Lawyers for Michael Jackson settled a lawsuit Monday brought by a New Jersey finance company that claimed Jackson cheated it out of $48 million.The lawsuit by Prescient Acquisition, a Hackensack, N.J., firm, was settled just as jury selection was set to begin in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Terms of the settlement were not released.
Steven Altman, a lawyer for businessman Darien Dash, who owns Prescient, said Dash was owed the money for helping Jackson refinance a $272 million bank loan and secure $573 million in financing to buy Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people )'s half of the Beatles' song catalog that Sony co-owned with Jackson.
Michael Jackson, 48, had claimed he was nearly swindled out of his fortune during his 2005 child molestation trial and that it was his brother Randy Jackson, 45, was responsible for the set of circumstances that brought about the suit.
Aside from all the finger-pointing, we can't imagine that during the height of Michael's child molestation trial, Randy would try to dog him his brother while the world was watching.
Like the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
What say you? do you think Michael got played, or is The Gloved One not quite all there? More importantly, can you ever be close to a family member after a lawsuit?