Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

Jackson's last business manager finally breaks his silence

LOS ANGELES -- Dr. Tohme Tohme vividly remembers the first time he met with Michael Jackson to discuss the pop star's finances. It's not the money talk that stays with him now, but his enchantment at entering Jackson's world of love.

"I saw how kind he was and what a wonderful human being," Tohme said in an interview. "I saw him with his children and I had never seen a better father. ... I decided to do what I could to help him."

Tohme, a financier with a murky past, had been contacted by Jackson's brother, Jermaine, who asked if Tohme could help to save Jackson's beloved Neverland ranch from foreclosure. Tohme said he traveled with Jermaine to Las Vegas, where Jackson was living after years of wandering the world following his acquittal on child molestation charges.

They bonded instantly. "For the last year and a half I was the closest person to Michael Jackson," Tohme said. He contacted Tom Barrack, the chairman of Colony Capital and a close personal friend. "He was hesitant to get involved, but I said, 'Let's go see Michael,"' Tohme recalled.

After the meeting he said Barrack, who was impressed with Jackson's "intelligence and focus," bought the note for Neverland. But that was just the beginning of a business relationship that culminated in the London concerts that were to have begun next week.

Wearing a suit with no tie, Tohme, Jackson's last business manager and spokesperson, granted his first interview Friday to The Associated Press in the office of a lawyer friend.

Tohmen, listed in public records as being in his late 50s, has been portrayed as something of a mystery man in the Jackson brain trust.

"I hate the words 'mystery man,"' he said. "I'm a private man. A lot of people like the media and I don't. I respect the privacy of other people but lately nobody respects mine."