Randy Phillips Testimony - Day1

 
Michael Jackson - The Mexico deposition - 1993 Part 1/17 from sol kim on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

Michael made a highly publicized announcement in 1993 that he was ending his "Dangerous" tour early to enter a substance abuse rehab program because of an addiction to painkillers. His last "Dangerous" concert was in Mexico on November 11 1993, and the video above was a deposition recorded November 8.

"I don't remember hearing it," Phillips testified, referring to the tour cancellation.

"When's the first time you heard?" Jackson lawyer Brian Panish asked.

"Just now," Phillips responded.

 

Phillips said he didn't learned about it from a December 2008 news story focusing on Jackson's drug abuse and rehab, even though he sent it in an e-mail to Jackson's manager saying:

"Have you read these stories? This reporter did a lot of research."

 

"I don't remember reading it," Phillips testified.

 

 What's up Phillips, have you the same memory loss problem as Paul Gongaware - see my post here? Are we really meant to believe that the CEO of such a huge concert promoter neither heard of nor researched this before 2013. It's laughable. But I see why he's saying this: if he admits he knew Michael's drug history AND ignored warnings that Michael was too ill to perform, he is going to make AEG liable and he's not going to do anything to let THAT happen now is he?

 

 

Phillips began worrying about Michael backing out of the concert tour just a month after he signed the contract with AEG Live to promote and produce it and more than a week before the announcement. OK, so what specifically was worrying Phillips? If Phillips allegedly had no knowledge of Michael being ill or taking drugs, what prompted this even before the announcement of the concerts took place?

 

 

"I was worried that we would have a mess, his career would be over," Phillips testified. "There were a lot of things I was worried about."

 

 

But instead of pulling the plug then, before millions of dollars were spent, AEG Live chose to force Michael ahead.

 

 

"Once we go on sale, which we have the right to do, he is locked," Gongaware wrote to Phillips.

 

 

Michael, his children and manager Tohme Tohme boarded a private jet for the London announcement, but he was not ready when Phillips went to his hotel suite to escort him to the O2 Arena.

 

 

"MJ is locked in his room drunk and despondent. Tohme and I are trying to sober him up and get him to the press conference with his hair/makeup artist," Phillips told parent-company AEG CEO Tim Leiweke in an e-mail.

 

 

Phillips testified it was "a very tense situation" and "frankly, I created the tension in that room. Because I was so nerve-racked, OK, the time slipping away, and his career slipping away."

 

 

AEG was hosting thousands of Michael Jackson fans and hundreds of journalists for the anticipated announcement, which would be seen live around the world.

 

 

 

 

"I screamed at him so loud the walls were shaking," Phillips wrote to Leiweke. "Tohme and I have dressed him, and they are finishing his hair, and then we are rushing to the O2. This is the scariest thing I have ever seen. He's an emotionally paralyzed mess, filled with self-loathing and doubt now that it is show time. He is scared to death. Right now I just want to get through this press conference."

 

 

Phillips e-mailed a man who was waited outside the hotel with a convoy of vehicles that he put Jackson in a cold shower and "just slapped him and screamed at him."

 

 

In court, Phillips downplayed his words as "an exaggeration."
Yes, of course he did, because if Phillips admits he was REALLY worried and concerned, the are going to ask him WHY.

 

 

"I slapped him on the butt," he testified, comparing it to what a football coach would do to a player.

 

 

Michael arrived at the 02 more than two hours late to announce: "This is it. This is really it. This is the final curtain call. OK, I'll see you in July."

 

  

"Now I have to get him on the stage. Scary!" Phillips wrote in an e-mail to another promoter.

 

 

Jackson lawyers contend this fear led AEG Live executives to take control of Michael's life as he prepared in Los Angeles to premiere the tour in London in July of 2009.

 

 

Show producers sent warnings in mid-June that Jackson's health appeared to be failing.

 

 

Associate producer Alif Sankey testified earlier in the trial that she "had a very strong feeling that Michael was dying" because of his frail health.

 

 

She called show director Kenny Ortega after one rehearsal. "I kept saying that 'Michael is dying, he's dying, he's leaving us, he needs to be put in a hospital,'" Sankey said. "'Please do something. Please, please.' I kept saying that. I asked him why no one had seen what I had seen. He said he didn't know."

 

 

After Michael failed to show up at several rehearsals in June -- or was unable to perform sometimes when he did appear -- Gongaware sent an e-mail to Phillips that Jackson lawyers call their "smoking gun."

 

 

They argue the message shows the executives used Murray's fear of losing his lucrative job as Michael's personal physician to pressure him to have Michael ready for rehearsals despite his fragile health. "We want to remind (Murray) that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him," Gongaware wrote.

 

 

Gongaware testified earlier that he did not remember writing the e-mail and Phillips testified last week that he didn't remember reading it. How very convenient. A double-act and they are closing ranks.

 

 

However, Phillips convened what he called "an intervention" at Michael's home with Murray, Michael and Ortega present.

 

 

A Los Angeles police detective summarized what Phillips told investigators about that meeting: "Randy (Phillips) stated that Kenny (Ortega) got in Michael's face, at which time Dr. Murray admonished Randy, stating, 'You're not a doctor. Butt out."

 

 

Asked about it in court, Phillips said the detective's summary is wrong. "That's not what I said," Phillips testified. "I told them something completely different than this. They just conflated the people and the things." Oh. So you can remember what you said on this occasion, Phillips, are you suffering from selective memory by any chance?

 

 

What actually happened was Murray "got into and admonished Kenny Ortega not to be an amateur physician and analyse Michael," Phillips said.

 

 

Phillips sent an e-mail after the meeting saying he had confidence in Murray, "who I am gaining immense respect for as I get to deal with him more."

 

 

"This doctor is extremely successful (we check everyone out) and does not need this gig, so he (is) totally unbiased and ethical," Phillips' e-mail said. So, you check everyone out, except you didn't check Murray out nor did you check Michael out?

 

 

He conceded in court that no background check of Murray was conducted by AEG Live. Jackson lawyers argue that had it been done, they would have discovered Murray was in deep debt and dependent on the lucrative job.

 

 

Murray said he was infusing Propofol into Michael every night to treat his insomnia so Michael would be rested for rehearsals.

 

 

Phillips contradicted Gongaware's earlier testimony that Michael was under no contractual obligation to attend rehearsals. Phillips refused to advance money to help Michael pay his staff days before his death because he believed the singer was "in an anticipatory breach" of his contract because he had missed rehearsals, he testified.

 

 

 

 

Phillips acknowledged that he and his lawyer met with Michael's former manager Tohme Tohme -- another key witness in the trial -- last month. The meeting happened in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel on May 4, at the end of the first week of testimony. That is May 4 2013, folks.

 

 

"I don't remember if it was the testimony in this case or what the lunch was about, but Marvin Putnam (AEG's lead lawyer in the trial) was at the lunch with me," Phillips said when asked about it by Panish. If your memory really is that bad Phillips, they need to replace you as CEO. I suspect he remembers very well what was discussed.

 

 

He couldn't remember "100%" but they may have discussed Tohme's legal battle to get paid by Jackson's estate, he said.

 

 

"I don't remember what I ate that day," Phillips said.

 

 

"I didn't ask you what you ate," Panish replied. "I asked you what you talked about."

 

 

"I can't jail somebody for not answering a question," Palazuelos said when Panish complained Phillips was being evasive. "There's only so much I can do."

 

 

She warned Phillips that jurors would see it for themselves.

 

 

"You give an answer, and you're not answering the question, the jury is going to get the impression that you're being evasive."

 

 

"I realize that," Phillips said.

Of course he realises that, he's doing it on purpose to evade losing AEG money and his saving own ass.

Paul Gongaware - Day 3 Testimony

Paul Gongaware testified on Friday that he never saw indications that Michael used drugs or travelled with a doctor when he managed that tour in 1996 and 1997.

What Gongaware knew -- or didn't know -- about Michael's drug use is a key issue in this case,

Gongaware, under questioning by his own lawyer Friday, testified that he only became aware that Michael was addicted to painkillers when the singer made a public announcement after his "Dangerous" tour abruptly ended, so he could enter rehab in 1993.

He was a manager for the "Dangerous" tour, but only handled logistics and didn't travel with Michael then, he said.

His job on the second half of the "HIStory" tour, however, carried more responsibilities and he worked closely with Michael, he said.

Gongaware testified that he saw "no indication at all" that Michael was using drugs during that tour. "I would be certain to notice it if that was the case."

Did Michael have a doctor treating him during the "HIStory" tour, his lawyer asked.

"Not that I know of," he answered.

In fact, Michael was "sensational" on stage, performing 10 to 12 shows a month, he said. Unlike in the "Dangerous" tour, he never cancelled a show because of his health.

"He only missed one," he said. "That was when Princess Diana died. He heard about the accident, went to bed, woke up, found she passed away and it affected him deeply."

But an interview that Michael gave to Barbara Walters weeks after Diana's death could help Jackson lawyers refute Gongaware's claim that no doctor traveled with the singer during the tour.

Walters asked Michael about how he learned the news that his friend, the Princess, had died.

"I woke up and my doctor gave me the news, and I fell back down in grief and I started to cry," Jackson said. "That's why the inner pain, the pain in my stomach and in my chest, so I said 'I cannot handle this. It's too much.'"

Michael's statement that a doctor was at his bedside when he woke up the day of a scheduled "HIStory" show in Belgium is not the only evidence he did have a physician on the tour.

Dr. Neil Ratner, an anesthesiologist from New York, has acknowledged that he traveled with Michael during part of the tour. He was at Munich, Germany, in July 1997 when a stage collapsed and Michael suffered a back injury. It was two months before Diana's death.

Dr. Ratner declined to talk about his treatment of Michael when CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta confronted him outside his Woodstock, New York, home in July 2009, although he did confirm that Michael had trouble sleeping.

"It's really something I don't want to talk about right now," he told Dr. Gupta.

A source who was close to Michael Jackson told Gupta in 2009 that when Michael had trouble sleeping that Dr. Ratner helped "take him down" and "bring him back up."

Ratner, who was convicted of insurance fraud and stripped of his license to practice medicine for three years in 2002, is on the witness list for the trial and has been questioned in a deposition by each side.

Debbie Rowe will testify that she assisted in administering Propofol to Michael in the 1990s when she was a nurse, AEG Live's Putnam said on the opening day of the trial.


"She saw several doctors put Mr. Jackson to sleep in hotel rooms while on tour," Putnam said, including in Munich, London, Paris.

But Gongaware and others did not know, he said.

"The truth is Mr. Jackson fooled everyone," Putnam said about Michael's Propofol use. "He kept those who might have helped him at a distance and no one knew his deepest, darkest secret."

Michael's ability to keep his private side private meant AEG executives could not see any red flags warning of Michael's destruction, Putnam said.

"They didn't see this coming," he said. "They had no idea."

Putnam said Jackson family members, including Janet and her famous siblings, will testify about their failed attempts at intervention and their lack of knowledge about what was happening.

"If they didn't know what was going on, how could someone else think there was even a problem," he said.


But Jackson lawyers will argue that Gongaware, who closely watched expenses on the "HIStory" tour because it was losing money at one point, would have noticed spending on hotel rooms and fees for a doctor traveling with the tour.

Trouble is Putnam, someone else DID think that there was a problem In fact SIX people by my count - see my post here. They knew, they brought it to AEG's attention, they even suggested a psychiatrist for Michael, but AEG decided that it was all an over exaggeration and ignored the advice. Now AEG are using the excuse of poor memory, and denial to defend themselves. This, my friends, is how corporations defend their actions these days, and I am not just talking about big cases like this one.
The family also knew something was wrong. They may not have known what exactly, but they would have had a pretty good idea it wasn't good for Michael.

FOOTNOTE:
As I write this, Michael's beautiful daughter Paris is recovering in hospital after an attempted suicide.
We don't know today what triggered this episode, all we know is that she was unhappy for a while and has a lot going on in her life. She is Michael's daughter, so I am really worried about her.
I don't know if this trial played any part in her unhappiness, but I can say that even for myself, someone who never met Michael, the information coming out is particularly difficult to cope with.
I have had to give myself some time off from blogging about it, because it has been very painful to follow. And very depressing.
I can't imagine what it must be like for his children.

Paul Gongaware Day 2 Testimony

"You aren't going to kill the artist, are you?" Michael Jackson purportedly asked producers after viewing and "endorsing" a test of the combustible special effects, a production manager recalled in a June 19, 2009, email revealed in court.

Concert production manager John "Bugsy" Houghdahl relayed the quote to his boss Randy Phillips, the CEO of concert giant AEG Live, as part of an explanation of the singer's sick and disoriented demeanor at the June 19 rehearsal in Los Angeles.



Houghdahl said he assumed the comment was a passing reference to the pyrotechnics, but he also said show director Kenny Ortega later observed Michael acting like "a basket case."


"Kenny said (Jackson) was shaking and couldn't hold his knife and fork. Kenny had to cut his food for him before he could eat, and then had to use his fingers," Houghdahl wrote in the email. "I don't know how much embellishment there is to this, but (Kenny) said repeatedly that MJ was in no shape to go on stage." (Houghdahl is referring to June 19, not the whole rehearsal period).


Katherine's lawyer Brian Panish said outside court that he thought the Houghdahl email showed Michael was shaken by the pyrotechnic display after having suffered serious burns from an explosion on the set of a 1984 Pepsi commercial.

A lawyer for AEG said that wasn't the case.

"It may seem chilling in retrospect, but (Houghdahl) believed (Michael) was making a joke at the time. Michael Jackson wasn't afraid of the pyrotechnics. He wanted them," AEG lawyer Marvin Putnam told the News.

Panish needled Gongaware repeatedly on Wednesday, asking what steps AEG took to address Ortega's concerns, and why some messages about Michael's meltdown were sent by Phillips to his personal email address, not his business account.


Gongaware said he didn't know why Phillips used different email addresses for him but that he believed everyone wanted what was best for Michael.

"The artist's health is the most important thing, I agree with that," Gongaware testified Wednesday. "The artist is the most important thing."

Gongaware also told the court he wasn't worried about Jackson getting adequate health care.


An email from "This Is It" concert documentary director Kenny Ortega about Michael being late or absent for rehearsals. Gongaware responds with a request for a face-to-face meeting with Michael's doctor, Conrad Murray.

"We want to remind him that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want him to understand what is expected of him," Gongaware says in the email.

The statement is evidence that AEG hired Murray, according to the plaintiffs. It is the centrepiece of their lawsuit.

For 30 minutes Gongaware rebuffed questions about that email. Repeatedly, he testified, "I don't know"; "I don't remember writing it." His only concession was, "I was going through hundreds of emails. If I knew lawyers would be picking apart everything, I would have been more careful."

Further emails show that as the opening of "This Is It" drew near, Ortega writes that Michael needs nourishment, physical therapy. "We have 20 days, we can't let him slip."

Gongaware responds: "We're on it."

Ortega says, "Super, not a minute too soon."

Days later another email was headlined "Trouble on the front." It warned Gongaware that "We might be getting beyond damage control here."

Yet on the stand Gongaware testified that no physical therapist or nutritionist was ever hired. He said he thought Ortega was exaggerating Michael's health concerns.

He said Michael didn't like to rehearse, that previously Michael didn't rehearse before the "HIStory" tour either. But when the lights went up, Michael was "on," he stated.

AEG's position is that Michel did not die from poor health or pressure -- rather that it was Dr. Murray's decision to secretly administer an intravenous sedative. AEG says in court documents that Murray's conduct was not foreseeable.

 

Paul Gongaware also testified his only role in Murray's contract was negotiating the price of  Murray's services in compliance with what Michael asked him to do.

Gongaware said that neither he nor anyone at the entertainment giant investigated Murray's background or credentials.

"The fact that he had been Michael Jackson's personal physician for three years was good enough for me," Gongaware said.

Who told him that? I was aware that Murray had helped Michael's children in Las Vegas a few years before, but does that make him Michael's personal physician?

Asked if he knew that Murray was in financial difficulties when he took the job as tour doctor, Gongaware answered no.

He said that Murray initially asked for $5 million to travel to London with Michael and tend to him during the tour.

"I just told him it wasn't going to happen," he said, recalling that Michael then suggested offering him $150,000 a month.

"Michael Jackson insisted on it and recommended him and it was not for me to tell him no," said Gongaware, who is a defendant in the multibillion-dollar lawsuit.

"I wanted to provide what was necessary for him to do his job...He wanted a doctor and I wanted him to be healthy."

Even after the offer of $150,000, Murray wasn't satisfied.

"He started saying he wanted more and I said, 'The offer is coming directly from the artist," Gongaware said.

Minutes later, he said Murray accepted.

"Did that seem desperate to you?" asked Panish.

"No," said Gongaware. "He just accepted Michael's offer."

Gongaware often pleaded poor memory of events. He said he may have met with Michael as many as 10 times, but could remember only two of the meetings and only one when Murray was present.

Really, is this how people wriggle out of their responsibilities these days, by claiming poor memory?

Prodded by Panish, he remembered a meeting at which Michael arrived late from a doctor's appointment and had slurred speech.

"He was a bit off," he said, "that was the only time I saw him like that."

At the heart of the case is who hired Murray. At first, Gongaware insisted he did no negotiating with Murray, but, confronted with emails and his previous testimony, he changed his position and said, "The only thing I did with Dr. Murray was negotiate a price."

He indicated that he was so shocked by Murray's demand that he consulted a doctor friend to see what he would charge for the same job. The other doctor said he would have gone on tour for $10,000 a week.

"Did you ever convey that to Michael Jackson?" asked Panish.

"I don't recall," said Gongaware whose testimony was peppered with that phrase.

Murray's fees technically AEGs responsibility?

Shawn Trell and Kathy Jorrie Photo: AP /Nick Ut

The 'This Is It' tour budget revealed that Murray's fee was listed as "production costs," which made it AEG's responsibility, instead of including it in "advances", which could have supported their claim that it was meant as a loan to Michael. While calling AEG's Chief Financial Officer "a very detailed-oriented guy," Trell admitted the budgeting was an error made by the CFO.

I'm not sure that I understand this. From my understanding, Michael was to pay ALL Productions costs out of his 90% share of the profits, which therefore was not AEG's responsibility.

In an effort to prove that Murray worked for AEG, emails sent a month before Michael's death were shown by the Jacksons' attorneys. Murray's contract terms were laid out in the letters, but Trell denied the emails demonstrated an employment relationship, despite his confirmation that director Kenny Ortega was also paid based on an agreement laid out solely in emails, instead of a formal contract.

During the testimony, Trell also reiterated that AEG heard of concerns from people involved in the concert production about Michael's poor condition and "they took it seriously," dismissing claims that they ignored a series of red flags that should have warned them of the singer's frail mental state.

An email from director Kenny Ortega with "trouble at the front" in the subject line was shown.

"I honestly don't think he is ready for this based on the continued physical weakening and deepening emotional state," the director voiced his concerns. "There are strong signs of paranoia, anxiety and obsessive-like behavior."

"I think the very best thing we can do is get a top Psychiatrist in to evaluate him ASAP. It's like there are two people there. One (deep inside) trying to hold on to what he was and still can be and not wanting us to quit him, the other in his weakened and troubled state ... I honestly felt if I had encouraged or allowed him on stage last night he could have hurt himself. I believe we need professional guidance in this matter."

Trell said a meeting was held to discuss the matter. At the meeting, MJ allegedly said he would improve and Murray agreed to help. According to witnesses, he did great during the next two days of rehearsals.

"Michael and the doctor stressed that he was OK. They had it under control," said Marvin Putnam, AEG's attorney.

The problem I have with this is:

a) The doc was under huge financial pressure, which could lead him to do what he is told, rather than what is right for the patient. AEG now say they did not do a check on the doctor, so they wouldn't have known this at the time. However, Paul Gongaware had past experience of celebrities and 'Dr Feelgoods', so the concept would not have been totally alien to them.
b) More worryingly, a top psychiatrist was not at the meeting and therefore how could AEG know for sure that Michael really is OK? Dr Murray was a cardiologist, not a psychiatrist, so he is not best placed to judge Michael's mental state either.