Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris has filed a new legal motion accusing a “closely-knit, highly-compensated” group of lawyers of exploiting a lack of oversight “to skim money” from her late father’s estate.
Paris Jackson, 27, is one of the beneficiaries of her father’s estate along with her brothers Prince and Bigi. Michael Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50.
In the last few months, Paris has raised several concerns about “irregular payments” made by the estate.
Now, according to legal documents obtained by Us Magazine, Paris has filed a motion requesting a judge intervene.
Since Jackson’s death, his estate has been overseen by two executors, attorney John Branca and A&R executive John McClain. Paris is asking Branca and McClain to submit paperwork related to legal fees that they requested be paid to third-party firms between 2019 and 2023.
The motion raises concerns about the amount of time it has taken executors to seek approval for various fees, stating: “Executors’ profound delay in seeking Court approval for extraordinary fees and costs, and lack of oversight with regard to large non-contractual payments Counsel bestowed upon themselves, is concerning.”
It continues: “The five-year and growing lag inherently prejudices the ability of the Court and the beneficiaries to provide effective oversight. But the fact that this delay obscured the payment of non-contractual $125,000 and $250,000 gifts to Counsel is even more troubling.”
“No client would give such gifts to her lawyers out of her own pocket. Worse still, Counsel made the payments knowing that the beneficiaries long ago objected to the practice, and were less than forthcoming in their belated disclosures... at a minimum, these gratuities, and counsel’s preposterous declarations in support of them, raise red flags.”
The motion alleges, in summary, that: “As painful as it is to say in print, the present records suggest a group of closely-knit, highly-compensated lawyers is exploiting Executors’ lack of oversight to skim money from the Estate, in plain view.
“To make matters worse, payment of these gifts has been masked by the fact that Executors’ Counsel are only now requesting approval of fees from 2018, with no reasonable explanation for the delay.”
In response, Jonathan Steinsapir, an attorney for the estate, pushed back against the claims.
In a statement, Steinsapir said: “The historic turnaround and success of the Estate of Michael Jackson on behalf of his children speaks for itself.
“The Estate’s executors’ business judgment has generated billions of dollars for Michael’s children, and they have used that same business judgment to determine fair compensation for a world-class legal team that helped them achieve these unprecedented results, while also fighting back against baseless attacks against Michael by opportunists seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of the estate and its beneficiaries.
“The claims made by this new set of attorneys for [Paris] —who have no meaningful experience representing clients in the entertainment industry — are both baseless and defamatory. We are confident that the Court will reject them outright and will again approve the estate’s accountings as it has done numerous times over the last sixteen years.”
Last month it emerged that the estate lawyer’s claimed some of the legal fees were due to “issues” with one of Jackson’s ex-wives.
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