200 million and the value of his estate has grown daily with the posthumous popularity of his music.

Additionally, the estate received $5.5 million last week from Tohme R. Tohme, a businessman who advised Jackson in the final years of his life.

In an interview Saturday, Tohme said he informed Branca shortly after Jackson’s June 25 death that he was holding the funds.

He said the money came from record royalties and was going to be used for sprucing up a “dream house” for Jackson in Las Vegas.

“It was a house that belonged to some foreign people, and it is not finished yet,” Tohme said. “It was to go for landscaping and some other things that would put [Jackson’s] touch on it.”

Jackson told him not to tell anyone about the money, he said.

“He said it was something private between him and me, and I honored those wishes,” he said.

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harriet.ryan@latimes.com