Ill will over testimony

November 19, 2008

Michael Jackson might be too sick to travel to London to testify in a suit claiming he owes an Arab sheik $7 million, the pop star's attorney said yesterday. Jackson is seeking to give his testimony by video link from the United States. "It would be unwise for him to travel, given what's he's got now," lawyer Robert Englehart said, declining to elaborate "for the obvious reasons." A lawyer for Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa said the medical evidence presented by Jackson's legal team was unsatisfactory. "It's not the first time a sick note has been presented by Mr. Jackson," said the lawyer, Bankim Thanki. (AP)

Marion "Suge" Knight will face charges in the alleged beating of his girlfriend in August. A criminal complaint processed yesterday in Las Vegas Justice Court charges Knight with two counts of felony drug possession and one count of misdemeanor battery. Police arrested Knight, 43, after officers saw the founder of bankrupt Death Row Records beating the woman while brandishing a knife in a parking lot. The complaint alleges that Knight was carrying Ecstasy and hydrocodone when he was arrested. "We're going to vigorously defend him against these charges," said Richard Schonfeld, one of Knight's attorneys. (AP)

A British lawyer who wrote a popular book recounting a childhood of emotional and physical abuse is being sued for libel by her mother, who says the claims are fantasy. Constance Briscoe defends the veracity of her book, "Ugly" - the nickname she says her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, threw at her as a child. Her lawyer told London's High Court yesterday that the book contained some errors but was "quite properly put in the biography section of the bookshop, not the fiction section." "Ugly" has sold more than half a million copies in Britain since it was published in 2006. It was followed by a sequel, "Beyond Ugly." (AP)

"I'm just this goober who likes crosswords and plays music. . . . The whole rock-star mythos thing, man, does not apply to me in the least." - "American Idol" winner David Cook, whose debut album came out yesterday