Jackson Sues Vaccaro for Personal Items–Bullet #112

Jackson Sues Vaccaro for Personal Items – MJEOL Bullet #112 Michael Jackson is suing Henry Vaccaro, the man who sold a large collection of Jackson memorabilia recently. Apparently, Vaccaro also sold items belonging to Michael Jackson, which is in violation of a previous court decision. Michael Jackson’s items, unlike the items rightfully ruled to be Vaccaro’s, should have been returned to Michael Jackson because he was not a part of this previous lawsuit in which Vaccaro came to possess Jackson family items. The complaint, filed in US Federal court, is for wrongful conversion, copyright infringement, false designation of origin, violation of statutory right of publicity and violation of privacy. There is also a demand for a jury trial according to the court documents. This started, according to the lawsuit, because Vaccaro was “a creditor of one or more members” of Michael Jackson’s “family who were previously subject to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding.” To be clear, Michael Jackson himself was never a part of filing bankruptcy and was never indebted to Viccaro in any way. The suit filed by Jackson states that neither Michael Jackson nor his property was ever under the jurisdiction of bankruptcy court. As a result of the Jacksons (less Michael) filing for bankruptcy, the count judge approved the limited sale of the Jacksons’ property (less those items belonging to Michael) which was in a storage facility. That court order specifically stated that any property belonging to anyone not a part of the bankruptcy—ie anything belonging to Michael Jackson—could not be sold or transferred. According to the documents, Vaccaro is in “blatant violation of a court order”. The suit also says he is guilty of wrongful conversion of private and personal property belonging to Michael Jackson including but not limited to Jackson’s Blue cross card, sealed court documents, fan letters and lyrics. Jackson says he learned about this property being utilized for commercial purposes in March 2004. The suit also makes reference to the pay-per-view website in which Vaccaro describes the property as “the most private items for Michael”, “sealed court documents”, “hundreds of personal private hand written notes”, “thousands of never before opened fan mail”, and “Never released hand-written lyrics”. Remember, Michael Jackson’s private property was not turned over to Vaccaro to settle the bankruptcy suit against the Jacksons (excluding Michael). Vaccaro also registered domain names blatantly using Jackson’s name such as: MichaelJacksonCircus.com, MJCircus.com, MichaelJacksonFamilyCircus.com and TheJacksonVault.com, in an attempt to further profit from Jackson’s fame. It says that Vaccaro “knowingly and in violation of the Court Order also took possession of Jackson’s personal property and are now attempting to sell and otherwise exploit that property.” Further, Vaccaro supposedly “reaped millions of dollars worth of advertising and promotional services from Jackson without paying for it.” The lawsuit says that Vaccaro also used Michael Jackson’s name to make it appear that he had not come across the items belonging to Jackson in an illegal matter. You can view the actual court documents at thesmokinggun.com. -MJEOL