Longtime Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman no longer "of counsel"
This has been brewing for some time. In mid-March, Court TV caught Oxman on videotape, yelling into his cell phone about harmony and respect — and making references to Jackson wanting to fire someone on his legal team.
There have been constant rumors for weeks here at the courthouse over how long Oxman would remain on this case. Thing is, he’s been with the Jackson family for 15 years, and there’s been growing friction with Tom Mesereau — who’s the 4th defense attorney Michael Jackson has had since being charged with child molestation.
There was Mark Geragos, Benjamin Braffman, and Steve Cochran — but Oxman was the continuity that ran through it all, even though he wasn’t given a speaking part in this courtroom drama other than to comment on Michael’s condition when Jackson came down with the flu.
He hadn’t been around the courthouse for a week. Court watchers say he wasn’t supposed to be here yesterday. But when he arrived, Jackson gave him a hug and a fan gave him a Bubbles the Chimp doll. When he walked into court, Oxman found no chair at the defense table — Mesereau and company telling him to sit in the public seats where he was handed his walking papers.
After court yesterday, we watched Oxman having an animated, finger-pointing conversation with Mesereau. And then they hugged. And then a terse court document by Mesereau was released by the court saying, “Please take notice that effective April 21, 2005, Mr. Brian Oxman will no longer be of counsel of record in this proceeding.”
No aspersions on Oxman, but Tom Mesereau isn’t the kind of man who suffers fools gladly. He likes things his way. He walked away from Robert Blake when Blake decided to plead his case to the public in an interview with Barbara Walters.
Oxman is a Loyola Law School graduate based in Santa Fe Springs. His former clients include former California governor Jerry Brown. His last big moment at trial? Being wheeled out of court on a gurney last month when he came down with pneumonia in his right lung.
This morning, Mesereai made two trips to the parking lot to fetch his legal documents. One less lawyer to help with the heavy lifting.
O N T H E S T A N D
Travel agent backs up the tale of
banishment to Brazil. Accuser's mom
not crazy after all? But was Jackson
in on the plot?
Prosecutors searched for a smoking gun. A smoking plane ticket actually, through the testimony of travel broker Cynthia Montgomery. On February 25, 2003, Montgomery reserved seats for the accuser, his mother, brother and sister on a commercial flight from Los Angeles to São Paulo, Brazil departing March 1.
Ticket price for coach: $15,092. “They were open tickets,” she explained, “they’re expensive.”
Mark Schaffel, a Jackson aide and business partner in Neverland Valley Entertainment, made the reservations and wanted the tickets to be one-way, said Montgomery, backing the prosecution’s contention that banishment to Brazil was to have been permanent. Brazil, however, doesn’t allow visitors carrying only one-way passage, so Montgomery made ‘em round trip, picking the return date out of a hat.
11520 Trent Court, Calabasas, California was the address given for the accuser’s family by Schaffel, but a check of online maps and the postal service Zip code database shows no such address exists. A deputy took the stand late in the morning and said as much.
Montgomery also corroborated previous testimony by flight attendants that Jackson requested his wine be put in soda cans when he flew on charter flights, but she contradicted stewardess Cindy Bell’s claim the idea was hers. Montgomery says the pop can gag was strictly Jackson’s.
But wait! The Brazil tickets were never purchased. That came out under Tom Mesereau’s cross examination. Schaffel had told Montgomery there was a change of plan, though he flew off to São Paulo on his on, on schedule. Schaffel reportedly has a porn studio there.
Had Montgomery ever talked to Jackson or the accuser’s family about the flights? No, she said, as Mesereau tried to put distance between Jackson and the alleged plot, and tried to link Montgomery to Schaffel. They have known each other some 20 years.
There was also plenty of character assassination. “You are testifying under what’s called ‘immunity,’ right?” Mesereau began. “And if you didn’t receive a grant of immunity you wouldn’t testify here today?” Montgomery claimed that tactic was her attorney’s idea. “That’s what he gets paid for.” The jury launched into note-taking mode, big time.
Montgomery is facing an ongoing FBI investigation into the illegal videotaping of Jackson as he flew on a chartered XtraJet from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara on the day of his arrest. Later, those tapes would be offered for sale to the media. Montgomery arranged the flight, and tagged along in an XtraJet chase plane, but was never reimbursed for the $50,000 she plunked down in cash at XtraJet’s Santa Monica office. She’s now suing Jackson for the tab.
Turns out Montgomery is something of a snitch, too. She became a Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department informant and provided corroboration to their claims that Jackson was not manhandled by deputies when he surrendered. She also secretly taped phone conversations with deputies.
V I D E O P R O D U C E R T R U M P S M O M
Jackson videographer shoots rebuttals,
blows holes accuser's mom's story
Hamid Muslehi produced two rebuttal videos. One featured Jackson’s ex Debbie Rowe. In the other — the accuser, his mother and family. But in his testimony today, Muslehi shot down the mom’s contention she’d been forcibly rehearsed for her performance over ten grueling days.
As Muslehi told it, the video came together so quickly, so in a panic, it’s hard to see how rehearsals could have happened. He says the idea of making a rebuttal video was never broached with the mother until hours before it took place.
The kids were at Neverland. Muslehi, too. He phoned the mother, then in Los Angeles. She was against the idea at first, saying, since the Bashir special had aired, “my life has been turned upside-down. The last thing I want is another video.” 
But within hours, she was center stage and tape was rolling at Muslehi’s house. Jackson associate Mark Schaffel wanted to shoot it there because he didn’t want the accuser’s mom to know where he lived, Muslehi testified.
Muslehi had driven the kids to L.A. in his BMW, followed by his camera crew. Neverland manager Joe Marcus had told him the kids were not allowed to leave the property, but it’s unclear whether that qualifies as imprisonment, or something more benign — the house rule that kids unaccompanied by parents were not to leave the ranch.
Muslehi said nothing about a script — a document that must have been as thick as The Lord of the Rings trilogy in order to cover all the verbatim dialogue, laughter and outtakes the mother claims had been written for her and the kids.
Muslehi's second video profiled Jackson ex Debbie Rowe, though he had little to say about it. Just this: it had been shot Mark Schaffel’s home. Music video director Christopher Robinson was there, along with an interviewer. Schaffel took the tapes.
Muslehi says he has been stiffed for a quarter million dollars for this, and other work by Jackson. Like Montgomery and God knows how many others, he has joined the long line of folks with suits pending the King of Pop.
Tomorrow, Rowe will likely testify that Jackson called her to leverage visitation rights with their children Paris and Prince Michael if Rowe would play ball and record that video.
Her testimony will be the climax of the prosecution case and a stellar moment of courtroom drama and Zen. Be here tomorrow for the scoop. K?
Comments