Yesterday, the position of the Jackson family was that Michael Jackson died without a will. They could hold that belief, and tell a court that, by the simple expedient of holding their hands to their ears and saying “blah blah blah” if anyone mentioned the news reports saying that Jackson’s sometime attorney, John Branca, had a will, dating from 2002.
Now Branca has produced it, and given the family a copy of it. The details haven’t been fully released yet, but CNN says it makes Branca and someone named John MacLaine, described as a “longtime friend” of Jackson, co-executors.
This disrupts the Jackson family’s desire to control Jackson’s estate, so now they’re looking around for a later will, one that would supplant Branca’s.
The family’s lawyers, who just told a judge that there wasn’t a will, spent most of this evening talking on CNN, telling anyone who’d listen that there just might be another one floating around.
They had no evidence of one, but that didn’t stop them from using every opportunity they could to speak skeptically about Branca. The best part of the evening was when two of the lawyers, Burt Levitch and Londell McMillan, tried to squirm out of the reality that, for now, Branca & Co. have the upper hand:
LEVITCH: [M]y concern is [Branca] may not have the full picture. There’s certainly a possibility that he was involved at one point and, as I said it earlier, in response to a question, things were in transition often in Michael’s life.
KING: [Londell], they’re saying though that they’re his attorneys now, as I read that.
MCMILLAN: Well, John Branca has been with Michael Jackson from ‘80 till about ‘96.
KING: And then wasn’t?
MCMILLAN: And there was a break. And I understand recently from Mr. Branca that he was just recently brought on a week ago.
KING: Oh, he told you that?
MCMILLAN: Mr. Branca told me and others. I want to put it in context. There’s a long history and a legacy that they have had. There was a separation for quite some time. Apparently, Mr. Branca had the will in his safe. So one of the issues that we’ll have to explore is, are the individuals named in the will still the people that Mr. Jackson wanted to administer and control his life after he passed and moved on?
I don’t understand why they went on CNN. They weren’t speaking officially for the family and, for example, couldn’t answer any of the questions King or Anderson Cooper had about talk of a large Jackson memorial service this weekend at the Neverland Ranch. Since the real decisions about control of the Jackson estate are going to be made by a judge, what did it gain the Jacksons to have them out in public mumbling darkly about John Branca?
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