Financial Accusation Riles Jackson
In a videotaped deposition played for a Santa Monica jury Friday, pop star Michael Jackson said he was insulted by the accusation he would take money from a business associate to go on shopping sprees or buy jewelry for Elizabeth Taylor.
“I work for what I get,” Jackson told lawyer Howard King during the video, which was projected onto a screen in the courtroom.
“Don’t make like I’m begging from anybody. I have pride.”
Most of the nearly four-hour video, which jurors began watching Thursday afternoon and finished Friday, concerned Jackson’s failure to remember his own financial transactions. After the viewing, King, who represents former Jackson associate F. Marc Schaffel, made brief remarks to the jury and then rested his case.
Schaffel, a former pornographer, sued Jackson, claiming the singer owes him $1.6 million in unpaid fees and loans for shopping trips, work on a charity record and production of two Fox TV videos aimed at countering a documentary that led to child molestation charges against the star. Jackson was acquitted last year. Jackson, who has left the United States, will not testify in person.
He has countersued Schaffel, claiming that the filmmaker stole money during a charity event, as well as artwork. Jackson said he fired Schaffel in 2001 after learning of his past as an adult film producer.
In the video, Jackson said he couldn’t remember borrowing cash from Schaffel, including $375,000 for shopping in May 2003.
“It sounds spoiled, but it doesn’t sound like me,” Jackson told King in the video.
“You’re not a big shopper?” King asked him.
“Not like that. No,” Jackson said.
If Schaffel got him money, it came from his own account, Jackson said.
“I would never ask him for his money. That’s ridiculous,” Jackson said. “I would never.”
Jackson also said that he had some knowledge of Schaffel’s thefts, “but not in detail.”
Jackson’s lawyers began their own case by presenting a deposition from a property manager supporting the entertainer’s claim that most of his cash came from leasing his Neverland Ranch for cattle grazing.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday. Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor told jurors she expected closing arguments either Tuesday or Wednesday.