Tohme Tohme - Forbes 2/17/12

Tohme, the estate says in a complaint filed by attorney Howard Weitzman, ran amok during his short term between January 2008 and March 2009. It was Tohme, working for Thomas Barrack‘s Colony Capital, who pulled off the sale of Neverland to Colony. But according to the complaint, Jackson never understood that Tohme was also going to receive a finder’s fee for doing work for his own employer. Jackson had no lawyer representing him in his many signed agreements with Tohme, and so didn’t understand that when Colony came up with $24 million to bail out Neverland, Tohme would get $2.4 million.

Tohme, the complaint further reads, got Jackson to sign an agreement paying him $35,000 a month. He was also to receive 15% of all gross compensation Jackson received for anything he did in the entertainment field. Jackson signed not one but two Power of Attorney documents giving Tohme “extraordinary” powers. He also gave himself a $100,000 per month producers fee for the run of Jackson’s London concert dates–from July 2009 through at least March 2010. All of this Jackson signed without a lawyer, and despite numerous stories (many written by yours truly) about Tohme’s many assertions about his credentials being false.

It was during Tohme’s regime, for example, that the contents of Neverland were emptied and consigned to an auction house in Beverly Hills. The auction didn’t proceed when Jackson finally got a grip, and a lawyer, stopped the auction. Tohme then took back the contents and warehoused them. When Jackson died, the estate had to negotiate with him to get back the property. Out of luck was Julien’s Auction House, which published a now collectible catalog of everything that had been in Neverland.

“Tohme took possession and control of money and property that belonged to Jackson.Tomhe did not return to Jackson and refuses to deliver to the executors all of the property and cash belonging to Jackson that Tohme took possession and control of.”

On a side note, Tohme used to claim he was a doctor from Lebanon. But he could never prove to me that he was a doctor and when I questioned him about it in 2008, he told me wasn’t practicing. He did say he was Ambassador at Large to Senegal, but their Embassies denied it.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerfriedman/2012/02/17/michael-jackson-executors-finally-sue-singers-final-manager/

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