‘Nearly broke’ Jackson settles €12m lawsuit

SUPERSTAR Michael Jackson has settled a potentially humiliating €12 million lawsuit brought by a former business manager who claimed he was nearly broke, lawyers have said.

Attorneys for the “King of Pop” and his onetime advisor, South Korean-born Myung-Ho Lee, announced they had struck an out-of-court deal that averts a potentially explosive trial that had been due to start next week.

But the terms of the settlement - which came just nine days after Jackson asked the judge to throw out the case - will remain confidential, lawyers for the pair said through a court spokesman in Los Angeles.

Judge Andria Richey had been due to rule on Jackson’s motion to dismiss the suit, as well as on whether to allow television coverage of the trial in which highly-sensitive financial data on Jackson may have been aired.

If the trial had gone ahead as scheduled on June 18, Jackson would have been the star witness, taking the stand for at least three days in proceedings that risked becoming one of the media trials of the decade.

In his suit, Lee alleged that the pop star owed him €12 million in back pay and made a string of explosive allegations including one that “the Gloved One” had almost exhausted his multi-billion dollar fortune.

The suit claimed that the 44-year-old Jackson’s extravagant spending had created “a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at any moment,” fuelling lingering speculation that Jackson was in financial trouble.

Jackson’s lawyers had asked the judge to dismiss the suit, saying Lee was not owed any money since he and his firm, Union Finance and Investment Corp., were not legally licensed investment advisers in California.

They claimed Lee was trying to divert a California consumer protection law that would allow him to practice as an unlicensed financial advisor only if he did not have a place of business in the state. But Jackson’s team contended that Lee worked, held meetings and conducted transactions out of Jackson’s Los Angeles offices of his firm and was therefore not covered by the legal exception. Lee’s suit, which attracted massive media attention, claimed that the singer, who has faced a string of legal and media woes in recent months, has gone through 230 million in credit lines within a year.

Jackson has squandered his fortune in a string of failed get-rich-quick schemes, he said.

Among the allegations made was that “Jacko” made a payment of €1.5 million to Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, to whom he was married for less than two years until 1998.

Rowe is the mother of two of his children: Prince Michael Jackson Jr., 6, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 5.

Lee also claimed that “Jacko” pays €340,000 a year to Neverland Rides for the attractions at his home amusement park on his California estate, and an additional €170,000 for the upkeep of the park.

Lee claimed the “Gloved One” shelled out nearly €500,000 in fees to attorneys, and ran up €200,000 in bills at a Los Angeles electronics store.

Lee also said Jackson never intended to pay off the lines of credit.