Another delay

 

Carey siblings' court case on hold again

By David Baker
Oct. 30, 2022

   Morgan Carey's claim against his sister Mariah Carey over statements she made about him in her memoir has been delayed yet again.  A posting on the court system web page says the return date for the most recent motions is now November 28.
The case was filed in March 2021. 
*****
   Meanwhile, Alison Carey is recovering in a hospital today after surgery last week to stop a life-threatening hemorrhage at the site of the intestinal ulcer that perforated last year. 

   Doctors say she will likely be discharged early this week.

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Affidavit filed

   Mariah’s Carey’s response to her brother’s 

defamation claim: People told me he did it

By David Baker
Posted Sept. 1, 2022

   This week, more than a year after Morgan Carey’s lawsuit against his sister over statements in her book “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” was filed, Mariah Carey has just stated under oath that the things she said about her brother are true — which would mean they are not defamatory.

   In an affidavit filed on August 29, Mariah Carey addresses two statements in her book that Morgan Carey says are untrue and that defame him.

   The first is that in the late 1980s, while working in New York City nightclubs, Morgan Carey “…discreetly supplied the beautiful people with their powered party favors.”

   The judge in the case, in denying Mariah Carey’s motion to dismiss two of the claims in the complaint, ruled that the average reader would conclude from that statement that Morgan Carey was distributing cocaine.

   In her affidavit, Mariah Carey says the basis for her statement is that her mother, Patricia Carey, told her Morgan Carey was dealing drugs, including cocaine; that a well known photographer who knew both her and her brother told her Morgan had provided cocaine to a number of individuals; and that a well known hairstylist “…who was part of the nightlife scene in New York City, discussed with me stories about [Morgan Carey] providing cocaine to a number of individuals.” 

   Neither the photographer nor the hairdresser are identified - which they will be if they are prepared to state - under oath - that they witnessed Morgan Carey dealing drugs.

   Another question is: Did the publishers know before the book was published the identities of the photographer and hairdresser? (The judge dismissed the claims against the publishers and the co-author of the book because, she said, Morgan Carey had not shown that they acted with “actual malice” - in other words, that they intended to damage him - but that decision could be reversed on appeal. If it is, the publishers will certainly be asked about what steps they took to assure themselves that their author could prove her accusations.)

  Then there is Patricia Carey: Is she willing to testify against her own son? That’s if she is deemed capable of providing reliable testimony. She’s 84 or 85 years old and it was recently reported that she was found in her upstate New York home in a confused mental state and had been moved, against her will, to a high-end facility in Florida that provides specialist care.

   Mariah Carey doesn’t claim to have witnessed any of the supposed drug dealing; it’s all hearsay. Without testimony from witnesses, her defense is weak.

  And her final statement in defending against her brother’s claims is the weakest of all:  Everyone knew.

    It was “…inner-circle common knowledge at the time that [Morgan Carey] was heavily involved in the Manhattan nightlife scene and that he often was in possession of cocaine and provided it to members of the nightlife crowd that he associated with,” she states in the affidavit.

  Again, it likely will take more than Mariah Carey’s self-interested statements to convince a jury that her allegations about her brother are true. 

   Mariah Carey also defends her statement that Morgan Carey - who she called her “drunk-ass brother” - had “…been in the system”, which the judge ruled would lead a reader to conclude that Morgan Carey had been in prison.

   Mariah Carey says she was present when Morgan Carey was found in a hotel room in Aspen, Colorado, drunk; that “been in the system’ referred to when Morgan Carey, as a teenager, was treated for a short time at a facility for troubled youth; and that he was a witness in a criminal case against a woman who was convicted of shooting and killing her husband after Morgan Carey had allegedly agreed to kill the man for $30,000.

  But he didn’t go to prison.

   In another document filed this week, opposing Morgan Carey’s motion for summery judgment, Mariah Carey’s attorneys say that it should not be granted because there has been no discovery; no responses to written questions have been served, and no depositions have taken place.

  But last year it was these same attorneys who opposed Morgan Carey’s motion to conduct limited discovery to obtain, among things, any correspondence relating to the decision not to give him an opportunity to respond to the things he is accused of in the book. 

  Morgan Carey’s attorneys have filed notice that they will appeal the order dismissing the claims against the publishers and the co-author and all but two of the claims against Mariah Carey.

   This case was filed 18 months ago and has barely moved since then. It’s shaping up to be a long, expensive - and very public - battle between these two Carey siblings.

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Break-in

This is at least the second time one of Mariah Carey's homes has been burglarized.  Several years ago thieves took jewelry from her Manhattan apartment.

She is fortunate that the intruders struck while she was away. It could have been a home invasion - like the one that left her sister Alison with a devastating brain injury that will affect her for the rest of her life. 

Click here for the New York Post story:

https://pagesix.com/2022/08/14/mariah-careys-atlanta-home-burglarized/

Another delay

Once again lawyers agree to delay document filing

By David Baker

Continuing a pattern from the beginning of Morgan Carey's defamation lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey, the hearing date on Morgan Carey's motion for either a default judgement or partial summary judgement has been postponed. Evidently three weeks was not enough time for Mariah Carey's team of lawyers to prepare a response to Morgan's Carey's claim that Mariah Carey's refusal to sign a document under oath that says the serious crime she accused him of in her book is true - and, therefore, not defamation.

On Friday, a stipulation was filed in the clerk's office, postponing the hearing date from August 15 to September 8. In it Morgan Carey's lawyer - who appears to operate a one-man firm - agreed to give the big law firm more time to file a response. 

Several times last year stipulations were filed delaying responses from both sides. 

The case started in March 2001 but has barely moved along in the 16 months since. 

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Motion filed

 Morgan Carey asks judge in defamation case to rule against Mariah Carey over missing sworn document

By David Baker

Posted July 18, 2022

   Morgan Carey’s long-delayed lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey over statements about him in her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey moved forward last week with Morgan Carey’s attorney asking the court for a default judgment because Mariah Carey has failed to sign a document under penalty of perjury.

   As reported here previously, the document, which is filed in response to a complaint that starts a lawsuit, is called an answer. Legal rules in New York require that complaints and any responding documents are verified - which is done by attaching a statement made under oath called a verification. 

   In April, eight months after the filing of an amended complaint, Mariah Carey’s lawyers filed an answer that did not have a verification attached. Instead, they inserted a “Statement regarding improper verification of counsel,” in which they claim that because Morgan Carey’s attorney, Richard Altman, not Morgan Carey, signed a verification with the the amended complaint, it is invalid because Altman states that all of the allegations”.. are true to (his) own knowledge.”

   Courts in other cases have ruled that an objection to an allegedly invalid verification is required to be served within 24 hours; not eight months 

   Altman has now responded by asking the court for a default judgment based on Mariah Carey’s refusal to sign a verification, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, ruling that Mariah Carey defamed Morgan Carey by writing in the memoir that he is her “…sometimes drug dealing, been-in-the-system drunk-ass brother,” and that in New York city night clubs in the 1980s he “…discreetly supplied the beautiful people with their powdered party favors.”

   Writing in a decision and order in February, the judge said these statements would lead the average reader to conclude that Morgan Carey had dealt illegal drugs, and had been in prison.

    Morgan Carey has stated in a sworn affidavit that he has never supplied illegal substances or been in prison.

   Falsely accusing a person of a committing a serious crime is defamation that does not require evidence of financial or other damage. The only defense is that the statement is true - which is one of the claims made in the document that Mariah Carey has refused to sign under penalty of perjury.

   The return date for the motion is August 15. Responses are required to be served on Morgan Carey’s attorney on or before August 8.

   The judge’s February decision also dismissed all but two of Morgan Carey’s claims, and dismissed the memoir’s co-writer, Michaela Angela Davis, and the book’s publishers from the case.  Morgan Carey’s attorney has filed notice that both those decisions will be appealed.

****

PS... An examination of an attorney verification in an unrelated New York lawsuit reveals wording almost identical to that in the disputed statement in the Carey case.

 

   The objection by Mariah Carey's lawyers would appear to be without merit.

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Say it again

 They said it: Quotes from the media

   Newspaper stories often contain statements that are worth noting. Here are two from stories about Alison Carey and Mariah Carey.

   The first is from a 2020 story in the British newspaper the The Sun, in which Alison described being taken by her mother, Patricia to terrifying satanic rituals. The story quoted "an insider" saying: 

 “Mariah thrives off all the drama that’s attached to her and always has done. The idea of fading into obscurity is her worst nightmare.”

   The second quote, also in The Sun, was in a story published in 2011, in which Alison commented on Mariah's twins:

   "I cannot put into words how moved I was to see pictures of my niece and nephew for the first time.

  “I saw photographs of them on the television just after they were born and I saw more when they turned 1 recently. They are absolutely adorable.

   "And when I look into their eyes I see my sister's eyes shining right back at me - the eyes I used to stare into when I would hold her as a baby."

*****

Delayed again

 

Dispute over filing statement keeps Morgan Carey's defamation lawsuit against Mariah Carey on hold

By David Baker

Fifteen months after Morgan Carey’s lawsuit against Mariah Carey was filed, the case still is at a point it would normally have been at this time last year.  Delayed first by Mariah’s unsuccessful attempt to get it all thrown out, and then by the filing of an amended complaint, its’s now held up by a dispute over what is usually a routine statement called a verification.

New York state legal rules require that a complaint - the document that starts a lawsuit - includes a “verification”, a single paragraph in which the person filing the lawsuit states under oath that he or she has read the document, and that the allegations in it are true to his or her knowledge. 

It’s a routine part of a complaint. In some cases, the attorney, rather than the plaintiff, can sign the verification, such as when the client does not live in the county when the attorney has his or her office.

Morgan Carey currently resides in Hawaii, so the exception allowing his attorney, Richard A. Altman, to file the verification would apply.

The problem is that the form Altman filed with the complaint  back in March 2021 is worded for a plaintiff, not an attorney; In it, Altman states that the allegations in it are “.. true to [his] own knowledge.” Which, as Mariah Carey’s lawyers pointed out, could not be true unless Altman was a witness to events involving Morgan Carey that Mariah Carey claims occurred more than 40 years ago.

State rules also say that a response to a verified filing must also be verified. But in their long delayed answer, Mariah Carey’s attorneys claim that because the complaint was not properly verified, they do not have to verify their response.

Altman, Morgan Carey’s attorney, responded by saying he considers the answer to be invalid. Pointing out that Mariah Carey’s attorneys waited eight months to object to the allegedly defective complaint, he says his client will ask the court for a default judgment.

The mystery is why Altman didn’t simply have Morgan Carey sign a verification before a notary in Hawaii and send it to Altman, as he did with an affidavit Morgan Carey provided last year.

Not doing that has allowed Mariah Carey’s attorneys to add yet another delay to the case, as the dispute will have to be settled by the judge.

But causing delays - and doing everything possible to run up a plaintiffs costs - is what some wealthy defendants do.

Particularly ones who know that eventually they will probably lose.

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BREAKING NEWS

   

Appeal of judge's ruling could put publishers back into Morgan Carey's lawsuit over sister's memoir

   By David Baker

   Attorneys for Morgan Carey have filed notice that they intend to appeal a judge's decision that removed the publishers and co-writer of the book "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" from Morgan Carey's lawsuit, leaving only the singer to defend claims over statements in the book that Morgan Carey says have damaged him.

   It's not immediately clear if filing of the notice will put on hold discovery in the action against Mariah Carey. Under state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe's Feb. 15 decision, Mariah Carey's attorney's were ordered to serve an answer to the year-old initial compliant by March 8. Last week, lawyers for both sides agreed to extend that deadline until March 22.

  Morgan Carey's lawsuit, filed on March 3, 2021, named as defendants, Macmillan Publishing Group, doing business as Henry Holt and Co., Andy Cohen Book, and the book's co-writer, Michaela Angela Davis.

****

    

Postponed again

 A year after filing, attorneys agree to another delay

   By David Baker

   Last month the judge in Morgan Carey’s lawsuit over statements in his sister’s book “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” ordered the singer’s lawyers to serve a document called an answer by March 8.

  Evidently, three weeks was not enough time to draft and serve this routine document.

   An answer is the first response to a complaint, the document that starts a lawsuit, and is normally required to be served within 20 days of receipt of the complaint. 

   That would have been served almost a year ago. But since then the case has been delayed both by Mariah Carey’s unsuccessful attempt to get all claims against her thrown out, and by repeated agreements between lawyers for all sides to postpone deadlines.

  Now there’s a further delay: On March 4, lawyers for both remaining parties signed yet another stipulation, agreeing to move the date the answer was due from March 8 to March 22. 

   In a decision and order dated February 16 state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe ruled that Morgan Carey had failed to show that the publishers and the book’s co-writer intended to damage him - which is called “actual malice” - and threw out all claims against them, as well as most claims against Mariah Carey.

   But the judge said the singer still must defend statements in the book that would lead readers to conclude that Morgan Carey supplied illegal drugs, and that he had been in prison.

***

COMMENT   

   The publishers of Mariah Carey’s book, Henry Holt & Co. and Andy Cohen Books may or may not have avoided a legal claim; a possible appeal could reverse the judge’s decision to dismiss all claims against them. But morally, surely their decision to publish allegations of criminal conduct against both Morgan Carey and, particularly, Alison Carey without, by their own admission, any attempt to confirm what Mariah Carey told them, is beneath contempt.

   From numerous sources they must or should have known of the trauma inflicted on Alison as a child, and that since 2015,  she has struggled with a devastating brain injury. What kind of people, knowing that, would publish the unsubstantiated claims in the book?

   Heartless, greedy people who published the allegations about Alison, then pushed them out to the media to get attention for their little book, that’s who.

*****

Commentary

Judge's mixed decision leaves Mariah Carey to defend claims in her brother's lawsuit over book

By David Baker   

   The decision by state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe to dismiss all Morgan Carey’s claims against the publishers of Mariah Carey’s book while allowing two of the same claims against Mariah Carey to continue is puzzling; It assumes that the publishers didn’t know and couldn’t be expected to know that publishing statements accusing two people of serious crimes without, apparently, any more then a blind belief in their author might make them also liable.

   The ruling comes almost a year after the complaint that started the lawsuit was filed. Since then the defendants have spent thousands of dollars trying to get the case thrown out before it started. For the publishers, it worked - unless an appeal is filed and that part of the decision is reversed. 

   But for Mariah Carey, the case continues, first with the service on Morgan’s attorneys of an answer - a paragraph by paragraph response to the allegations in the complaint, followed by written questions, and then depositions of the plaintiff and defendant.

   It’s at her deposition that defendant Carey will have to account for accusing Morgan of being a “sometimes drug dealing, being-in-the-system, drunk-ass brother.”

   Ironically, it’s likely it wasn’t Carey who came up with that dramatic line, but rather the person she hired to actually write the memoir, Michaela Angela Davis - who last week was removed from Morgan Carey’s lawsuit. Nevertheless, it’s Mariah Carey’s book and she is responsible for everything in it. 

  That includes claiming her sister Alison gave her Valium and offered her cocaine when she was 12 years old and Alison was 20 - both accusations of serious crimes known as defamation per se, meaning that financial loss or other damage doesn’t have to be proved.

   Alison denies it ever happened and says Mariah made up the story about her brain-damaged destitute sister and fed it to the  media in a callous effort to promote her book. 

   So unless Mariah Carey has or can concoct something to support her accusation, the case will be a ‘she said, she said’ battle. Forty years later, how do you prove something didn’t happen? How does Alison prove a negative? 

   Meanwhile, Morgan’s case now moves forward, which, without a settlement, will add to the permanent public record of Mariah Carey’s totally unnecessary cruel attack on her two less fortunate siblings.

*****

Decision issued

Mariah Carey now the sole defendant in brother Morgan Carey's lawsuit over singer's memoir

By David Baker

Much of Morgan Carey's lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey was dismissed on Tuesday but the singer still faces legal proceedings over statements in her book The Meaning Of Mariah Carey that Morgan Carey dealt drugs, and suggested that he had been in prison.

In a 28-page decision, state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe dismissed all but two of Morgan's claims, along with all claims against the publishers of the book and its co-writer.

All the defendants had asked that the entire case be thrown out.

Mariah Carey's lawyers now have 20 days after service of the decision to respond with what's known as an "answer." After that the discovery process begins, with written questions and depositions of the brother and sister.

The lawsuit was filed almost a year ago, on March 3, 2021. Since then all sides have filed a series of motions and responses. Several agreed postponements of filing deadlines and a backlog in the court system caused by the COVID pandemic has kept the case on hold until now.

*****

Final wishes

 End of life will mean decisions for the family; And problems with another government agency

By David Baker

Alison Carey is 60 years old. Her mother, Patricia Carey, turns 85 this week and has been reported to be in declining physical and mental  health.

   Alison realizes that she will probably never see her mother again. She has mixed feelings about that.

  “She is an evil woman,” Alison says. “Nobody should be subjected to what she did to me when I was a child.”

    Alison was referring to being taken by her mother to terrifying 2 a.m. satanic rituals, where she was sexual abused.

   “But she is my mother. Sometimes I think I would like to speak to her, to ask her why she did it.  But most of the time I never want to see her again.”

   Patricia is reportedly living in a high-end facility in Florida with a team of aides to assist her. Alison is not sure that when her mother dies she will be told.

   With her own deteriorating health, Alison also thinks about the end of her life.  She says she often wonders if anyone will be at her funeral. She assumes none of her family members will be there. And certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy of if they attend after ignoring her for the latter part of her life, particularly since 2015 while she has struggled with a serious brain injury that left her with permanent damage to her short-term memory and vision.

   Alison also wonders if the family will pay for her funeral. Coming up with the money after she was gone would also be hypocritical. But refusing to do it would look bad, too. Either way, the decision will likely generate another set of headlines.

*** 

   

Three years ago, all Alison’s teeth had to be removed, and then a set of dentures were broken in a fall. A Go Fund Me page seeking donations has raised $840, far short of the $2,500 needed for a new set. There is no indication that anyone in her family - siblings or offspring - has made a contribution.

***

Back in December, the Social Security Administration got some embarrassing publicity after ignoring for three months Alison’s repeated letters informing the agency that she was living in an apartment, not in a nursing home, and reducing her benefit to $30 a month.

  Now the county department that administers SNAP payments - food stamps - is doing something similar. In a notice sent in January, the department states that Alison’s SNAP benefit is being cut from $250 a month to $25. The reason, the notice says, is that the oil that heats her apartment and her electricity are both included in the rent.

   Both statements are wrong. 

   The notice also says that Alison is entitled to receive copies of the documents on which the decision to cut the benefit was made. A written request for these documents was made last week. So far none have been received.

   Maybe it will take another newspaper story to restore this benefit. 

***

   

Mariah Carey apparently didn’t consider that when she had her memoir written she was also creating her legacy. The book - with its attacks on her brother and sister - and the permanent public record on the Internet and in legal filings will determine how she is viewed long after her career is a fading memory for most people.

   And because of her own actions, much of that legacy will be largely dictated by her tragic and possibly by-then deceased sister and a former journalist from the U.K who was there for Alison when her family turned away.

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The Go Fund Me page for Alison’s dentures is at: https://gofund.me/9030f169

***

Briefs

Ruling imminent in Mariah Carey book lawsuit; and stolen songs claims that the singer ignored

By David Baker

   Eleven months after the lawsuit in which Morgan Carey claims statements in Mariah Carey’s book The Meaning of Mariah Carey caused him to loose potential income, a judge may be about to issue a decision on Mariah Carey’s request to dismiss the case.

   “The shutdown of the courts due to the pandemic has delayed lots of cases,” a staff person in the office of state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe said last week. “But I think there will be a ruling soon.”

  Normally, by this point, discovery - the exchange of information prior to trial - would have been underway for several months. But in this case numerous motions and motions in opposition have been filed, and the deadlines on several of them have repeatedly been delayed by agreement between attorneys representing on one side, Morgan Carey, and on the other side, Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey’s co-writer and the publishers of the book. 

   Adding to the delay was that some documents were filed on paper, the staff person said.  Almost all papers are now filed electronically.

   Mariah Carey is asking the judge to throw out Morgan Carey’s claim before it starts. Morgan Carey wants to conduct limited discovery  - to include deposing Mariah Carey and other defendants in the case. He also wants copies of any emails and other documents that refer to the decision not to give him an opportunity to respond to statements about him in the book before it was published.

****

      In the book, Mariah Carey refers to allegations that she stole songs.

     “A couple of people have come for “Hero” and for me, with both royalties and plagiarism claims. Three times I have been to court, and three times the cases have been thrown out.

   “The first time, the poor fool going after me had to pay a fine,” she claims, without explaining who imposed this penalty and why. 

    But she somehow forgot to mention the $500,000 that was paid to songwriter Kevin McCord to settle his claim that she copied his song  “I Want to Thank You” for her 1992 song “Make It Happen.” Or the $1 million that went to Sharon Taber and Ron Gonzalez, who claimed that her 1991 song “Can’t Let Go” was lifted from their composition “Right Before My Eyes.”

   Then there was an undisclosed sum paid to Maurice White over her song 1991 “Emotions” which he claimed was a rip off of his song “Best Of My Love.”

   And there are just the claims that went to court. There are likely other songwriters who believe their work also was stolen by Mariah Carey but don’t have the resources to start a legal battle with someone who has a team of lawyers to beat them down.

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