Paris Jackson said she believes a group of “closely-knit” high-powered attorneys is exploiting her father’s estate by skimming money in “plain view,” Us Weekly can exclusively report. A rep for the estate adamantly denied the claims.
According to court documents obtained by Us, Paris, 27, demanded a judge intervene in her fight with the executors of her late father Michael Jackson’s estate over fees they requested to be paid.
Michael’s estate is run by two executors, John Branca and John McClain. The duo has full control over the late pop star’s finances, business deals and payments to the family.
Branca and McClain have managed Michael’s estate since his 2009 death. The late pop star died of cardiac arrest associated with a lethal dose of propofol, a powerful sedative. His death was ruled a homicide and his physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Michael was 50 when he died. The beneficiaries of his estate are Paris and her brothers, Prince and Bigi.
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In her newly filed motion, Paris again said she had major concerns. She asked the judge to order the executors to submit paperwork for legal fees to third party firms from 2019 to 2023, so she can review what they paid. In addition, she wants an order stating that the executors can only make partial payments until the court approves invoices.
She said her petition was made “to protect the rights and interests” of her and the other beneficiaries.
Paris’ lawyer said, “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.”
The lawyer added, “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.”
Paris’ attorney continued, “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.”
Paris said that “at a minimum, these gratuities, and counsel’s preposterous declarations in support of them, raise red flags.”
“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,” Paris’ motion alleged.
“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,” the motion added.
Paris said she was “grateful” for the work the executors have done. She said that’s why she went to them in private in 2018 to “discreetly” address counsel’s practice of awarding themselves large bonus payments. She said, “counsel apparently ignored this objection, as the Estate paid out at least $500,000 in gifts to counsel just eight months later.”
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In her filing, Paris said the conduct has caused her to “lose confidence in executors’ oversight of counsel. The executors certainly would object to use of their own funds to pay non-contractual six-figure gratuities to a service provider.”
She said, “It is surprising, therefore, that the Executors have not put a stop to this practice — especially after the beneficiaries raised the issue. This begs the question whether Counsel fully informed Executors about the nature of the gifts they elected to pay to themselves … or kept Executors partially or wholly in the dark.”
Paris proposed appointing a third executor “more capable of independently supervising counsel and ensuring the adequate administration of the estate’s day-to-day finances and court filings.”
Jonathan Steinsapir, an attorney for the Estate of Michael Jackson, scoffed at Paris’ claims.
“The historic turnaround and success of the Estate of Michael Jackson on behalf of his children speaks for itself,” Steinsapir told Us. “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 estate lawyer continued, “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,” he ended.
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As Us first reported, last month, Paris filed a petition objecting to the legal fees the executors asked to be paid for work done by various firms between July 2018 and December 2018.
Paris complained that the executors were taking too long to submit formal requests for payments. She argued the delay made it difficult to review the invoices for work completed several years prior.
In her motion, Paris said she was “concerned” about the executors making “so-called ‘premium payments’ for unrecorded attorney time.”
Her lawyer said the executors asked the court to approve $625,000 in payments to three law firms “for what they say is uncaptured time, without explanation as to why counsel was incapable of recording unbilled time, or why such a failure should not preclude payment.”
“Even worse, these payments appear, at least in part, to consist of lavish gratuities bestowed upon already well-compensated counsel,” her attorney noted. Paris also accused the executors of making full payments to firms when they were ordered to only make partial payments before the court approves fees.
Paris’ motion read, “These irregular payments raise serious and substantial questions about Executor’s ability to effectively supervise counsel by, at minimum … and refraining from wasteful, six-figure gift-giving to themselves and their colleagues.”
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In court documents, Michael’s daughter said she discovered “several inconsistencies that demand close scrutiny of all fees and costs sought in the petition.” She pointed out that the executors have changed the amount requested for each law firm drastically in different filings, which causes her alarm.
Lawyers for the estate asked the court to shut down Paris’ objections. They claimed they had the authority to make the payments to the firms.
