Wednesday, 05 July 2006

Jurors in the Marc Schaffel case against Michael Jackson heard phone messages from the star. The messages that were left on Schaffel's answering machine were played to show the close relationship between Schaffel and Michael.

In one of the first phone messages from 2001, Jackson said, "Marc, it's Michael. ... Marc, please never let me down. I like you. I love you. ... I really want us to be friends and conquer the business world together. Please be my loyal, loyal friend. I love you.
Schaffel said on the witness stand that he had been working on some projects for Jackson and had arranged a $10 million line of credit for him.

Schaffel stated that Jackson had many demands including to look for a house in Beverly Hills, which would be a hideaway from his Neverland ranch.

There were several messages left in June 2001 dealing with "the Marlon Brando deal." Scaffel said Jackson had an idea for Brando to do an interview with him and Michael would interview Brando at Brando's island in Tahiti. The project never came about because of the enormous cost involved. Schaffel later said,"We had several meetings with Marlon. Michael wanted Marlon Brando to do several DVDs on acting lessons. Mr. Brando was getting up there in age and Michael considered him the greatest actor of all time."

Jackson had left several messages to Schaffel stating that Brando had called and wanted to know what was going on with the projects. In one call he said,"Marlon Brando has been pushing. He's a wonderful man. He's a god. He wants lots of money. He wants to get things done right now." The plan for the project changed because Jackson wanted to produce a TV show about Brando's life and experience as well as acting DVDs, according to Schaffel.

"What More Can I Give," was Jackson's other concern. The charity project was for victims of Sept. 11, 2001. It was never released because of complications involving Jackson's relationship with Sony. Schaffel stated that the record had costed millions because of 30 major artists having to travel. In 2003, Jackson left more messages to Schaffel saying that he now had a plan for the recording to be a charity project tied to the Iraq war. "It should be "It should be for America in Iraq," Jackson said in one message. "... It's a perfect cause. It means more now than any other causes." Some of the messages relating to the record were timed off between 2:05 am and 6:39 am. and Schaffel said that they were adjuncts to personal meetings with Jackson. " We have to do something regarding sympathy and unity for Iraq, " said Jackson on one message. "It's a beautiful thing. We have to do this, Marc."

Schaffel also testified about a trip to Brazil to deliver $300,000 to someone in South America. Schaffel never described the personal matter. In the 2005 Jackson trial prosecutors claimed there was a plan to relocate a family making accusations against Jackson and take them to Brazil. He said he withdrew the $300,000 from his own accounts that he kept in Europe for business. He said he was never fully repaid.

Schaffel had outlined hundreds of thousands of dollars he claims is still owed from Jackson. He claims that he acknowledged he was paid $1.4 million for his share of royalties from two videos sold to Fox television., but was still owed $664, 000 in royalties from those videos. Schaffel also stated that $100,000 were for legal fees after being named and unindicted co-conspirator in the molesation case against Jackson.

Source: AP/MJJForum

I remember the "What More Can I Give" concert in D.C. It was great waiting 14 hours to finally see Michael come out and lip synch about 4 songs. He tried to hide the fact by putting the mic up to his mouth and using his hand to cover his mouth and half of the mic simultaneously. People were ready to kill!! It was insane!

pkidwell said:

What a fucking nightmare!! He's done. What kinda comback can he make if he can't even sing. As far as this case, the Jacksons love dealing with con artists. Joe Jackson approved Jack Gordon for Latoya for christs sake.
[Edited 7/6/06 16:52pm]

there's a place
in your heart
and i know that it is love

I think what is interesting about this court case..besides the creepy phone messages and all that drama, is to hear about Michael's plans that "fizzle out." Hearing stuff like that he planned acting DVDs with Brando as a coach, or a special on Brando's life...very interesting to say the least.

Another reason why MJ's career is such a mess: he plans too many questionable projects that never see the light of day.He spends alot of money on charity singles that never even get released.This is ridiculous.

lilgish said:

I am not online these days so I can' t follow this case, but lilgish, why give up on someone for lipsyching. He= s not the only one who' s done this.

MattyJam said:

He's overused that line to the point of it meaning absolutely nothing anymore.

dag said:

I'm amused to see all these quotes from phonecalls and spliced up messages with the convenient "..." between words, and then months later they come out being about something completely different with entire sentences between those dots revealed.

Also, as much as I think MJ is a bad businessman and probably had all these silly side projects that came to nothing and hired most of these shady people during his "high as a kite" years, I think it's amusing that this guy Marc Schaffel keeps receipts for every $5 he spends at Taco Bell but doesn't for supposed multi million dollar transactions he alleges went between him and MJ (even though he seems to have taped their various random phone conversations)... when later revealed the transactions were between his own accounts. So MJ owes him for giving himself money?

You know what? I think this Schaffel fella is a bit shady.

Michael is seen as an easy target and has been since he paid out that money to Arvizo in 1993. I reckon Schaffel's just made up a whole bunch of shit to try and get his hands on Michael's money, like everyone else. He thinks he can get away with it cuz Michael invested his emotions in him.

Why?! Leave the poor guy alone!