DOCUMENT: Crime

Michael Jackson Candelabra Complaint

Lawsuit: Singer stiffed Los Angeles antiques firm for $178k

View Document

Michael Jackson Candelabra Complaint

NOVEMBER 19--Another day, another lawsuit for the King of Pop. A Los Angeles antiques dealer yesterday sued Michael Jackson for allegedly failing to pay a nearly $180,000 bill for merchandise he purchased earlier this year. In a Los Angeles Superior Court complaint, the owner of Mayfair Gallery says that Jackson bought 20 items from the firm, including malachite urns, a French silver bread holder, and an "Austrian gold-painted dancing girl." Not to mention 13-branch candelabras and a Louis XVI-style clock. According to the lawsuit, Jackson has paid Mayfair $200,000, but is welshing on the outstanding balance of $178,875. Included with the lawsuit are copies of invoices for Jackson's wacky May purchases (strangely, his name has been scratched out and replaced with the surname "Brown"). Directly below you'll find the amusing Mayfair invoices, which are followed by the Melrose Place firm's court filing. Mayfair's nonpayment complaint was filed two days after a former Jackson associate, Marc Schaffel, charged in a lawsuit that the performer owed him more than $3 million in unpaid loans and production fees. Schaffel, who made his bones in the gay porn industry, described Jackson as a deadbeat whose judgment has been impaired by his abuse of drugs and alcohol. (7 pages)