#judge zel canter

[boricuacherry-blog]

During the course of his marriage to Lisa Marie, in the wake of the Jordie Chandler out-of-court settlement, Michael [Jackson] found himself embroiled in yet another lawsuit.

In December of 1994, in a "wrongful termination" suit, five former employees, including Michael's maid, Adrian McManus, filed a lawsuit against the star and seven members of his staff. The suit charged that the employees were repeatedly subjected to retribution for their agreeing to help Santa Barbara authorities with the criminal investigation of Michael and for their testimony before a grand jury.

Joining McManus in the suit were security officers Kassim Abdool and his assistants, Ralph Chacon and Melanie Bagnall, one of the few women who worked in security. The final plaintiff was longtime office manager, Sandy Domz.

In Michael's opinion, his staff "had been only too willing to cooperate with the grand jury." For doing that, the former Neverland employees cited "a pattern of intentional, willful, and malicious conduct designed to threaten and intimidate" them. The plaintiffs also charged that they had been threatened with bodily injury, even subjected to death threats.

It was also revealed that Neverland security forces had installed an elaborate "Gestapo-like" system of wiretapping, and that Michael himself often eavesdropping on the personal calls of his employees.

One Neverland employee charged that the "surveillance equipment at Neverland was so intricate, as was the telephone-tapping system, that the CIA should hire Jackson's OSS officers," a reference to the special force - known within Neverland as the Office of Special Services - that Bill Bray, Michael's most devoted employee, had brought to Neverland to "protect Michael from all harm."

All three of the female plaintiffs charged that the OSS officers had subjected them to sexual harassment. McManus also claimed that one of the officers "threatened to slice my throat if I ever revealed Michael's private life to the press."

Sandy Domz had gone so far as to call the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department to reveal that "illegal wiretaps" were being carried out at Neverland. In September of 1994, the employees, claiming they could no longer tolerate the harassment and intimidation at the ranch, quit their jobs.

It wasn't until shortly before Christmas of 1994 that they found an attorney, Michael Ring, in Santa Barbara who would take their case. In the suit, Michael was charged along with his employees, specifically Bill Bray, but also James Van Norman, Jerome Johnson, Tony Coleman, Andrew Merritt, Bettye Bailey, and Marcus Johnson (no relation to Jerome).

In his defense of the Neverland employees, Ring faced a formidable opponent in Jackson's high paid attorneys, the highest paid in California, the firm of Katten Muchin Zavis & Weitzman.

Their case may have been lost shortly after it began, when Judge Zel Canter ruled that any evidence from the Jordie Chandler civil case would not be permitted in court. Since the plaintiff's entire case depended on the harassment they were allegedly subjected to during the Chandler case, the die was cast. The trial would slog onward for a year though.

Michael's defense team suffered a near-mortal blow when Jerome Johnson, one of the co-defendants, seemingly switched sides during pre-trial hearings, claiming that he backed up the allegations of the former Neverland employees. As an elite member of the OSS, Johnson said that his sole job was to apply "pressure on the staff by harassing them." Johnson filed an official declaration with the court, backing up the allegations of the "Neverland Five," even though they were suing him. Privately, he told a reporter that he was deeply religious and "I can no longer participate in the lies of Michael Jackson. I can't sleep at night thinking about what I have done for Mr. Jackson."