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Michael Jackson | 'Cold Mountain' | 'Guiding Light' | 'Anything Goes'
Jacko Hunkers Down at Nation of Islam 'Safe
House'
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| AP |
| Michael
Jackson | Get ready,
because the strangest confluence of people yet in the Michael
Jackson story is about to occur.
On Monday at 9 a.m., 27 players in the Michael
Jackson inner and outer circles will get together at the Beverly Hills
Hotel. This will include the lawyers, accountants, bankers, managers
and, of course, members of the Nation of Islam.
The meeting will be followed by a reception and a
luncheon. Presumably, Mark Geragos, Michael's attorney
in the child-molestation matter, will be the host. And yes, the word is
that Michael himself will attend.
I'm told that the conference will include all the
names we've come to love in this story: Dieter Wiesner
and Ronald Konitzer, lawyers to name two like
John Branca and Zia Modabber, bankers
like Jane Heller, financial managers Charles
Koppelman and Al Malnik, accountant
Alan Whitman and so on.
Not invited, I am told, is Jackson's steadfast pal
Marc Schaffel, who produced his "What More Can I Give?"
project. Schaffel is still owed a lot of money by Jackson and is hoping
to collect from someone.
The idea for this, my sources said, is "to dispel the
notion that the Nation of Islam is in control of Michael. They're going
to say, 'Look at all these people. How can you can say that the NOI is
in charge?'"
But of course, the NOI is most definitely in charge.
Leonard Searcy Muhammad will be there. The question:
Will the NOI remain low or have a big security presence? Taste-testers
may be more appropriate than anything else.
Jackson, meantime, is said to have pre-paid through
his accountant six months' rent on his current home in Beverly Hills.
The rent is said to be between $70,000 and $100,000 per month. The
catch, however, is that Jackson may have been under the impression that
the NOI had rented this "safe" house and was footing the bill.
Instead, I am told that the rent bill was submitted
to Whitman, the accountant, and paid by him, since Jackson refuses to
return to Neverland. Unofficially, the ranch-cum-carnival the scene of
the famous police raid back on Nov. 19 is up for sale if Jackson can
find a buyer.
A lot of people ask me if Jackson has any idea of
what's going on in the outside world. The answer, apparently, is no.
According to sources, recent visitors to the house
have noticed that no reports are getting through, and that Jackson is
shielded from what he considers "bad news" by his Nation of Islam
keepers.
"He is totally unaware of anything that's been
written or said about him for the last couple of weeks," one visitor
reported. "He hasn't seen any TV news reports or anything
else." | 
