WADE ROBSON WANTS $1.62 BILLION from Michael Jackson’s Estate. A story told by figures alone

Recently a reader asked a question why we should believe that Wade Robson is demanding the sum of $1.62 billion for the alleged abuse from MJ if this news is reported by almost no one, was published in some tabloid and is not mentioned in the court documents available to us.

The question is very interesting because it enables us to ask similar questions about the media coverage of Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit against AEG, compare it with media reports of Wade Robson’s claim and reflect on why the media cover these two civil suits (revolving around one person) in so different a manner.

QUESTIONS

1. Indeed, how is it possible that not so long ago all media was awash with rage and ridicule about the sum Katherine Jackson wanted from AEG for the wrongful death of her son, and now they are keeping almost dead silence about a certain sum demanded by Wade Robson in connection with his alleged abuse?

After all Michael Jackson died while the abuse most probably never happened, however the media (and some fans) chose to mock a mother who lost her beloved son, but do not say a word of criticism towards a person whose status of a ‘victim’ is highly disputable and needs a lot of proof before it only begins to become remotely credible.

I personally have never heard the word ‘greedy’ used by the media for Wade Robson, however I heard it a thousand times in respect of Katherine Jackson. Why so?

Moreover it is an extremely rare occurrence that the press reports that Wade Robson has any monetary demands at all, though the fact that he filed a civil suit automatically means that he wants money. A civil suit is always about money and you can’t be in two minds here, however no one even mentions it let alone elaborate on the idea. Why so?

2. Another side of the story is a question why the media screamed that Katherine Jackson wanted $40 billion though the sum was untrue and she never really claimed it.

The draft of her lawyers’ calculations was never approved and even seen by Katherine but it became known to AEG (and some super knowledgeable MJ fans) and this alone was enough for the media to create a tsunami of hatred for Katherine  among the general public and even some fans.

For those who still don’t know that Katherine never asked for $40 billion here is a piece from her testimony at the AEG trial where the lawyers discuss the matter between themselves at a sidebar. Despite the fact that the sum was not filed in the court documents and was never even seen by Katherine Jackson the AEG lawyer Putnam still wanted to question her about the matter:

Mr. Putnam:     What I don’t understand is, we have had two different figures in this case: there’s the $42 billion figure, and now we have $1.5 billion that happened within a span of four months.

The judge:         When was the $40 billion?

Mr. Putnam:     On December 3rd, 2010.

Mr. Panish:       It was a statement of damages that she’s never seen.

The judge:         If that’s where you’re going, that sounds like you’re asking legal questions about a statement of damages that the lawyers file that she doesn’t know anything about.

Mr. Panish:       It’s not even filed.

Mr. Boyle:            Not even filed.

Mr. Putnam:    What it says, the case law says about that very thing; okay? That because it is an  element of what they’re saying they believe their damages claim is, and they are an agent of the person.  If you look at it, it says, “Katherine Jackson hereby demands.” that’s what it says.

Mr. Panish:       She doesn’t sign it.

Mr. Putnam:    And therefore I’m able to ask, “are you aware of this fact?” and that is clear.  And the reason the case law says and makes it very clear why is because of the fact that if something is so out of whack this is what the case law says –

Ms. Chang:          It does not.

Mr. Putnam:   – is so out of whack with reality, the jury is allowed to assess that.

Mr. Panish:       What case is that?

The judge:         Here’s what I’m going to allow you to do: you’re going to skip over this portion of your questioning, and I want a brief on it.

As far as I know they didn’t return to this matter, so most probably the case law does not allow to ask questions about the statement of damages plaintiffs never knew of, saw or endorsed.

Now a question to the media:

If the calculations of those damages were only a draft that was never approved and seen by the claimant (but seen by the media instead), why turn this unsubstantiated figure into a reason for harassing the old woman for months and even years on end? Was it done by the media to bias the potential jury and portray as ‘villains’ the mother and children who suffered a terrible loss and the old good corporation AEG as their ‘innocent victim’?

And how come this preliminary document found its way into the press at all? Doesn’t it look like a preemptive strike by AEG to arrange a public hysteria against Katherine and portray her as nuts, and the media being unfortunately at their full service?

3. Now, if the media is so much impressed by huge claims, a similar hype could be expected around the sum reportedly demanded from the MJ Estate by Wade Robson now. Surprise-surprise, but no one is screaming about Robson wanting $1.62 billion (which is more than Michael Jackson earned during his lifetime) and there is no sign of any media mockery of this truly ridiculous sum – which is very strange indeed, especially when we recall that his allegations have no foot to stand on and on previous two occasions he was saying exactly the opposite and both times under oath too.

So do the media consider the $1.62 billion claim for a fantasy story a lesser sensation than the false claim of $40 billion for the death of Michael Jackson? I’m afraid they do, though the amount of money wanted by Robson is so incredible that the sum alone is quite a sensation and is absolutely newsworthy.

However we see that in Wade Robson’s case the media not only refrain from reporting the sum but silence the fact that he is after money at all. As a result the major part of the public is not even aware that Robson wants money from Michael Jackson’s Estate and that he demands more than a billion and a half.

A TEST OF MEDIA OBJECTIVITY

The reason why the media keep mum about it is that the $1.62 billion demand will shed a good deal of light on the nature of Robson’s claim and this is what the media don’t want.

I mean they don’t want people to know that this case is pure extortion. And their telling silence about the financial side of the matter betrays their true attitude towards Michael Jackson more than any words would.

Exactly the same thing can be said about their anti-Katherine screams, only in the reverse. The constant media rubbing in of the false $40 billion story is also extremely tale-telling as it shows how ‘unbiased’ the media are and where their true interests lie.

These two cases put together are actually a good testing ground for the media’s so-called objectivity and a test which the media absolutely do not stand. On the contrary, if the media coverage of these two civil cases is put side by side, it betrays the media deep affection for defendant AEG and huge animosity for plaintiff Katherine Jackson, and vice versa –  their big support for plaintiff Wade Robson and total lack of any for MJ and his Estate as the defendant.

The common denominator of both cases is Michael Jackson of course and this makes it easy to conclude that the essence and circumstances of the case are not the point – the one who is against Michael Jackson is automatically a big media friend, and vice versa. And it does not matter whether Michael Jackson is a plaintiff or a defendant  – it is always he who is to blame. We have long noticed that Michael is a sort of a universal whipping boy for all times…

An extra bonus of our comparison is learning that the AEG-friendly media incidentally happens to be also Robson-friendly, and this establishes a certain bond between the two. And it doesn’t matter if it is common hate or common interests that bring them together – whichever it is, it’s clear that this two and even three-side cooperation (including the media) is a mighty force which is very much on a war path against Michael Jackson.

ONE MORE FIGURE

There is one more sum that needs to be mentioned here and it is the correct amount of money claimed by Katherine Jackson in her lawsuit against AEG. It would be very interesting to know how this sum was reported by the press and how many people know it.

The sum really claimed by Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit was $1.5 billion. This was the projected sum of the economic losses to which $85 million to every child and $35 million to Michael’s mother were supposed to be added (all in all $1.79 billion if my calculations are correct).

These figures are listed here:

Michael Jackson verdict: Family gets no money in huge AEG victory

October 02, 2013|By Jeff Gottlieb, Ruben Vives, Victoria Kim

Entertainment giant AEG Live scored a major win in the Michael Jackson case after a Los Angeles jury unanimously decided that the concert promoter was not liable in the singer’s death.

The jury — which found that AEG hired Dr. Conrad Murray and that he was a competent doctor — did not award any money to the singer’s mother Katherine Jackson or his three children. They had been seeking damages of more than $1 billion.

It took only three days for the jury to reach the verdict after a five-month trial that included dozens of witnesses.

Jackson’s mother and three children brought the lawsuit, saying AEG Live hired and supervised Murray, who gave Jackson the fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol.

The family’s attorney painted a picture of a cold, calculating entertainment enterprise that failed to notice that Murray was financially desperate and then pushed the physician to get Jackson ready to tour even though the singer was in frail health and was crippled by fear.

“They’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me,‘” Jackson’s eldest son, Prince, testified, recalling the singer’s words in one his final conversations with his father.

The Jackson family’s legal team asked jurors to award $85 million to each of the pop star’s children and another $35 million to his mother.

In addition, lawyers suggested AEG be asked to pay as much as $1.5 billion in economic losses.

Full article here: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/local/la-me-ln-michael-jackson-verdict-aeg-20131002

You will agree that $1.5 or $1.79 billion is a huge sum but it is still a far cry from the fictional $40 billion the media were so hysterical about. So how did the media report this real claim by Katherine Jackson?

Despite the fact that we already know the answer (they didn’t report it) let us conduct an experiment which will present a purely scientific picture of the media bias, distortion and silencing the truth regarding Michael Jackson and the methods they are employing to do it.

MEASURING THE MEDIA BIAS

Let us google search the three sums discussed here and see the result it will bring us.

Click to enlarge

I’ve chosen the following wording for the search:

• $40 billion claim by Katherine Jackson
• $1.5 billion claim by Katherine Jackson
• $1.62 billion claim by Wade Robson

1. The search for the untrue sum of $40 billion has brought us 136,000 results. The story was promoted for at least several months and is still the first thing that comes up if you look for the sum claimed in Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit.

The wrong figure is glaring at us from every headline. Some headlines openly call Katherine ‘greedy’.

Considering that the majority of people look at headlines first and only later open the links, most people learn the news from scanning the headlines and only in case they are further interested in the subject look for some details.

So you can imagine the effect the sum of $40 billion in every headline had on the public and what amount of harm this unverified and biased reporting did to Katherine Jackson (and possibly to the future outcome of her case against AEG). I can bet on whatever you like that though the sum is untrue even now almost everyone still thinks that Katherine Jackson wanted it.

The texts in smaller print are dominated by ideas that “the claim is preposterous and based on speculation”.

2. The next google search was made for $1.5 billion which was the correct sum claimed by Katherine Jackson.

This search brought a bigger number of news results (258,000) but only because the main subject of the news was the fact that Katherine lost her case to AEG.

Click to enlarge

So the media waited until the end of the trial to report on the true sum of the claim though it was known from the very beginning of it (and possibly earlier),  however at that time it wasn’t in their interests to cover it.

The desired negative effect could have been lost and people may have even begun asking questions why they had been fed with wrong numbers for so long. So the true sum was saved until the end of the trial when it was finally drowned in the news that the case was lost.

The correct sum came in small print only and was mentioned in passing somewhere in the text.

The primary news was “Katherine loses”, “AEG not liable” and even “MJ family meets to discuss how to divide up the $40 BILLION they expect to win from AEG” – thus naming the untrue sum again and in capital letters too (you can see the full headline if you open the link).

In fact none of the headlines state the reason why the claim was declined – the jury agreed that AEG was responsible for hiring Conrad Murray but the doctor whose patient died due to his gross negligence looked ‘competent’ to them for some reason, and hence the result.

What’s very important is that in contrast to the previous figure of $40 billion, the correct sum of Katherine’s claim is not in the headlines. Actually even at this stage some headlines continue to state the wrong sum while the true figure is lost somewhere in the depth of the text thus minimizing the effect of true information.

The text itself is dominated by words “denied”, “rejected”, “loses” and the AEG attorney again says that “$1.5 billion in damages for Jackson’s death is ‘ridiculous’.

Funny. So no matter what sum Katherine is asking for it is always ‘ridiculous’ as if by default.

3. The final google search was made for $1.62 billion demanded by Robson. Needless to say that the result was totally unsurprising.

Click to enlarge

The number of news results was 84,600 and none of the headlines stated the amount. The word ‘ridiculous’ was never used, same as the word ‘greedy’. 

The sum is mentioned only in small print and somewhere deep in the text. As we already know this is done intentionally as the headline will inevitably sink in while the text in smaller print can easily go unnoticed. Especially if the headline conveys a different message than the text.

And what message do the headlines for Wade Robson’s claim convey? Oh, there are absolutely no surprises here. The message of every single piece of news is focusing on words ‘pedophilia’, ‘rape’ and ‘molestation’.

Never mind that the claim is absurd, the sum is exorbitant, the man is greedy and his story is fiction. The headlines will nevertheless not report any of it as the ever-present goal of their reporting about MJ is focusing on the fantasy genre and not the reality.

Summing up the results of the experiment we can state that:

• The media report false information about matters relating to Michael Jackson much more readily than the truth.

• The scale of reporting false information is incomparably bigger that the coverage of true and positive Michael Jackson facts.

• The truth about MJ almost never finds itself in the headlines but is published in smaller print to minimize its effect on the public.

• When the facts speaking in favor of MJ are unavoidable and have to be reported, the media diverts public attention from them by focusing on something negative instead (like “molest” instead of the $1.62 billion sum).

• The media is used as a tool of heavy information manipulation regarding Jackson.

• The media happens to be both AEG and Wade Robson friendly which is an interesting phenomenon irrespective of the fact whether the two are in cahoots with each other or not. What’s important is that with the help of the heavily biased media they are a really mighty force.

You can repeat the experiment yourselves using a different wording but I can guarantee you that the result will be the same.

So here is all the proof we needed of the media’s “objectivity, high standards of reporting and lack of bias”– at least in respect of Michael Jackson.

For the sake of fairness I need to note that the media in the country I happen to live in employs exactly the same methods (if not worse) even when reporting on political matters, and I hope that one day they will answer for what they do – however it doesn’t make the situation with reports on Michael Jackson in the US press any better.

What they are doing to Michael shows the media’s despicable and true worth and it still remains to be seen whose media was the first to start on this horrible road.

MORE ARITHMETIC AND MORE CONCLUSIONS

When I learned of the $1.62 billion sum demanded by Robson my first reaction was incredulity and laugh. Both stemmed from the stark similarity between the sum claimed by Katherine Jackson and the amount Wade Robson decided he needed sometime after the AEG trial.

The $1.62 billion demanded by Robson is indeed very close to the sum of $1.5 billion asked by Katherine Jackson. In fact it is so close in value and timing that it produces the impression of the AEG symmetrical reply to Katherine and taking revenge on her and the Estate (who gave her a $6 million loan, probably for the trial).

My impression of a certain scheme behind this claim was enforced by some other figures that emerged in the middle of the AEG trial from a totally unexpected side – the IRS which is the US government agency responsible for collecting taxes.

The IRS made a claim against the Michael Jackson Estate concerning their alleged mistake in paying taxes for Michael Jackson’s “likeness” and demanded the sum of $702 million in repayment of the debt and a penalty for the alleged cheat. Recently an additional $29 million was added to the sum thus bringing it to a total of $731 million.

This prompted me to do some more arithmetic to find out how much money would be left for the Estate if they were to pay everything that is demanded of them now.

Forbes says that during his lifetime Michael made $1.1 billion (which is equivalent to $2 billion nowadays accounting for inflation). However this money is not in the possession of the Estate as some was spent by Michael during his lifetime and some was used on acquiring and building up his music catalog.

The Sony/ATV catalog is now valued at $2 billion of which the MJ Estate has a half  – $1 billion. The Estate has also generated a lot of money since Michael’s death and is now $600 million net worth according to this source.

So if we operate in these figures only (without going into the estimation of Michael Jackson ‘likeness’ or the value of MJ own songs) the end result will be $1.6 billion.

Surprisingly, this is the exact sum Wade Robson wants. This sum is more than the money earned by Michael by very hard work and is actually almost everything the Estate has and is able to raise if they sell their half of the Sony/ATV catalog.

Add to it the $731 million demanded by the IRS now and you will realize that the catalog of MJ songs will probably have to go too. At least this is the way it looks to me as a lay person and a total outsider operating in formal figures only.

What does all of it mean?

It means that someone wants to grab all the money the Michael Jackson Estate has.

It also means that these forces are very much assisted by a person named Wade Robson who is currently acting as their main tool in the project.

And if all of it is not an attempt to ruin Michael Jackson and his Estate, then I don’t know what it is.

Are the media involved in the plan? At least some of them definitely are. The ‘unbiased’ way they are reporting on MJ matters has proven it to us. In fact some media sources are already gloating over the fact that to be able to settle the IRS claim the Estate will probably have to sell part of their assets or otherwise pay back the debt for 15 years to come.

And how do we know that Robson is also part of the project? We know it from small signs like his ‘coincidental’ filing of the suit immediately after the start of the AEG trial and from the preferential way he is treated by the media.

With very few exceptions the media have already proven themselves to be no friend of Michael Jackson and evidently regard the enemy of their enemy as their friend, so hence their love affair with Wade Robson. This enables the Robson camp to silence the crucial fact of $1.62 billion unfavorable to his image and showing him a greedy liar he is.

The sum itself is another reason why we know that Robson is part of the anti-Michael project.  If he were asking for $10, 50 or even 100 million for example, the claim would still be a huge one but it wouldn’t point to Robson’s intention to ruin the MJ Estate. But since he is demanding $1.62 billion it means that he wants practically everything the Estate has which means ruining Michael and leaving his children with nothing.

In fact this is what they always wanted to do to Michael. And this is why they were on a constant hunt for him. What’s happening today is simply a continuation of their long-established policies towards Jackson. Why they are doing it is a mystery of its own, but one day it will surely become known too.

See how much some figures can tell us?

P.S.

The sum of $1.62 billion was intentionally placed in the headline in order to slightly balance the totally inadequate scope of its media reporting.

P.P.S

Since readers insist that I answer the question “why we should believe that Robson demands $1,62 bln” let me give two replies for you to choose from:

1) You don’t have to believe it. The sum of $1.62 bln is the same type of news as the $40 bln reported by the media about Katherine Jackson (only the silenced variant of it). But those sceptics who don’t believe Robson’s demand now should have been similarly sceptical about Katherine’s demands too. Sceptics should always be sceptics, shouldn’t they?

However my suspicion is that those who don’t believe Robson’s $1.62 bln demand now are exactly the same people who fully believed the $40 bln demand by Katherine Jackson. Many of you have also noted this strange paradox. So the short answer to these sceptics will actually start with questions:

Did you believe media reports that Katherine wanted $40b? Then why don’t you believe similar reports that Robson demands $1.62b? Why this hypocrisy? So before you even start voicing your opinion on this matter first admit that you and the media lied about Katherine Jackson – otherwise your present scepticism over Robson’s sum will not be accepted either and will be regarded as a horrible double standard.

2) The second answer to the question is that the sum of damages is seldom (if ever) worded by the plaintiff. It is the job of the lawyers to calculate the damages and is done solely by them. Mr. Panish stressed it several times during the trial. What happened in Katherine’s case was that the sum of $40 bln was calculated by her lawyers and as a draft became known to AEG, who immediately took this sum to the media to massacre Katherine there.

Similarly we can imagine that the sum of Robson’s claim is also a draft, however the difference here is that it was communicated to the media not by the opposing side as in Katherine’s case, but by Robson’s own lawyers who shared it with Radaronline and other sources (the Daily Mail, for example). And since the time the sum was printed not a single person disclaimed it. And there is no massacre seen either – all is very quiet as if $1.62 billion is requested in civil suits every day. And this is where the whole difference in the attitude is.

Actually a very short answer here is – if Robson’s sum were untrue at least some lawyers would have spoken up and disclaimed it, either from one or the other side.