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.Jacksons – AEG trial. KATHY JORRIE, Dr. GARY GREEN and IVY of MJJCommunity all in one pack
by VindicateMJ - Helena
THEY THRIVE WHILE HE IS DEAD
It’s Michael’s birthday today and while all these AEG people are going about their day-to-day activities it is especially today that you feel that he is gone.
All of them are going on with their lives and it is only Michael who is no longer here and will never return. He will never see his children, will never see them grow up, will never share their joys and their worries and he will never go on a vacation with his grandkids.
This “going on vacation with grandkids” point was mentioned in Kathy Jorrie’s testimony and was used as a reason why her cross-examination had to be short – she had to catch a plane to go on vacation with the grandkids so everyone in court went out of their way to adjust to her plans.
When this remarkable lady was making her remarkable contract for Michael Jackson which lied to him in each of its sentences, no one was trying to adjust it to Michael Jackson. And when they were setting 50 concerts for every other day with only one day break between the concerts no one was thinking of his interests and that he needed time to recuperate between the shows.
It is only Kathy Jorrie who doesn’t have time for this court and should leave at noon because five hours later she has a plane to take her on vacation, and the court system should please hurry up and cut on her questioning. And it is only when it came to Michael Jackson that no one looked into his needs – over there “it was solely business” and he was to be run as a machine.
However Michael was a human being and (surprise-surprise) he needed time for rest too, and he also had kids and he also wanted to go on vacation with them one day.
But Michael Jackson had a special treatment. Michael Jackson could be set harsh terms, could be put into impossible conditions, could be slapped, humiliated and put into a ‘straight jacket’, and what’s surprising about it all is that everyone thinks that it is perfectly okay - but when it comes to Kathy Jorrie, a bosom friend-lawyer of AEG of 14 years and her precious plans to go on vacation, everyone is expected to understand and the whole court system should please stop and adjust to this woman’s plans.
Really, these double standards and outlandish hypocrisy is something that makes me complete mad about this AEG business. We are supposed to understand everyone – Kathy Jorrie, AEG, Ortega, irresponsible doctors who ruined MJ’s hard work to end his dependency on medications back in 1993, Conrad Murray with all his problems, etc. – and it is only Michael Jackson who is never to be understood or listened to, who is to be handled with tough love and is obligated to each and everyone on this planet.
He was to do this, he was to do that … isn’t it time for everyone to do a reality check and realize that he wasn’t obligated to any of us at all?
He wasn’t obliged to give explanations about his lifestyle, about his skin, about his dermatological issues, about why he kept giraffes in Neverland, about his wives and his sex life, and about why he didn’t want to do rehearsals, and why he didn’t sing there in full voice and why he walked on the stage and not danced.
He didn’t owe any explanations to anyone at all, and it was AEG that should have please adjusted to him in the same way the US court is now adjusting to the plans of one woman who is going on vacation with her grandkids.
But the unobtrusive and humble Michael Jackson is now dead, while these arrogant and self-centered people are going on vacations and are utterly enjoying themselves. This is what makes Michael’s death so unbearable – all these people are going on with their lives not feeling even a morsel of guilt for what they did, but they nevertheless think they deserve a life full of comfort, happiness and delight. If only these nice people were so nice as to say a word of compassion to Michael’s mother and his kids….
I suspect that if AEG bosses had gone to Michael’s mother and cried on her shoulder frankly explaining how all this nightmare was evolving and what mistakes they made, and how terribly sorry they were, she would have forgiven them, because she is gentle and is like Michael and really believes in God and does what He tells her to do. But seeking forgiveness from Michael’s mother was never an option for AEG and instead they chose to dance a rite of hate on Michael’s bones which is what they are doing now at this trial.
It isn’t enough for them that they humiliated him beyond measure while he was alive. No, they want to humiliate him even more when he is dead – and this doesn’t prevent them from being perfectly satisfied with their precious selves. And a lot of their helpers are smugly observing the process of mudding MJ further and are even throwing in some of their own mud hoping that we wish we had never got into this.
No, these people do not deserve compassion. They never regretted what they did, they never sought forgiveness, they never wanted to make it up for Michael’s mother and children at least in some way, they never showed compassion for her and the kids (and for Michael when was alive), and this terrible lack of self-reflection and total absence of guilt is probably the worst of what we see in this AEG pack. Letting these people get away with what they did to Michael will be our heavy guilt towards Michael Jackson.KATHY JORRIE AS ONE OF THEM
I read Kathy Jorrie’s testimony quite by chance as I really didn’t want to. She drafted a totally dreadful contract with Michael which is structured in such a way that it can be turned any way you want and each time it will be for the benefit of AEG only, so listening to more of her meanness was really too much.
But it just happened that her testimony was suddenly brought to my attention and the circumstances under which it happened were rather interesting too.
Since going on vacation with her grandkids is the most important aspect of Jorrie’s testimony over which everyone in that courtroom was fussing, let us start with the sweet, old-fashioned and sentimental picture of civility and kindness displayed towards Kathy Jorrie and her grandkids.
The additional benefit of the show is a surprise that so young a woman already has grandkids – be like them and you won’t be tired and penniless, but will be healthy, young and enjoy vacations with your grandkids. The scene is a model of care and concern about another human being:
Q. I understand that you are not available to testify for most of this afternoon, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And is that because you have a family vacation with your grandchildren?
A. Yes.
Q. I do not want to keep you from that, so I’m going to go as quickly as possible as I can this morning.
A. Thank you.
….Ms. Bina. I’m happy to move on, your honor, in the interest of saving time and letting this witness go on vacation with her grandchildren.
Mr. Panish. She’s not going on vacation. Your honor, she’s not going on vacation.
Judge. Mr. Panish, you’re interrupting. Remember everybody gets a chance? It’s Ms. Bina’s chance.
Mr. Panish. Well, I don’t want to have to come back because now they’re running out my time. They said she’s going on vacation. She’s going to the airport at 5:00 o’clock, she has to pick up her grandkids, she said. Okay? At 5:00 o’clock. So now the implication is now we’re going to be at 11:00 something, my cross- examination is going to be interrupted.
Judge. How much longer do you have, Ms. Bina?
Ms. Bina. I have about four pages left, your honor. I’m going as fast as I can. Mr. Panish is objecting a lot.
Mr. Panish. Because you’re asking improper questions.
Ms. Bina. Anyway, your honor, I’m trying to move things on. If he would make shorter objections, it might go faster. But the point is I’m nearly done.
What a nauseous civility at the expense of courtroom time for Brian Panish! And it gets especially nauseous when you recall how this very Kathy Jorrie treated Michael Jackson in that dreadful contract of hers – she was not giving him a single chance up to a degree which is simply unacceptable between civil people.
For example if Michael was not giving his approval to something and his disagreement was ‘unreasonable’ (it was AEG who was to decide that) Michael’s disapproval was actually considered to be his approval, or in other words his opinion did not matter irrespective of what he said.
If he approved it was okay, but if he disapproved it was okay too, because it simply did not matter – AEG would still do as they pleased. With such a contract what’s the use of discussing AEG’s cooperation with MJ at all? Whichever way you look at it it will never be in favor of Michael Jackson!
What she is saying here is very typical of the terms she set for MJ in AEG’s contract:
Q. Now let’s go on to paragraph 11, which is approvals. Ms. Jorrie, can you give me a brief understanding in laymen’s terms of what this provision is about?
A. The provision, in laymen’s terms, provides that no party can refuse to give its approval unreasonably; and then the next sentence says if a party is unreasonable, if they — they won’t give an approval that they reasonably should have given, the approval will be deemed to have been given.
Q. In the event the Michael Jackson Company unreasonably withholds delays or qualifies its approval over any such matter, the Michael Jackson company shall be deemed to have given its approval over such matter?
A. Yes.
Who was to decide whether the refusal was reasonable or not? AEG of course, who else? The above paragraph has a direct bearing on those disputed extra millions of production costs – in Kathy Jorrie’s opinion even if MJ did not give his written approval for them, he was still the responsible party as in AEG’s contract even a disapproval is considered approval for reasons stated above.
Kathy Jorrie also thinks they did not require Michael’s approval for 50 shows. Her explanation is that AEG increased the number of shows because AEG needed to recoup the tour expenses:
Q. I’m speaking just of the idea of approving additional shows. For instance, the idea of going from 31 to 50 shows, or additional shows in a given leg of the tour.
A. Okay. Let’s start with that one. At this particular contract, if — if you go to where it says it shall be unreasonable for Artistco to withhold its approval for adding shows to any given leg of the tour — or adding legs of shows to the tour during the term so long as the number of shows in any given leg do not exceed one per day and 3.5 per seven-day period on average. That’s what Mr. Panish read. What he didn’t read is the part after that, it’s limited where it says if promoter demonstrates to Artistco that such additional shows and/or legs are necessary for promoter to recoup the advances in accordance with the terms of this agreement.
Q. And then the part that he didn’t read out loud is a qualification on that that says if the promoter demonstrates to the Michael Jackson company that such additional shows and/or legs are necessary for promoter to recoup the advances that they’ve given to Mr. Jackson and his company within the terms of the agreement, right?
A. Right.
I wonder if Kathy Jorrie herself would agree to perform the number of shows “not exceeding one per day and 3,5 per seven-day period on average”, but besides that I have another question. At the beginning of March 2009 the rehearsals did not even start and there was nothing to recoup yet, but they still increased the number of shows to 50 dates. The question is WHY?
The arguments of this lawyer who says that she is an independent witness do not even apply here! And after that she is claiming that her “client relationship with AEG is not affecting her testimony”? Look at all this hypocrisy:
Q. Does it affect your testimony — your truthful testimony here in court that you have a client relationship with AEG Live?
A. It does not.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I’m a member of the bar, and we have certain ethical obligations as officers of the court. I was raised to have integrity and to be honest, and so I’m doing the best I can to remember everything and to be as truthful as possible.
In fact the way these “members of the bar” are twisting the truth depending on which way is more convenient to them is totally amazing. On the one hand she says she has never seen AEG’s budget and since she has never seen it Brian Panish is not allowed to question her about it, but on the other hand we find that she actually took part in making a certain agreement when presenting this very budget to the Estate, and therefore she knows it inside out!
Q. And do you — were you involved in another agreement where AEG Live was ultimately reimbursed by the estate of Michael Jackson for approximately 36 million in production costs and related expenses?
Mr. Panish. Number 1, it’s irrelevant as to whether or not Mr. Tohme was an officer of the company. Number 2, this would then get into attorney/client privilege. They can’t just ask that and prohibit me from questioning her all about that…
After looking at all these twists and turns we more or less know what to expect of Conrad Murray’s contract which was also drafted by Kathy Jorrie.THEY STALLED MURRAY
Though Conrad Murray started his services at the beginning of May 2009 Kathy Jorrie says she was told about the need to make a contract with him in the “latter part” of the month, and even after that she drafted the first variant only on June 15, 2009, so for a month and a half nothing was happening.
From Kathy Jorrie’s testimony it is almost impossible to understand when she was first told to draft a contract with Murray:
Q. ..is it likely that Mr. Woolley didn’t contact you to draft an agreement until after May 26th, 2009?
A. That — that, I can’t answer. I don’t have the precise date. It was the mid May to late June — I mean to late — mid May to June that he contacted me. I don’t remember an earlier contact. It’s possible.
To refresh Kathy Jorrie’s memory Brian Panish had to remind her of her testimony at Conrad Murray’s trial where she said it was the latter part of May:
Q. When was it you were first provided any information about the necessity of there being a contract?
A. It — to my best recollection, it was in May. It was at the latter part of May Mr. Woolley let me know about the need to have this contract prepared.
But if she was told about the need for a contract at the end of May only, it means that for the whole month of May AEG was stalling Murray. “Stalling” means “avoiding a clear answer to a question in order to get more time” as dictionary explains.
Actually the AEG people didn’t make much secret of it – in his May 26 email Timm Woolley openly encouraged his staff to stall Murray as the contract was “not in place”. But how could it be in place if he told Jorrie about the need to make it only at the end of May?
May 26, 2009
Timm Woolley to Brigitte Segal on May 26, 2009: “He is pinging on us for payment but we can’t without a contract in place. Would like to stall him with something for him to look & mull over”
So though Murray’s services began on May 1 the “stalling” process lasted until June 15, when AEG finally remembered Murray. Kathy Jorrie admitted that full 6 weeks passed until the first draft was finally presented to him:
Q. so May 1st, and the date that you sent that to Mr. Woolley to forward to Dr. Murray was what date?
A. The date I sent it was June 15.
Q. And that, then, would be six weeks after May 1st, the date that you put in the first draft for the contract to commence, correct?
A. Yes.
The timing of the first draft perfectly coincides with the so-called “Intervention meeting” arranged on June 16 by Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware on the insistence of Kenny Ortega. The intervention meeting stemmed from Murray having the cheek to give Michael a sick leave on June 12 (Saturday). On Sunday Phillips was already calling Murray, and Gongaware was writing emails about the need to remind him who was paying Murray’s salary. On Monday – Tuesday the frightened and ill Michael was back on stage rehearsing, and on June 16 came the “intervention”.
The “intervention” actually had a very positive effect on Conrad Murray – after a long period of ignoring Murray AEG finally noticed him, ‘brought him into the fold’ and Kathy Jorrie even presented him with the first draft of their contract. Murray received it on June 15 and the very next day this carrot worked – there would be no more sick leaves for Michael Jackson and Murray would take care of MJ’s attendance of rehearsals. In short now that the contract became a reality Murray was on his best behavior with the AEG bosses.
It is interesting that out of the three drafts (June 15, 18 and 23) none were sent to Michael Jackson or his representatives though the last draft was made on June 23 when Branca was already in the picture and wanted to see all the documents MJ was supposed to sign. So if MJ was indeed to sign Murray’s contract Kathy Jorrie should have sent it to Branca before giving it to Murray for singing, but she naturally didn’t:
Q. Okay. In fact, but you never communicated with Mr. Jackson, correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Okay. You never communicated with Mr. Hawk regarding the Conrad Murray agreement, correct?
A. That’s right.
Q. You never communicated with Dr. — or Mr. Tohme about the Conrad Murray agreement, correct?
A. Correct.
Q. You never communicated with John Branca about the agreement, correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Never communicated with Mr. Katz about the agreement, correct?
A. Correct.
Q. You never communicated with Dr. Lopez at all — excuse me — Mr. Peter Lopez about the agreement, correct?
A. Right.
Q. Did you communicate with anyone that you understood was a representative of Michael Jackson regarding that Dr. Murray contract that you were drafting?
A. No.
Q. So would it be fair to say that you didn’t send any of the drafts or the last version of the contract to any representative of Michael Jackson?
A. That’s fair to say.
Kathy Jorrie explained it by the fact that she wanted to send it to MJ’s side after they agreed about everything between themselves and then MJ’s representatives would be free to make their comments:
Q. Why didn’t you check with Mr. Jackson or his representatives before making this change?
A. Because we were negotiating the contract to a point where when it was to a place where Dr. Murray was happy with the terms, it would be presented to Michael Jackson for review and his representatives for review and comment. And if he had comments, he would be free to provide comments and changes if he wanted to.
But this is a lie because the last version was no draft but the final variant, and Murray was signing the final agreement and not some preliminary paper. This final copy stated the date of execution of the contract as June 24, so there was even no time for any corrections on Michael’s side. They were actually never meant to be made at all and this is why Conrad Murray signed it:
Q. And then the third and final one that Dr. Murray signed, you saved as “final –” wait a minute. “final Michael Jackson AEG GCA Holdings agreement Dr. Murray 6/23/09.pdf,” correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And that’s the one that Dr. Murray signed?
A. Correct.
Q. And faxed back to you?
A. Yes.
Q. And you provided that to Mr. Trell?
A. Yes, I did.
On June 18 Kathy Jorrie looked up Murray on the Internet (for 10 minutes as she said) after or before talking to Murray on the phone. It won’t surprise us to learn that the subject of the discussion was insurance.WHY DID THEY FINALLY NOTICE MURRAY?
Kathy Jorrie requested Murray to help them obtain MJ’s medical records for 5 years prior to 2009 and this makes us suspect that AEG themselves were terribly interested in getting Murray as MJ’s doctor – they thought that he had Michael’s medical records for at least 3 years. At least he claimed that he had been MJ’s doctor for 3 years before that.
And this is probably why Dr.Murray was preferred by AEG bosses over Dr. Finkelstein or anyone else – Murray was the only doctor who said (most probably wrongly) that he had been in contact with Michael for 3 years after Bahrain. This was not 5 years as was requested by the insurers, but over the number of years they could negotiate as everyone understood that getting medical records from the Prince of Bahrain could be quite a problem.
The comments from AEG’s lawyers at a sidebar were extremely helpful to realize why all this activity around Murray’s contract started in mid-June – AEG began to worry that Michael would not last long but the insurance was still not there. The lawyers talked about it for so long that the meaning of all those statements finally dawned on me – they started working on Murray’s contract only when they realized that he could be helpful to them in two directions – as a guarantee of Michael’s presence at rehearsals and as a way to obtain the papers needed by them for the insurance!
All this AEG fuss was centering around June 18:
Q. And the day you did the Google search was on what day?
A. It was on the 18th of June.
…Ms. Bina (for AEG). To be clear, your honor, I’m only asking for her to explain the reasons why she didn’t conduct broader searches on the 18th. … I’m only asking that she be able to repeat a conversation she had with Dr. Murray on the 18th…. What the witness will testify, your honor, is that she felt comfortable doing this sort of limited search just to check that he was basically who he said he was because of his assurances that he had a long-term relationship with Michael Jackson and had treated him for three years …And that was part of — part of her thinking and reasoning and part of why she conducted the search that she did, specifically that he had said, “I treated him for three years,” that kind of thing.
… Mr. Bloss (for the Jacksons). So now we get into did Ms. Jorrie tell Mr. Phillips that Murray said Jackson was in great health when, in fact, Phillips knew that he was not in great health because he’d been getting reports, he had done the, quote, intervention meeting on the 16th.
… Ms. Bina. If that’s the case, your honor, I think the June 23rd statements by Dr. Murray would also come in.
Judge. What’s the June 23rd statement? Was that the police statement?
Ms. Bina. No. His statements to Ms. Jorrie when he repeatedly affirmed to her again that Michael Jackson was in good health in connection with the insurance stuff, and he’d only had his file for three years and it would be very tiny.
So one more piece of truth is becoming clearer.
In mid-June AEG realized that Murray could be a great help to them not only in terms of forcing Michael to go to rehearsals, but in terms of obtaining the insurance too – he claimed he had a file for 3 years, though a very tiny one, and this could be presented as at least something to the insurers to satisfy their requirements for the physical to be made on July 6 in London.
When the practical use of Murray was finally brought home to AEG they hurried up with his contract. For a month and a half before that they couldn’t care less about Murray and what he was doing to Michael. Actually they noticed Murray for the first time only when he had the audacity to give Michael a sick leave on June 12 which was followed by the ‘intervention’. If Kai Chase in her testimony was indeed speaking about the mid-June period (which we still need to check), then we can imagine what was said to Murray at that meeting if Murray left it muttering to himself that (even) he “can’t take this shit any more”.
But who was Murray to AEG before they finally noticed him? From the fact that they were not paying him money or attention it seems that they regarded him as Michael’s doctor who was none of their business and no matter what they promised to Murray or Michael Jackson they were leaving both of them to their own devices.
From Tohme we know that Michael insisted that the doctor’s salary should be paid by AEG (without any further recoupment), and AEG did indeed include Murray into their budget but until mid-June all this was done half-heartedly, with much dragging of their feet. AEG was “stalling” Murray and Michael Jackson together with him. One of the reasons for that was economizing of course – they did not want to pay Murray and even tried to manipulate the dates in order to cut his salary at least by two months (the draft said that the contract was to take effect on June 24 and it was only after Murray noticed it that Kathy Jorrie changed it to May 1).
But after the intervention meeting things drastically changed and without realizing it Kathy Jorrie herself is explaining to us the difference between “before” and “after”. What she essentially says is that previously they could not care less about Murray as they regarded him to be in Michael’s employment, but when they finally realized his usefulness and made a contract with him his status changed – now he was an AEG’s employee, was to provide services requested of him by the Producer, or otherwise why need the contract at all?
Q. Would it surprise you to have heard that Dr. Murray was fully engaged with Mr. Jackson in May 2009?
A. Not at all, Ms. Bina.
Ms. Bina. Why not?
A. Because I understood from Dr. Conrad Murray and — as well that Michael Jackson — excuse me — Dr.Conrad Murray was Michael Jackson’s personal physician for three years.
Ms. Bina. Dr. Murray actually told you that?
A. He did.
Q. Did you ever tell Murray — Dr. Murray not to perform services to Mr. Jackson until his agreement with AEG Live was fully executed?
A. Of course not.
Q. And, again, why not?
A. The reason, Ms. Bina, is because Dr. Conrad Murray was Michael Jackson’s physician, and it would not have been my place to suggest that he shouldn’t perform services for a patient that had been his patient for a number of years.
Ms. Bina. Did Dr. Murray need an agreement with AEG Live to treat his long-term patient?
A. No, he did not need an agreement with AEG Live to perform services for a patient of his, including Michael Jackson.
But if they realized that Murray did not need an agreement with AEG to perform services for Michael why did AEG insert themselves between Murray and MJ then? And why did they do it in mid-June in particular?
If there was no specific reason for bringing the doctor into the fold for purposes of their own they could have given Michael an advance and he could have paid Murray from that sum, without any involvement of AEG into the deal. But AEG did get in, drafted a direct employer/employee contract with Murray and were finally ready to go with him into contractual relations.
The fact that it was a direct employer/employee contract is confirmed by several things in that contract. One of them is that Murray was to provide services requested of him by the Producer, and the second is that the contract allowed AEG to terminate Murray at any time and this could be done without Michael Jackson’s consent:
Q. I’m talking about producer. There were terms where the producer had several ways to terminate Dr. Murray’s agreement that did not require Mr. Jackson’s consent, correct?
K.Jorrie: Consent wasn’t written into this document; so yes, I think that’s correct.
Imagine yourselves in Murray’s shoes for a moment, and you will realize that the party who can fire you is your real boss. Michael could also fire Murray but he had to take an indirect route – first he was to complain to AEG and it was their job to take the final decision.
And after that AEG has the audacity to dispute that Murray was not in their employment? And that there was no conflict of interest? Who do they take us for? Complete idiots? And I am not even saying that Kathy Jorrie did not send Murray’s contract to any of Michael’s representatives! What did they need them for? It was a matter between AEG and Murray only, and it was only their adding a requirement for Michael’s signature to that contract which gave one more twist to this already crooked story. I doubt that this was done with Michael’s consent but since at the moment I cannot prove it I won’t go into that.MURRAY’S SERVICES FOR THE ARTIST? NO, FOR PRODUCER!
If you are still undecided whether Conrad Murray had or didn’t have a conflict of interest in this matter please look at the notorious phrase in his contract saying that he was to perform the services requested of him by the Producer.
This phrase alone points to the obvious – Conrad Murray had a terrible conflict of interest between a friend and an employer.
And it does not even matter who was to pay Murray money. If Murray was performing services requested by the Producer and this Producer was to pay for those services, it was a simple and straight case of Murray being in direct AEG’s employment.
And if Michael was to pay and Murray was nevertheless performing the services requested of him by the Producer, it makes things even worse – MJ pays him for being his personal doctor, but Murray still does what is requested of him by someone else! This way Murray gets money from one person but actually works for another one, and it is only due to AEG’s gigantic efforts to cloud the picture and drown us in a thousand technicalities that people are still having a problem with understanding so clear a matter.
One of the experts who was called to cloud our vision was Dr. Gary Green, a sports medicine expert testifying for AEG. Just one quote from Gary Green is enough for us to explain how far he is ready to go to stretch the truth in favor of AEG. He testified on day 71, week 16 of the trial:
AEG called their next expert witness, Dr. Gary Green. Attorney Jessica Stebbins Bina is doing direct examination.
The doctor said he spent about 115 hours in this case, bills $500 per hour. He said he’s billed approximately $20,000 to $25,000 up-to-date
There will be about $25,000 to $30,000 to be billed, total approximately $50,000.
Bina asked if he agrees with Dr. Matheson this is a conflict of interest case. “I disagree with Dr. Matheson completely,” Dr. Green said.
… Dr. Green pointed out Dr. Murray asked to change the contract to limit him to perform services requested by artist, not producer. “I believe that it further demonstrates Dr. Murray’s independence from AEG Live.”
So in Dr. Green’s opinion this request “further demonstrates Dr. Murray’s independence from AEG Live? But even if Murray mustered all his independence to make a request isn’t it much more important whether the request was met or denied? And the request was denied, however despite that Murray quickly signed the contract which blatantly said that his primary responsibility was performing services requested of him by Producer.
Where do they get unbiased experts like that I wonder? Or is it the number of hours billed by them that distorts their perception so much? Well, the above told us all we need to know about Dr. Gary Green so that will be all about this expert in this post.
However there is one more person in the Michael Jackson environment who attracts our attention by misrepresenting the truth about Murray’s contract, and this person is Ivy, one of the Senior Staff of MJJCommunity fan forum.
I thought that nothing can amaze me about the Senior Staff of MJJCommunity any longer, but this time Ivy really amazed me by a nearly open declaration of her extreme bias towards AEG. It was the openness of it which was so amazing – knowing how careful these people are, so open an attempt to distort the truth was indeed a surprise.
The instance I am talking about is when Ivy posted a comparison of two drafts of Conrad Murray’s contract and pointed out to MJ’s fans that in the phrase about whose requests were to be met by Murray the Producer was replaced by the Artist.
Ivy is a longtime Senior Staff of MJJCommunity who has taken upon herself the task of making the ‘full’ summary of Katherine Jackson vs. AEG Live case. After each post she gets a mass of thanks from the grateful MJ fans.
Her access to exclusive information is indeed amazing and makes us think that she is privy to the AEG case – for example, she can provide you with a summary of a video deposition no one has yet seen at the AEG trial, but her strange choice of facts and lack of pertinent comment on them makes you wonder and is like a bucket of cold water each time – you simply don’t expect a fan to shower you with all this negativism and then leave you to cope with it without any help.
And negativism about MJ is prevailing over everything else in those reports. If you want to know what AEG experts say about Michael Jackson addiction issues the summary of each will be readily available to you in the form of short bullets for easier consumption, and the latest AEG motions on considering the case a “non-suit” (non-existent) will also come there in much more detail than the Plaintiff’s motion with the main AEG ideas singled out in bold type.
However most of it will not be balanced by the summaries from the experts on the Plaintiff’s side. In fact several months of their testimonies are simply omitted in this ‘full’ summary case and after the beginning of the trial sometime in March-April all information is resumed only now, when it is AEG’s turn to present their case. Well, this is at least what we see on this particular thread as I haven’t gone any further.
It was actually while looking for the latest motions of both sides in this case that I found what Ivy is writing about Conrad Murray’s contract. “Writing” about it is a grave exaggeration of course because all we have is a crypt comment that it is “2 versions of Murray’s contract” – undated early version If you are still undecided whether Conrad Murray had or didn’t have a conflict of interest in this matter please look at the notorious phrase in his contract saying that he was to perform the services requested of him by the Producer.
This phrase alone points to the obvious – Conrad Murray had a terrible conflict of interest between a friend and an employer.
And it does not even matter who was to pay Murray money. If Murray was performing services requested by the Producer and this Producer was to pay for those services, it was a simple and straight case of Murray being in direct AEG’s employment.
And if Michael was to pay and Murray was nevertheless performing the services requested of him by the Producer, it makes things even worse – MJ pays him for being his personal doctor, but Murray still does what is requested of him by someone else! This way Murray gets money from one person but actually works for another one, and it is only due to AEG’s gigantic efforts to cloud the picture and drown us in a thousand technicalities that people are still having a problem with understanding so clear a matter.
One of the experts who was called to cloud our vision was Dr. Gary Green, a sports medicine expert testifying for AEG. Just one quote from Gary Green is enough for us to explain how far he is ready to go to stretch the truth in favor of AEG. He testified on day 71, week 16 of the trial:
AEG called their next expert witness, Dr. Gary Green. Attorney Jessica Stebbins Bina is doing direct examination.
The doctor said he spent about 115 hours in this case, bills $500 per hour. He said he’s billed approximately $20,000 to $25,000 up-to-date
There will be about $25,000 to $30,000 to be billed, total approximately $50,000.
Bina asked if he agrees with Dr. Matheson this is a conflict of interest case. “I disagree with Dr. Matheson completely,” Dr. Green said.
… Dr. Green pointed out Dr. Murray asked to change the contract to limit him to perform services requested by artist, not producer. “I believe that it further demonstrates Dr. Murray’s independence from AEG Live.”
So in Dr. Green’s opinion this request “further demonstrates Dr. Murray’s independence from AEG Live? But even if Murray mustered all his independence to make a request isn’t it much more important whether the request was met or denied? And the request was denied, however despite that Murray quickly signed the contract which blatantly said that his primary responsibility was performing services requested of him by Producer.
Where do they get unbiased experts like that I wonder? Or is it the number of hours billed by them that distorts their perception so much? Well, the above told us all we need to know about Dr. Gary Green so that will be all about this expert in this post.
However there is one more person in the Michael Jackson environment who attracts our attention by misrepresenting the truth about Murray’s contract, and this person is Ivy, one of the Senior Staff of MJJCommunity fan forum.
I thought that nothing can amaze me about the Senior Staff of MJJCommunity any longer, but this time Ivy really amazed me by a nearly open declaration of her extreme bias towards AEG. It was the openness of it which was so amazing – knowing how careful these people are, so open an attempt to distort the truth was indeed a surprise.
The instance I am talking about is when Ivy posted a comparison of two drafts of Conrad Murray’s contract and pointed out to MJ’s fans that in the phrase about whose requests were to be met by Murray the Producer was replaced by the Artist.
Ivy is a longtime Senior Staff of MJJCommunity who has taken upon herself the task of making the ‘full’ summary of Katherine Jackson vs. AEG Live case. After each post she gets a mass of thanks from the grateful MJ fans.
Her access to exclusive information is indeed amazing and makes us think that she is privy to the AEG case – for example, she can provide you with a summary of a video deposition no one has yet seen at the AEG trial, but her strange choice of facts and lack of pertinent comment on them makes you wonder and is like a bucket of cold water each time – you simply don’t expect a fan to shower you with all this negativism and then leave you to cope with it without any help.
And negativism about MJ is prevailing over everything else in those reports. If you want to know what AEG experts say about Michael Jackson addiction issues the summary of each will be readily available to you in the form of short bullets for easier consumption, and the latest AEG motions on considering the case a “non-suit” (non-existent) will also come there in much more detail than the Plaintiff’s motion with the main AEG ideas singled out in bold type.
However most of it will not be balanced by the summaries from the experts on the Plaintiff’s side. In fact several months of their testimonies are simply omitted in this ‘full’ summary case and after the beginning of the trial sometime in March-April all information is resumed only now, when it is AEG’s turn to present their case. Well, this is at least what we see on this particular thread as I haven’t gone any further.
It was actually while looking for the latest motions of both sides in this case that I found what Ivy is writing about Conrad Murray’s contract. “Writing” about it is a grave exaggeration of course because all we have is a crypt comment that it is “2 versions of Murray’s contract” – undated early version www.scribd.com/doc/128116431/CM-AEG-Agreement and june 23rd version www.scribd.com/doc/158739657/Murray-AEG-June-23-Contract
<b><i>This is followed by a comment that it has to do with “producer / artist changes mentioned at testimony” and then by the groundbreaking news that “the earlier version” that “mentioned services requested by producer (part 1)” was replaced by “services requested by artist (part 1 changed)” in the june 23 version of Murray’s contract.
This super-short text is accompanied by the two variants of the contract for individual study.
Let us look at this scarce text agan and compare our first impressions of what we read. Our impression is that someone (?) testified at the AEG trial and said that the earlier draft was about Murray performing services requested by the Producer but in the final variant Producer was replaced by the Artist. If taken in combination with Dr. Gary Green’s words about Conrad Murray’s ‘independence’ you indeed get the impression that Murray requested a change and the request was met.
This is how myths are created.
The reality is that this change never happened in terms of Murray’s responsibilities, and the only other change in this respect was made in another part (Scope of Services) of the contract and this change was made in favor of AEG, and absolutely not in favor of Michael Jackson.
However the first impression was that AEG did indeed amend their position and to see what’s what I began looking for the testimony where this information could be contained, and this is how I ended up reading Kathy Jorrie’s two days of testimony. It is she who spoke about that change in the Scope of Services section of Murray’s contract:
Panish: So if we look at paragraph 1 here, this is where you change the “producer” to “artist” under scope of services, correct?
Jorrie: Yes.
Q. And this version, along with the first two, provided, without in any way limiting any other term or provision, Murray and GCA shall perform the services reasonably requested by producer, correct?
A. You’re now looking at something other than the one –
Q. 4.1. Let’s go to that. 4.1, just like the first two versions of the agreement that you drafted and sent to Mr. Trell, said that Dr. Murray was to perform the services reasonably requested by the producer, right?
A. Yes, it said that.
Q. And that was in every one of the versions that you wrote, correct?
A. Yes.
So each of Kathy Jorrie’s drafts said that Murray’s responsibility was to perform the services requested of him by Producer, but in the Scope of Services the word was indeed changed to the Artist at the final moment. The word “change” sticks to your memory and creates the impression that at least in some respect the Producer met Murray’s request, however a further look shows that AEG absolutely DID NOT change anything in Michael’s favor and made it only worse.
I bet you don’t understand a single thing of what we are talking about, so let me explain.
All three drafts of Murray’s contract stated that his Number One Responsibility was an obligation to perform services reasonably requested by PRODUCER.
Why was it his responsibility? Because it came in the section of “Responsibilities of Dr. Murray”. Why was it his number one responsibility? Because even numerically it was listed first among his responsibilities:
However one small change was indeed made in Murray’s contract and it came in a different paragraph called “The Scope Services”. After reading it we can even guess why the correction was made – AEG themselves realized that it was their big mistake as it actually contradicted their 4.1 point.
This is what the scope of Murray’s services included in the earlier draft of the contract:
tending to the Artist’s general medical needs and assisting and treating the Artist in the case of a medical emergency. Dr. Murray shall also provide such other services as are reasonably requested by Producer from time to time during the term hereof.
The implication of the earlier variant was that the services were to be focused on the Artist, but from time to time Dr. Murray would also provide the services requested of him by Producer. This paragraph about the scope of services could sound even okay, but only in case we forgot that another paragraph in the same contract said that Murray’s Number One Responsibility was to follow Producer’s requests.
And now comes the final draft of the contract made on June 23, 2009 as per our knowledgeable Ivy. The wording of the same paragraph of Murray’s scope of services was corrected and now it is as follows:
tending to the Artist’s general medical needs and assisting and treating the Artist in the case of a medical emergency. Dr. Murray shall also provide such other services as are reasonably requested by Artist from time to time during the term hereof.
Now the meaning has changed into its opposite: previously Dr. Murray’s occasional services were to be provided to the Producer, but now it will be the Artist to whom services will be provided from time to time, while the main and continuous services will go to AEG.
This way the final wording put all points of Conrad Murray’s contract into one line – Murray’s Responsibility Number One was to service the Producer, but from time to time he was allowed to also provide services requested of him by Michael Jackson!
It was very generous of course of AEG to allow Murray from time to time to provide services requested of him by Michael Jackson, but now we understand that this change only worsened Michael’s situation and made Murray’s work terms harsher than before.
By this further change Murray was once again told by AEG not to forget himself and remember who his boss is. And if previously we could still have some doubts, the final variant of this contract does not allow any room for misinterpretation – Murray’s employer was AEG.
After corrections like that Murray was to force Michael to rehearse even when he could barely drag his feet after a sleepless night. Now he could no longer give Michael a sick leave as he did it before, on June 12. And now it was also Murray’s responsibility to take care of the medical files for the insurance which is what he was actually doing on the night when Michael died. He put Michael on Propofol and left him unmonitored because he had to run about with those papers and it was during all that text-messaging activity that his patient stopped breathing and Murray did not notice. This does not absolve Murray of his enormous guilt, but now we at least know why he was doing it.
Does the Senior Staff of MJJCommunity inform us that the crucial changes in Murray’s contract were made in favor of AEG and not MJ? Absolutely not! Moreover the impression we get from Ivy’s post is that Murray’s contract was changed in favor of the Artist, and I am very much afraid that this distortion of the truth was the whole idea of this (mis)information.
True that she didn’t give any comment on it, but then what was the point of drawing the fans’ attention to that change in the contract at all?
And why does it give me the creeps to know that this kind of briefing has been provided to MJ’s fans on a continuous basis since September 2009?HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHAEL JACKSON!
When the post was written Jolie left a comment on it and a tribute video which I am now adding here together with some comments from people who also have something to say on Michael’s impact on the world. Today is Michael’s birthday and it is the right time to recall it.
Jolie said:
Mark 6:4 “But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country…” This video is recorded in Maastricht – Netherlands and broadcasted by the German Television ZDF on Aug. 1, 2009
Jacksons – AEG trial. KATHY JORRIE, Dr. GARY GREEN and IVY of MJJCommunity all in one pack |
