Michael Jackson's mother has reportedly filed court papers in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing the temporary administrators of the pop icon's estate of keeping her in the dark about the state of his affairs.
Katherine Jackson's filing Tuesday is the latest sign that a battle is brewing over control of Jackson's music empire, the Los Angeles Times said on Wednesday.
Her attorneys urged a judge to order the administrators, two longtime associates of her son, to submit to depositions and turn over a slew of documents, including the contract that controlled Jackson's planned comeback concert series, the paper said.
Judge Mitchell Beckloff declined to hold a special hearing on the request but added it to the array of issues to be taken up next Monday, when lawyers are due in court to discuss the estate and permanent custody arrangements for Jackson's three children, according to the paper.
Katherine Jackson, 79, was initially appointed temporary administrator of her son's affairs, but the judge transferred that power to music executive John McClain and entertainment attorney John Branca after a Jackson will surfaced naming them executors.
Beckloff will address the validity of the will at Monday's hearing. In the meantime, he ordered McClain and Branca to seek Katherine Jackson's opinion on any major business dealings, the paper said.
In their filing, Katherine Jackson's attorneys reportedly said McClain and Branca refused to provide documents they had requested or placed "cumbersome and unreasonable restrictions" on access to them. A lawyer for McClain and Branca denied those allegations.
A police investigation, meanwhile, was continuing into the cause of Jackson's death on June 25 in Los Angeles.
Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who was serving as Jackson's personal physician, has emerged as the focus of the investigation. But law enforcement sources told the celebrity news Web site TMZ. com that a far-ranging investigation is taking form into what could be fraudulent prescription practices of more than a dozen doctors.
Los Angeles police detectives and members of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office are gathering information on various doctors who treated Jackson over the years, TMZ.com reported. Subpoenas have been issued, medical files have been taken and conversations with various doctors and their lawyers are taking place.
The Coroner's Office is expected to release the results of post- mortem toxicology tests this week. They are widely expected to show that Jackson had been given propofol, a sedative known by the brand name Diprivan, which doctors say should not be administered except by an anesthesiologist in a hospital setting.
Jackson has used more than two dozen aliases to obtain drugs with the help of doctors. Nineteen aliases have been cited in the affidavits used to secure search warrants against Murray, according to the paper.
Former Jackson associates have said the troubled pop star used the sedative to sleep.
News reports have quoted law enforcement sources as saying that Jackson was given propofol the night he died.
Police detectives and federal agents searched Murray's Las Vegas home and office Tuesday, seizing cell phones and a computer hard drive as investigators looked for records pertaining to the singer and the aliases he may have used. Murray's Houston office was searched last week.
(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2009)
