A federal judge in Washington has thrown out a suit by a former publicist for Michael Jackson who claimed that she was cheated out of $44 million in commisions on business deals she helped arranged for the late King of Pop.<\/p>\n
In a ruling Friday, Judge James Robertson dismissed the suit brought by D.C.-based P.R. representative Raymone Bain.<\/p>\n
Bain filed the case against Jackson and his companies last May, over a 2006 deal she signed promoting her from publicist to business manager and promising her a 10% cut on deals she arranged for the music legend. About seven weeks after the suit was filed last year, Jackson died.<\/p>\n
Robertson ruled that Bain couldn’t enforce the contract because she signed a broad release in 2007 when she took a payment of about $489,000 from Jackson. Bain said she meant the release only to cover specific business deals, but the judge didn’t buy it. “I find no ambiguity in the language of Bain\u2019s Release,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
Robertson also rejected Bain’s claims that she was tricked into signing the release since she didn’t know about some of Jackson’s profitable projects. The judge said that claim wasn’t credible given that Bain asserted she was intimately involved in Jackson’s business affairs. <\/p>\n