Created: Thursday, 03 March 2005
Day 3 in the Michael Jackson Trial has adjourned and the surprises continue. Today the prosecution brought their second witness to the stand, a Las Vegas public relations ‘specialist,’ publicist Ann Marie Kite. However, media sources indicated that throughout the day the witness seemed to become an increasingly stronger asset to the Defense as she described the series of covert plans going on around Mr. Jackson apparently, without his knowledge. Ms. Kite testified that she was hired by her ex-boyfriend, David LeGrand, who was an attorney for Mr. Jackson at the time, and that she reported to Mark Geragos, Ronald Konitzer, Deiter Wiesner, Stuart Backerman and Marc Schaffel.
Upon cross-examination, it was revealed that she worked for the Jackson team for a total of six days, beginning on February 9th , which was 6 days after the airing of Martin Bashir’s Documentary. She was then terminated, for no apparent reason, on the 15th of February of 2003. She admitted that she had never met Michael Jackson or spoken to him. She said that she charged $20,000.00 for her services, but was given $10,000.00 as a retainer.
Ms. Kite testified that she became concerned that the people around Mr. Jackson were not representing him properly. Through reporter, Rita Cosby, she contacted Mr. Jackson’s brother, Jermaine Jackson and had a 7 hour meeting with him regarding her concerns about the situation. She explained that she felt that Dieter Wiesner, Ronald Konitzer, Stuart Backerman, Marc Schaffel and Eric Dezenhall did not have Mr. Jackson’s best interests in mind and that they were embezzling large amounts of money from Mr. Jackson and conspiring against him. Ms. Kite testified that she was convinced they were trying to set Mr. Jackson up, that they were destroying him.
In a surprising twist, Ms. Kite mentioned that she had friends in high places at Sony that confirmed that someone in the Jackson camp was deliberately trying to set Michael Jackson up to steal his highly-coveted Sony Music Catalog. Ms. Kite explained that she learned that Ronald Konitzer, an adviser also named as an unindicted co-conspirator, might be working behind the scenes to allow Sony to take over his ownership of a music catalog that includes the works of the Beatles. The catalog is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
“You said that Mr. Konitzer was hired to isolate Michael Jackson and let him create his downfall so that Sony could get the catalog back, isn’t that correct?” asked Mr. Mesereau.
“Not in those words,” said the witness, but she added she was aware of the importance of the catalog and that she was informed “that Sony was waiting for the opportunity to get the Sony catalog back.”
Ms. Kite also said Mr. Jackson’s advisers often seemed to work against each other and did not have his best interests at heart. She said she had difficulty talking with them about a strategy to improve his public image.
“I couldn’t discuss anything with anyone because they all had different agendas,” Ms. Kite explained. When Mr. Mesereau asked if she told police that she thought Mr. Jackson was being “slammed by the team,” Ms. Kite said “yes.”
During her testimony Ms. Kite repeatedly mentioned members of the Jackson team of whom she was suspicious. She acknowledged that she told sheriff’s investigators during a nine-hour interview that she felt the people around Mr. Jackson were not acting in his best interest, including Schaffel, Konitzer and Al Malnik, a Jackson financial adviser.
After her termination, a former lawyer for Mr. Jackson, Mark Geragos, asked Ms. Kite to sign a confidentiality agreement but she refused, saying. “I believed it would negatively impact me. I believe it was designed to shut me up,” she said.
In his cross-examination of Ms. Kite, Defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau made very clear to the court that Mr. Jackson was a victim of the people in his inner circle who were trying to damage his reputation.
Additionally, Ms. Kite said she had gotten her information about Mr. Jackson’s associates from David LeGrand and from the Internet. With the judge’s permission to bring up information on their background, the prosecutor asked Ms. Kite tell about her Internet research.
She noted that she had learned that Malnik was a “reputed mobster” and brought “negative publicity.” She also said she learned that Schaffel was a producer of gay pornography and thought his public association with Mr. Jackson would create more negative fallout. Under questioning by Mr. Mesereau, Ms. Kite said she had no information that Mr. Jackson was involved in gay pornography.
Ms. Kite was portrayed by the defense as someone who was in the Mr. Jackson camp a very short time but seemed to have learned a great deal.
“The ones you are most suspicious of are Schaffel and Konitzer?” Mr. Mesereau asked her.
“The ones I was most suspicious of were those who were taking their eyes off the devastation that was happening to Michael Mr. Jackson,” she said.
In cross-examination, Mr. Mesereau stressed that Ms. Kite never met the singer or most of his associates and dealt with them only by telephone. “In the six days that you represented Mr. Mr. Jackson did you feel you became an expert on Mr. Mr. Jackson’s life?” the attorney asked acerbically.
“Oh no, sir,” she said.
Asked about her expertise in representing celebrities, she said the only one she had ever represented was Marshall Sylver, a Las Vegas hypnotist who appeared in informercials.
Prosecutors called Ms. Kite to support allegation that Mr. Jackson and associates held the family against their will at Neverland and other locations throughout February 2003 to force them to help in a public relations campaign to rehabilitate his image. Ironically, her testimony seemed to have more impact in giving the jurors insight into the plans that Mr. Jackson’s own team were plotting against him and the activities that were being conducted without his knowledge or instruction.
Further usurping the testimony about Jackson’s accuser and his family being held against their will, Mesereau elicited from Ms. Kite that she never met the family, did not know anything about their relationship to Mr. Jackson and was alerted to their involvement third-hand.
Defense attorneys reiterated the fact that the family was free to leave at any time.
The witness spent all day on the stand, undergoing such a long cross-examination that Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville warned Mr. Mesereau to cut it off.
When questioned by reporters outside the courthouse if he was happy with his attorneys, Mr. Jackson voiced an emphatic “yes.”
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