New Shafell Claim Against Michael

On Friday, the fourth hearing in Mark Shafell’s financial lawsuit against Michael Jackson took place in Santa Monica court. On that day, Mark Shafell testified as a witness, saying that the main reason for his trip to Brazil was Michael’s request that he adopt several Brazilian boys. Michael’s defense attorney called the claim a lie and said Shafell’s goal was to damage Michael’s credibility. Even Shafell’s own lawyer seemed taken aback by his claim and said the matter was completely irrelevant to the current case. Thomas Mandehl, Michael’s defense attorney, said that during pre-trial inspections, he had never heard such an allegation from Shafell: "This is an attempt to tarnish Mr. Jackson, which could hurt him by linking this issue to his allegations from last year. Last year, in Santa Maria court, Jackson was cleared of the charge of sexual abuse." In court, Michael’s lawyer asked Shafell about the reason for his trip to Brazil. Shafell denied that he had traveled to Brazil in order to find an actor for his pornographic films: "No, I didn’t use any Latin American models." Mandehl then asked whether he had a stake in the company "Latin Boys". Shafell became angry and denied it. But then he claimed: "The main reason for my trip was that Mr. Jackson wanted several Brazilian boys to be adopted." The day before, Shafell had testified that in 2001, Michael had instructed him to deliver $300,000 to someone in Argentina. And he had gone there to withdraw money from his personal account in Brazil, and then traveled on to Argentina. In a video shown in court that same day, Michael said he had never been asked Shafell to transfer money to Argentina. In the video, Michael’s defense attorney asks: "Did you ask Mr. Shafell to deliver a sum of money to a third person whose identity you did not want anyone to know?" Michael: "No." Defense attorney: "Did you ask Mr. Shafell to deliver $300,000 to a family in Buenos Aires?" Startled by the question, Michael laughed and also answered no. On the same day, Mandehl, Michael’s defense lawyer, called Raul Perez (Raul Perez) to the stand. The person who, during the making of the song What More Can I Give, had entered negotiations with music recording companies as Shafell’s representative regarding the release of the track. Perez said that Sony blocked the song because of Shafell’s involvement in it. He added that the song—featuring participation from 40 pop stars—would have achieved major success at the time. Perez continued: "I think Sony was unhappy that someone named Mark Shafell, who nobody had ever heard of, took on the role of producer for this song. There was always this question of where Michael found this man and entrusted him with producing the song." He said that proving Shafell’s background in pornographic films led to the song’s downfall. In this case, Shafell claimed that he owned the song’s royalties. But in the video shown in court, Michael states that Shafell has no royalties in this matter because he himself wrote the song and it was the product of his own creativity. Michael also says that he believes that any money he received from Shafell belonged to him, not to Shafell. "I never asked him to give me his money. That’s ridiculous. I would never do that." Also, when King asked whether Shafell had given him $375,000 so he could make his own purchases, Michael laughed and said: "Maybe it looks like Shafell was taking care of me a lot, but I’m not the kind of person who takes money from him. Give me $300,000 so I can go shopping? I don’t make requests like that." Source: eMJey / AP / Fox News