tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84330251096482968252023-11-16T02:30:09.014-05:00The Carey FileUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-30354372089452572692022-10-30T10:36:00.000-04:002022-10-30T10:36:22.488-04:00Another delay<p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carey siblings' court case on hold again</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker<br />Oct. 30, 2022</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.<br />The case was filed in March 2021. <br />*****<br /> 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. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Doctors say she will likely be discharged early this week.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">********</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-45801710074986803122022-09-01T22:52:00.004-04:002022-09-03T16:44:28.348-04:00 Affidavit filed<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">Mariah’s Carey’s response to her brother’s </b></span></div><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">defamation claim: People told me he did it</span></b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Posted Sept. 1, 2022</span></i></div>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.” </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.)</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> And her final statement in defending against her brother’s claims is the weakest of all: Everyone knew.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But he didn’t go to prison.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">*****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-4968858448459894892022-08-14T20:44:00.012-04:002022-08-14T21:40:04.007-04:00Break-in<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Click here for the New York Post story:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/08/14/mariah-careys-atlanta-home-burglarized/">https://pagesix.com/2022/08/14/mariah-careys-atlanta-home-burglarized/</a></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-27964270088597575552022-08-05T19:54:00.002-04:002022-09-03T16:44:58.962-04:00Another delay<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Once again lawyers agree to delay document filing</span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Several times last year stipulations were filed delaying responses from both sides. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The case started in March 2001 but has barely moved along in the 16 months since. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">*****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-24207461640954066722022-07-18T11:35:00.003-04:002022-07-19T14:36:38.623-04:00Motion filed<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Morgan Carey asks judge in defamation case to rule against Mariah Carey over missing sworn document</span></p><p><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Posted July 18, 2022</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Morgan Carey’s long-delayed lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey over statements about him in her memoir <i>The Meaning of Mariah Carey</i> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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 </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Morgan Carey has stated in a sworn affidavit that he has never supplied illegal substances or been in prison.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">****</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOaaWpIZaZGD51Vom6F2R2ld1YmeNCCbrwdlYM4zRatQ0xA0mHPslbVlCEbXwjezKDzhkdvP6qBnvdVLBQl5cm-1D0meRQIjNvbHJhGRTz38B1JkPWYD-5Ra3fyvu2bF2qFAB4ECIE83tXU7g9GZdqgsurMpW3KiiuYFnQo4fOs58V7dECPSZ_Ut0qw/s3201/PXL_20220719_181718743.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3201" data-original-width="2870" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOaaWpIZaZGD51Vom6F2R2ld1YmeNCCbrwdlYM4zRatQ0xA0mHPslbVlCEbXwjezKDzhkdvP6qBnvdVLBQl5cm-1D0meRQIjNvbHJhGRTz38B1JkPWYD-5Ra3fyvu2bF2qFAB4ECIE83tXU7g9GZdqgsurMpW3KiiuYFnQo4fOs58V7dECPSZ_Ut0qw/s320/PXL_20220719_181718743.jpg" width="287" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> The objection by Mariah Carey's lawyers would appear to be without merit.</span><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">******</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-5716663140620157162022-06-15T07:01:00.002-04:002022-06-15T07:01:53.145-04:00Say it again<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span> </span><span>They said it: Quotes from the media</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Times; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; text-align: left;">Newspaper stories often contain statements that are worth noting. Here are two from stories about Alison Carey and Mariah Carey.</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1c1d; font-family: Times;">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:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1c1d; font-family: Times;"> </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1c1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><i> </i>“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.”</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="color: #1a1c1d; font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span> The second quote, also in The Sun, was in a story published in 2011, in which Alison commented on <span style="caret-color: rgb(26, 28, 29);">Mariah's</span> twins:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;"> "I cannot put into words how moved I was to see pictures of my niece and nephew for the first time.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"> “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.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"> "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."</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">*****</span></b></i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-70575531774306877042022-05-27T15:02:00.000-04:002022-05-27T15:02:52.309-04:00Delayed again<p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dispute over filing statement keeps Morgan Carey's defamation lawsuit against Mariah Carey on hold</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Morgan Carey currently resides in Hawaii, so the exception allowing his attorney, Richard A. Altman, to file the verification would apply.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">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.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">But causing delays - and doing everything possible to run up a plaintiffs costs - is what some wealthy defendants do.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Particularly ones who know that eventually they will probably lose.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">********* </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-26659425086883191342022-03-11T18:33:00.000-05:002022-03-11T18:33:06.686-05:00BREAKING NEWS <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Appeal of judge's ruling could put publishers back into Morgan Carey's lawsuit over sister's memoir</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <i> By David Baker</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">****</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div> </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-23513783009562508652022-03-05T13:04:00.000-05:002022-03-05T13:04:56.973-05:00Postponed again<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> A year after filing, attorneys agree to another delay</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i> By David Baker</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Evidently, three weeks was not enough time to draft and serve this routine document.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> 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.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>COMMENT</i> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">*****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-67499083113861847422022-02-24T07:41:00.001-05:002022-02-24T09:31:03.952-05:00Commentary<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Judge's mixed decision leaves Mariah Carey to defend claims in her brother's lawsuit over book</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><i>By David Baker</i><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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 <i>didn’t </i>happen? How does Alison prove a negative? </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">*****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-79512589108887847262022-02-16T14:38:00.000-05:002022-02-16T14:38:28.208-05:00Decision issued<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mariah Carey now the sole defendant in brother Morgan Carey's lawsuit over singer's memoir</span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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 <i>The Meaning Of Mariah Carey</i> that Morgan Carey dealt drugs, and suggested that he had been in prison.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All the defendants had asked that the entire case be thrown out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">*****</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-38402176878963610642022-02-15T11:26:00.006-05:002022-02-15T13:50:33.829-05:00Final wishes<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> End of life will mean decisions for the family; And problems with another government agency</b></span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">David Baker</span></span></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">health</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">.<br /></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Alison realizes that she will probably never see her mother again. She has mixed feelings about that.</span></div><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “She is an evil woman,” Alison says. “Nobody should be subjected to what she did to me when I was a child.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Alison was referring to being taken by her mother to terrifying 2 a.m. satanic rituals, where she was sexual abused.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “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.”</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> 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.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> 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.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">*** </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Both statements are wrong. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Maybe it will take another newspaper story to restore this benefit. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> 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.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">********</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Go Fund Me page for Alison’s dentures is at:</i> <a href="https://gofund.me/9030f169">https://gofund.me/9030f169</a></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">***</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-30252760114688888252022-02-03T15:30:00.002-05:002022-02-03T15:33:03.761-05:00Briefs<p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Ruling imminent in Mariah Carey book lawsuit; and stolen songs claims that the singer ignored</b></span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Eleven months after the lawsuit in which Morgan Carey claims statements in Mariah Carey’s book <i>The Meaning of Mariah Carey</i> caused him to loose potential income, a judge may be about to issue a decision on Mariah Carey’s request to dismiss the case.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Adding to the delay was that some documents were filed on paper, the staff person said. Almost all papers are now filed electronically.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">****</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In the book, Mariah Carey refers to allegations that she stole songs.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “The first time, the poor fool going after me had to pay a fine,” she claims, without explaining who imposed this penalty and why. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">*********</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-2661078635279763862021-12-31T11:58:00.003-05:002022-01-06T17:08:31.513-05:00A deliberate tragedy<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> Terrifying satanic rituals, an abusive husband, a life-changing traumatic brain injury and family rejection; Alison's Carey's struggle to survive</b></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>By David Baker</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The unspeakable abuse Alison Carey endured as a child at the hands of a mother who forced her to attend and be sexually abused at terrifying late-night satanic rituals has impacted all of her life. But as bad as it was, it wasn’t the only cruelty that has been inflicted on her.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> At age 15, Alison met a 19-year-old military man and became pregnant. Resisting family members and others who wanted her to abort the baby, she soon found herself with a new born child thousands of miles from home on a military base in the Philippines.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But what may have seemed like an escape from a dysfunctional family and the horror of her childhood quickly turned into a nightmare with an abusive husband.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> “He hit me almost every day,” Alison says.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Her husband eventually was detained by military police; Alison was flown back to the U.S. - without the baby, who remained with social services</span><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But Alison was not about to abandon the child named Shawn. A short time later, still a teenager, she hitchhiked across the country to Los Angeles for a flight - paid for by her father - back to the Philippines.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The return journey to the U.S. with Shawn was not easy, first transiting through a war-torn Beirut, then getting replacement documents for her lost passport in Tokyo.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But Shawn has not appreciated her efforts: He recently dismissed her as his “…mother in name only.” With the tuition for his Harvard law degree reportedly paid for by his aunt, Mariah Carey, he nevertheless is unbothered that his mother struggles without teeth and is reduced to asking strangers for contributions to a fund for dentures.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In 2018, Shawn announced his upcoming marriage to Brielle Strohmeyer. In a text message, Alison told Shawn she would really like to be at the wedding of her first-born child.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Shawn’s response was as hurtful as it was brief: “That’s not going to happen,” he wrote. Then, adding to a rejection that felt like a stabbing, he twisted the knife by sending Alison photos of himself, his bride and Alison’s three other children at the Beverly Hills, California ceremony.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVw2eCYPpW4hpecfge0TeBrwpfut7iiHn3UQNX5ItjkMyf9s0gxrZATsRbL7kgIQC4cS4HSOFF_eJaoAtpahZzNiGZQUe4UnuqXm0zCKy2VSTEQlSrGil60sQY669dmza7O853QpG5Y-ciUVEgXfhl4YEb9RB-I5VcKFf8ZNARuID04jiszalGqOtMGQ=s2940" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2054" data-original-width="2940" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVw2eCYPpW4hpecfge0TeBrwpfut7iiHn3UQNX5ItjkMyf9s0gxrZATsRbL7kgIQC4cS4HSOFF_eJaoAtpahZzNiGZQUe4UnuqXm0zCKy2VSTEQlSrGil60sQY669dmza7O853QpG5Y-ciUVEgXfhl4YEb9RB-I5VcKFf8ZNARuID04jiszalGqOtMGQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"> <i> Alison's four </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><i>children pose for a photo. (l-r), </i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"> Michael, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Carmela, Shawn, Shawn's bride </span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><i>Brielle Strohmeyer and Dominic</i>. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Strohmeyer - who is worth a reported $1.9 million - is from Manhattan, Kansas. A story about the ceremony in the local newspaper <i>The Mercury</i> names Shawn's father. Then it adds, “His aunt is singer Mariah Carey.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> His mother, Alison, is not mentioned.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The story says Monroe Cannon - who is Mariah Carey’s daughter - was a flower girl, and Moroccan Cannon - Mariah’s son - was a ring bearer.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> It would seem strange that Mariah would have had her then-7-year-old twins attend her nephew’s wedding without her. But if she was there, it was kept a secret.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"> This week came a further rejection: Alison learned that she became a grandmother - nine months ago.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"> The news was revealed when research for this story located Brie Strohmeyer's Twitter account, on which in a recent tweet she referred to a "...nine month old baby" One of Shawn's relatives confirmed the birth, telling Alison that </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">the child was born in March, and that his name is Tatum.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The second most traumatic event in Alison’s life - after the unspeakable horror inflicted on her by her mother - was the attack by an intruder in her Long Island home in 2015 that left her with a debilitating brain injury.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Five months after the attack, while Alison was near death following surgery to stop a hemorrhage in her brain, her brother Morgan traveled to the hospital Albany N.Y. from his home in Hawaii. Not having had any contact with his sister for many years, they were almost strangers.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The following year, Morgan sold stories to two British newspapers in which - in one calling Mariah “an evil witch” - he slammed the multimillionaire for not helping their struggling sister. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Morgan likely received several thousand dollars for the stories and an interview on a TV show. From it, he paid $800 for two months’ rent of a room for Alison in a house owned and occupied by an active drug user.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In March 2021, Morgan filed a lawsuit against Mariah, vaguely claiming in legal papers that statements in her memoir had caused him to lose an opportunity to get a movie script he had written produced. Forced by Mariah’s lawyers to be more specific, his attorney submitted an affidavit from an Italian movie producer, who wrote that Morgan’s script was called “Devil’s Hollow.” This has led Alison to suspect that the script was based in part on a phone conversation Alison had with Morgan in 2016 in which he aggressively questioned her about the abuse she endured as a child. Alison became extremely distressed during the hour-long call, and after several days of increasingly erratic behavior, was taken to a hospital for a month-long psychiatric evaluation.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Alison’s last contact with her brother was in 2018. His response to her text said: “If this is about $ I don’t have any.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">****</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> By the late summer of 2020, Mariah Carey had finally completed dictating her memoir to a hired writer. With its publication set for the end of September, she needed a way to get maximum attention for the book.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> She did it by kicking her brain-damaged penniless sister in the face.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Highlighting a section of the book in which she claimed, without presenting any evidence, that when she was 12 years old, Alison, then 20, fed her Valium, offered her cocaine, and tried to set her up with a pimp, she brought it to the attention of media outlets.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> It worked. In the week before the September 29 publication date, stories about the Mariah’s accusations began appearing in newspapers, on TV and across the Internet. In a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mariah almost jumped out of her chair when, in an obviously prearranged part, Winfrey referred to Mariah's claims about Alison, and then read out the entire paragraph.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Alison was devastated by her sister’s callous attack, descending into a deep depression and misusing alcohol after a long time sober. She vehemently denies her sister’s claims. But she didn’t get a chance to say so before she was trashed in sensational headlines around the world. She was blindsided; not one of the news outlets even pretended to have reached out to her for comment, instead publishing the baseless allegations as undisputed facts.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mariah certainly knows Alison is vulnerable; Just before her media blast she was quoted as saying Alison is “damaged” and “very broken.” And she certainly knows all about the horrific abuse that destroyed Alison’s life. How could she not know; it’s been reported numerous times by the media, and in 2021 her own mother was accused in a legal filing of causing Alison to be sexual abused.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But that Alison was repeatedly subjected to unimaginable psychological and sexual abuse by the one person a child expects to defend and protect her - her mother - and left with terrifying images that haunt her to this day? </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Not a word.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> December 25, 2021. A day when families connect, if not in person, then at least by phone or video chat.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Alison has four children.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But from each of them them to their mother on Christmas Day at the end of a year in which Alison barely survived a medical condition requiring overnight emergency surgery?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Silence.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">**************</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Alison's GoFundMe page for dentures:</b> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://gofund.me/9030f169">https://gofund.me/9030f169</a></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">******************************************</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-84218613182464046012021-11-21T14:31:00.000-05:002021-11-21T14:31:54.163-05:00Benefits restored<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">After four months, newspaper story gets quick action from the SSA on Alison's withheld benefit payments</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> One day after a story was published in the <i>Albany Times Union</i> - and four months after the Social Security Administration was told that it had incorrectly reduced Alison's SSI to $30 a month - the agency said the error had been fixed, and a deposit of some of the withheld money was in her bank account.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The reduction in the benefit amount apparently was made because the SSA somehow believed that Alison was still in a nursing home, where she had been following a hospitalization, for physical rehab. And despite a letter sent by Alison to the agency's Hudson office in early August saying that she had moved into an apartment, the benefit payment remained at $30 on Sept. 1; the letter did not get a response.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> A copy of the letter was set on Oct. 1. That too was ignored, as was a third letter sent via certified mail on Oct 18.</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Then last week, the <i>Times Union</i> published a story about the SSA's non-response. And with 24 hours the agency had emailed a letter detailing the new monthly amount. By that afternoon, part of the withheld money was in Alison's bank account. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Missing from the SSA letter was any apology or even an explanation for the agency's failure to respond to the three letters from Alison. The letters said Alison was in an apartment, not in the nursing home; a simple phone call to the nursing home would have confirmed that she was no longer there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> But that call was evidently never made; Alison's letters - three of them - were ignored.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The question now is was it just Alison's statement about her residency that repeatedly was ignored? And if so, why? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Or are there dozen's of other people out there, who don't have a famous sibling and someone to assist them in presenting the situation to a newspaper, whose protests about incorrect cuts in benefits are dismissed?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> One day after her benefit was restored, Alison received a call from the office of the SSA's inspector general. The caller wanted to know if Alison's matter had been resolved. She said it had.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The hope now is that the AG will also investigate what happened in Alison's case, and take steps to see that other claimants' communications are not also routinely and callously ignored. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">****</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Read the second Times Union story here: <a href="https://bit.ly/3DCdk58">https://bit.ly/3DCdk58</a></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**********</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-20215261295231161062021-11-16T16:55:00.006-05:002021-11-18T14:33:53.465-05:00In the news again<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> The Albany <i>Times Union</i> with its exclusive story about Alison's fight to get her SSI payments restored.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3CmGYKg">https://bit.ly/3CmGYKg</a></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An update: Soon after this story was posted Tuesday afternoon a spokesman with the Social Security Administration contacted the reporter to say that the issue with Alison's benefit payments has been rectified. Presumably this means she will now receive the withheld money. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After four months and three letters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The power of the press.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Calls by the reporter to the SSA and the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer were not returned.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, the mention in the story of the GoFundMe page resulted in almost $400 being donated for new dentures.</span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**********************</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-22691754652181553592021-11-12T10:55:00.002-05:002021-11-21T14:32:27.648-05:00Press release: Taking on the SSA<p> </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><b>Mariah Carey’s estranged sister fights with the Social Security Administration over “mistaken” cut in disability benefits </b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Alison Carey wants to know why the the Social Security Administration ignored her repeated letters telling them that she lives in an apartment - not in a nursing home</span></i></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 12, 2021</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> HUDSON, N.Y. — A Greene County women disabled by a devastating brain injury has been left with just $30 a month in benefit payments after the Social Security Administration incorrectly listed her as living in a nursing home and ignored her repeated letters telling the agency about the error.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Sixty-year-old Alison Carey - who is the older estranged sister of pop diva Mariah Carey - was homeless for 14 moths before moving into an apartment in a town near Albany, N.Y. in April. Before the move, Carey had been in a Columbia County nursing home for physical rehab following a hospitalization. Just before she left the home Medicaid approved her to become a permanent resident.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But Alison was not ready to give up some measure of independence and when an apartment suitable for her limitations was found she decided that with help she could live on her own for a few more years.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> And that’s when the problem began; In a letter dated July 20 the SSA said that because Alison was in a medical facility for which Medicaid was paying at least half the fees, her monthly benefit would be reduced to $30 a month. The letter stated - wrongly - that Alison was a resident of a medical facility for all of April, May, June and July, but because she had received her full benefit amount for those months, the overpayment would have to be repaid by reducing her benefit from $841 a month to $30.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> And that benefit amount, it said, would continue “from August on.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But Alison was not in the nursing home. In a letter to the SSA’s Hudson office dated August 3, Carey wrote that she left the home and moved into her apartment on May 1. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Alison says she received no response to her letter, and that the filing of a form appealing the cut - which under the agency’s rules should have stopped the reduced benefit until the appeal was decided - also produced no response; the payment for August was $30.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> On October 1 - after the September and October payments were also $30 - Alison sent a copy of her August 3 letter to the SSA via Certified Mail. Again, she received no response.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In mid October, Alison contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer. A member of the senator’s staff contacted the SSA and the agency finally called Alison, describing the detailed proof it would need to begin investigating Alison’s statement that she was living in an apartment. But she could not explain why Alison’s letters had been ignored for three months. In the meantime, the Schumer staffer had, at Alison’s request and citing the long delay in responding to her August letter, asked the SSA to make at least one month’s payment while the question about her residency was investigated.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> No payment had been received by Nov. 11 and the staffer has not responded to an email asking about the agency’s response to the request. The delay has so far left Alison out $2,378 in withheld benefits. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Alison has been estranged from her multimillionaire sister for about two decades. In September 2020 the singer made headlines around the world when she revealed that her about-to-be-published memoir would say that when she was 12 years old the then 20-year-old Alison drugged her with Valium and offered her cocaine - claims Alison denies.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In February, Alison filed a legal notice of her intention to file a lawsuit against Mariah Carey. A month later the sisters’ brother, Morgan Carey, filed his own lawsuit over statements about him in the book. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In addition to multiple health issues - in the spring Alison had emergency overnight surgery for a life-threatening perforated stomach ulcer - she also has been struggling for several months without teeth after her dentures were broken in a fall. Medicaid won’t pay for a replacement until 2026. In October, a GoFundMe page was set up, seeking donations for the $2,500 needed for new dentures.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> It’s at: </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Lato, Trebuchet, Arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://gofund.me/f561ad7a">https://gofund.me/f561ad7a</a></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-22297508378929512732021-11-04T12:00:00.002-04:002021-11-04T12:05:35.943-04:00Hush....<h3 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mariah Carey's paperback</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">is out; just don't tell anyone</span></b></div></b></h3><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div></b></h4><p><i><span style="font-size: large;"> By David Baker</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The paperback edition of Mariah Carey’s controversial memoir was quietly published Nov. 2, with no effort made to promote it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Walmart store in upstate New York had no copies on its shelves Tuesday morning.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At a Barnes & Noble store in Albany, an employee had to go into the storage area in back Tuesday evening to get a requested copy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> As for the statements in the book that have prompted one lawsuit and notice of another; they are also in the new edition</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">because the defendants really had no choice; they could hardly remove them while claiming in response to Morgan Carey’s lawsuit that they are protected speech because they are in the public interest. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"> Paperbacks are published to reach a new audience, people who would not have purchased the more expensive hardcover edition. That makes this paperback a republication - which restarts the 1-year window in which lawsuits can be filed.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> And that raises a question: Why publish a paperback which then has to be all but disowned? If it hadn’t been announced - as it was on Twitter back in the summer - it could have been simply forgotten.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Instead, the flat-out statements that Alison Carey committed several crimes 40 years ago are repeated, presenting further evidence of actual malice.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Not promoting the new book doesn’t change anything; it’s still the work of a cruel and vindictive multimillionaire.</span><span style="font-size: 18px;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-1558005985023087202021-11-01T15:16:00.000-04:002021-11-01T15:16:04.064-04:00No promotion this time<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Mariah Carey’s memoir is out in paperback</span></span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Tuesday - accompanied by the sound of silence</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>By David Baker</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> A little over a year ago Mariah Carey was busy promoting her about-to-be-published memoir by pushing out to the media a section in the book in which she claims - without offering any evidence - that when she was 12 years old her 20-year-old sister Alison drugged her with Valium, offered her cocaine and tried to pimp her out.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Fast forward a year - during which both Alison and brother Morgan filed legal papers claiming that they have been damaged by the multimillionaire’s statements - and there is hardly a word about the release of a paperback edition of the book, scheduled for Nov. 2.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Back in the summer, Mariah sent out a tweet announcing the date, along with an image of what appears to be the front cover - which has a photo of her that is on the back of the hardback edition. The tweet has a link to a page where the book can be pre-ordered.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But since then: No more tweets. No media interviews. No apparent effort to publicized the new edition.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Publishing the paperback has meant a decision had to be made: Whether to include in it the statements about Alison and Morgan that prompted the legal filings.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Remove them, and it would look like an admission that they were libelous.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Leave them in and it could be considered further evidence of Mariah Carey’s malice toward her brother and sister; that she intended to damage them - which has legal implications - as does accusing Alison of committing crimes, which Mariah did in the hardcopy.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The new edition is listed at $16.99, a high price for a paperback, particularly as copies of the hardback can be found on the Internet for as little as $5.95 - with free shipping.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">***</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-85657948569022256282021-10-07T08:17:00.001-04:002021-10-07T08:17:42.510-04:00Fundraiser launched<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> A GoFundMe page for Alison is now up.</span> <span style="font-size: x-large;"> It's at:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://gofund.me/2c333d7b">https://gofund.me/2c333d7b</a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**************************************************************</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-41368100451926005732021-09-29T08:34:00.004-04:002021-10-05T09:08:50.090-04:00Decision awaited<p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Carey vs. Carey: A judge will rule on Mariah’s bid to throw out brother Morgan’s defamation lawsuit</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><i>By David </i></span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Baker</i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"> Legal papers from lawyers representing, on the one side, Morgan Carey, and on the other, the two firms acting for Mariah Carey, her co-author and the publishers of her memoir have now been submitted to the judge assigned to Morgan Carey’s lawsuit over statements about him in the book.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mariah Carey is asking state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe to throw out the claim before it starts. Morgan Carey argues that he should at least be allowed to conduct limited discovery - both written questions and depositions - to determine if Mariah Carey intended to damage him when she called him “..a been-in-the-system, drunk-ass brother” and suggested, among there things, that years ago he dealt illegal drugs.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The judge has 60 days to issue her decision. After that, any party can appeal all or parts of it to the Appellate Division, a step that would likely put the case on hold for several months</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mariah’s defense to Morgan’s claims is that her statements about him in the book are justified and protected because they tell a story that is meant to inspire troubled youngsters and therefore is in the public interest.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> That argument might also be used to make public a record of her testimony if she is compelled to sit for a deposition.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mariah Carey lives for attention. A video of her being grilled by one of Morgan Carey’s attorneys would certainly get her a lot of that.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Companies publishing a book will often have the manuscript reviewed by lawyers for legal exposure. Statements in the manuscript will sometimes be changed or even removed to avoid a possible lawsuit.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> It’s not known if the publishers of Mariah Carey’s book sought legal advice, and if they did, whether they then ignored it. It’s hard, though, to think that any competent lawyer wouldn’t advise against publishing the flat-out statements - presented </span><span style="font-size: medium;">without any evidence - that 20-year-old Alison Carey committed several crimes against a then-12-year-old Mariah.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Earlier this year Alison had a life-threatening medical condition that required overnight emergency surgery. This was followed by six weeks in the hospital fighting an aggressive infection.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> By law, disability benefits are reduced for each full month a person is in a facility and the government is paying half or more of the bill. So instead of the usual amount, Alison received the minimum monthly amount the government must pay: $30.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But her expenses didn’t change; landlords still expect to get the rent.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Making her situation worse, the SSA mistakenly docked her one month too many, and so far has not corrected its error.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The cut in income has delayed Alison’s hope of coming up with $2,500 to replace her dentures, which were damaged by a fall. Medicaid won’t pay for another set until 2026. So now she has no teeth, which severely limits what she can eat.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After surviving the life-threatening medical condition, Alison continues to struggle with the psychological impact of being abandoned by her family and now, the devastating distress caused by being accused in her sister’s memoir of criminal abuse of Mariah - accusations which, without giving Alison any opportunity to respond, were then fed to the media ahead of publication to promote sales of the book.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In a tearful interview scheduled for early November, Alison says images of the unspeakable trauma inflicted on her by her mother when she was a child haunt her every day.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> That, her multiple health issues - and now her own sister kicking her down to sell the book - has drained her of her will to live.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> “Nobody loves me,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I want to die?”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">***</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-23753496427647633442021-09-02T14:13:00.003-04:002021-09-06T05:08:54.947-04:00Interview cancelled<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">How Mariah Carey's lawyers stopped a TV show exposing the Carey family's "darkest secrets"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>By David Baker</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The text below is from the TV show Inside Edition back in 2016. It was after the interview with Morgan Carey that the show wanted to put Alison on camera. But the producers chickened out after Mariah's lawyers said Alison was prevented by an earlier non-disclosure agreement from speaking - an agreement they refused to provide to the show. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Morgan also tried to stop Alison's appearance on the show, falsely telling her that a meeting with a producer at a lawyer's office in Kingston had been canceled.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When Alison told me what Morgan had said I immediately rushed down to Kingston, picked up Alison and took her to the lawyer's office to meet with the producer, Aylcia Powers. Details were set; Alison was to tape the interview in New York City.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then it was dropped. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The "dark secrets" Morgan referred to in his interview would be the horrific satanic rituals that Alison was forced by her mother to witness as a child, an experience that left her with soul-destroying PTSD and memories that haunt her to this day. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here's what Inside Edition posted after the interview:</span></p><p><br /></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Mariah Carey has been called out by her own brother, who's accusing the singer of abandoning her troubled sister. Speaking to Inside Edition from Florence, Italy, Mariah's older brother, Morgan, 51, spoke about his broken family, saying: "Mariah doesn't care about anyone other than herself."</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Alison Carey, 55, was arrested on prostitution charges earlier week at a low budget motel in upstate New York. She has pleaded not guilty. Cops say she placed an online ad soliciting sex that borrowed lines from her sister's 1996 hit, "Fantasy". "I'm a pretty lady looking for guys... with me it's such a sweet, sweet fantasy baby," the ad read.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The arrest is the latest crisis for Alison, who in her younger days wanted to be a singer just like Mariah, but she ended up battling drugs and falling on hard times. Morgan said: "I would hope Mariah could find it in her heart to forgive Alison her transgressions and step up, create a trust, let's make sure Alison's needs are met."</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Morgan and Mariah were once very close. In fact, Morgan - a model and music producer - claims he was instrumental in Mariah becoming a superstar. "There wouldn't be a Mariah Carey today if it hadn't been for me," he claims. He says he has not spoken to Mariah in six years following a nasty rift tore them apart. </i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Morgan says he's upset because Mariah refuses to help Alison, even after she recorded a desperate public plea for help in March. Mariah's publicist says she has done a lot over the years to give Alison a helping hand. "Through the years, Mariah has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting Alison and her children," the statement said.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Morgan says: "I will always be puzzled why Alison, a heroin addict, has always been given large sums of money from Mariah her whole life. You can't put large sums of cash into the hands of a drug addict."</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Incredibly, Morgan fears retaliation from his famous sister and her fans for speaking out. "It's about protecting this fiction she has created, this image she has created, it's about keeping the darkest secrets covered up," he said.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>It is believed Mariah has not spoken to her sister since 1994.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(Inside Edition)</i></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-58393399517976478762021-08-17T16:06:00.001-04:002021-10-07T17:09:04.441-04:00Careful what you wish for<p> </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">A legal win for Mariah Carey could</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;"> see her trapped by her own words</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>By David Baker </i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Law firms love clients like Mariah Carey; wealthy people who are ready to spend unlimited amounts of money fighting lawsuits, battling the other party at every turn by doing everything possible to make their opponent’s case as time-consuming and expensive as possible. As one of Mariah Carey’s attorneys said to a lawyer who was evaluating Alison’s claim: “Mariah would rather spend tens of thousands of dollars fighting a claim than give Alison five dollars.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Earlier this month Mariah Carey’s lawyers continued their effort to get her brother Morgan Carey’s claim over statements about him in Mariah Carey’s book thrown out before it starts.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">While filing an amended complaint that drops a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, Morgan’s attorneys are asking for permission to conduct limited discovery - which would include both written questions to and depositions of several people - including Carey herself - while a decision on a motion by her attorneys to dismiss the entire case is pending.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Also to be questioned would be members of the company that published the memoir, who have said in affidavits that they believed and accepted as fact everything Mariah Carey wrote in her book. Given the accusations against both Morgan Carey and sister Alison Carey, this lack of concern over the statements is remarkable; even with insurance and a contract with the author protecting them from any claim - neither of which has been mentioned as a defense in the legal filings - most publishers would be uneasy, to say the least, about Mariah’s flat-out statements that then-20-year-old Alison committed several crimes against Mariah when she was a child. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Morgan Carey also wants copies of any documents about the decision to publish allegedly damaging statements about him without giving him an opportunity to respond. The failure to do that, he claims, is further evidence of Mariah Carey’s malice.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">A judge will now decide if Morgan Carey’s request for limited discover is granted and if the case is thrown out.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As a high profile public figure, Mariah Carey presumably is aware that she could be a target for some people who think public figures are public property, and takes steps to keep herself and her children safe.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">But it is impossible to understate the rage that Morgan might be filled with if, after being trashed in his sister’s book, Mariah Carey then uses her immense wealth to shut down his case before it starts.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">That danger may never come. Morgan is 61 years old and presumably has mellowed and matured so probably would not resort to the violence Mariah accused him of in his youth. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">But that’s not the point. It’s the uncertainty. It’s not knowing. It’s the knowledge that a person you likely have made very angry is out there. It’s having to constantly check vehicles; it’s having bodyguards; it’s the offered public appearances that have to be declined; it’s the suspicious packages, the letters that have to be scanned, the extra security at each residence - and years later, still living with an ever-present undercurrent of fear.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">And the sad part of it is that her attack on Morgan, like the one on Alison, was all so unnecessary. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Stories in the book could have been truly inspiring for young people in traumatic family situations - as Mariah pathetically claims her vicious attacks on her siblings are.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead, in permanently public legal records and posts on the Internet she has allowed herself to be portrayed as cruel and vindictive toward her own closest relatives.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Such an irony. Ever desperate for attention, Mariah Carey could soon find herself imprisoned by her own hateful, publicity-seeking words.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">*****</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-50482643469094628522021-07-15T13:46:00.000-04:002022-10-19T13:50:15.225-04:00Decision time for Mariah?<p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Settle or face questions under oath; that may be the choice when judge rules on </span></b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>discovery request</b></span> </p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Baker</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mariah Carey has expended a lot of effort trying to avoid sitting for a deposition - even in one case in a lawsuit that she started.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> But she may not be able to avoid facing questions in the lawsuit brought by her brother over statements she made about him in her memoir.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Her initial response to the claim filed by Morgan Carey was to ask a judge to throw out the case - before it had barely started.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> But now Morgan is asking for the court's permission to submit written questions to, and to conduct depositions of Mariah Carey, her co-writer and two members of the company that published the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In a legal document filed this week, Morgan Carey's attorney says Morgan should not be denied the opportunity to obtain evidence that Mariah Carey "...(W)as somewhat less than reliable and truthful" in the book, and that with the prospect of profiting from a bestseller, the publishers were "...(A)ll too willing to ignore the extensive public record demonstrating her indifference to the truth."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The lawyer also wants copies of documents, including "...(C)ommunications concerning the decision not to seek pre-publication comment from (Morgan Carey) or other named sources."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The attorney also is looking for evidence that Mariah Carey's statements were motivated by malice; that she intended to hurt her brother - something she all but admitted in her TV interview with Oprah Winfrey.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Meanwhile, Mariah's sister Alison Carey has filed her own legal document over statements about her in the book, in which Alison stated that she also was not given an opportunity to respond to allegations of, in one instance, criminal conduct. The first she knew of it was when it was reported just before the book was published, in headlines to stories in newspaper and on dozens of websites around the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Settle or fight. Either way, Mariah's response will certainly be useful in preparing Alison's upcoming claim - as will the decision on whether to repeat the challenged statements about her in an already announced paperback edition of the memoir.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> A judge will now decide if the Morgan Carey's request for discovery will be granted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">---</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> One of Morgan Carey's claims is that negotiations to produce a film screenplay he has written were abruptly broken off because of statements in his sister's book. To back up this claim, his lawyer has filed a sworn statement from the producer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> That document says the screenplay is titled "Devil's Hollow" - that it is in the horror/thriller genre - and "inspired by actual events."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Which brings to mind a phone call Alison received from Morgan one Tuesday in 2016. During the call, Morgan grilled Alison with a series of questions about Alison's forced involvement in a satanic cult at the hands of her mother when Alison was a child.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The call went on for an hour, during which Alison became increasingly agitated. When it was over, she said repeatedly: "Why is he asking me these things? Why is he making me think about it?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Over the following several days she became increasingly erratic and confused, while still talking about Morgan's call.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> On the Friday morning she was out in the street, waving down drivers and asking them for a credit card to buy a song on iTunes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The police arrived; Alison was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where she remained for a month. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> It was clear that this episode was triggered by Morgan's call. And right after the call, we speculated that he was looking for information he could use for his own benefit</span>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Could any part of "Devil's Hollow" be based on the call that caused his sister so much distress?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> ---</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Morgan has a history of secrecy when dealing with Alison. One afternoon, also in 2016, he called and said he needed Alison to immediately record a short video. He did not say what it was for, but we thought he might be planning to include it in a private message to Mariah. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> So we hastily recorded the clip and uploaded it to Dropbox.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Two days later a story appeared on the British news website Mail Online, quoting Morgan slamming Mariah. And there was Alison's video.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Coming just two weeks after a similar story in another British newspaper, The Sun on Sunday - in which Morgan was quoted calling Mariah an "evil witch", and which we first became of aware of not from Morgan but during a phone call from a relative in England - the Mail would have needed something exclusive to justify running such a similar story. They had it: Alison's video.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Did Alison benefit from our small but significant contribution to the value of the Mail story? Not really. Morgan did send $800 to a woman for two months' rent of a room for Alison in her house - likely a tiny fraction of what Morgan received for the two stories. But according to Alison, the woman was using drugs. Alison soon moved out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">---</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Morgan has had no contact with Alison for the past two years so probably doesn't know that in May Alison needed emergency overnight surgery. The doctors gave her only a 50 percent chance of surviving the procedure and for several days her status was critical.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> So an effort was made to inform all her relatives of her condition. Morgan had been living in Italy but with no number or email he could not be contacted. In any event, legal papers say he is in now back in Hawaii.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Messages were relayed to all Alison's other immediate relatives but with one exception, none of them responded. Not one of her three sons. And, not surprisingly, not her only sister. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The callous indifference of this family is simply stunning.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">****</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8433025109648296825.post-23295457412885800942021-06-02T10:17:00.006-04:002021-06-03T08:24:19.998-04:00Commentary<p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Attorneys for Mariah Carey ask a judge to throw out her brother's claims over statements in her memoir</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> By David Baker</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <i> Posted June 2, 2021</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Attorneys for Mariah Carey have now filed a response to Morgan Carey’s lawsuit over statements in Mariah Carey’s 2020 memoir,<i> The Meaning of Mariah Carey.</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> The usual response would be what’s called an “answer”, in which the defendant responds to each paragraph in the complaint.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> But in this case, the attorneys instead are asking a judge to toss out the entire case before it even starts. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> In a 31-page document filed on May 28, Mariah Carey claims that passages in her book about her brother are not statements of fact but rather are opinions, which therefore are not defamatory.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> It’s correct that opinions are protected - but only if they are about facts. You can’t say someone is a ”sometimes drug dealing” person - as Mariah says of Morgan in the book - and then claim it was just her opinion, unless there is evidence that he in fact had been dealing illegal drugs.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Also, her description of a physical fight between a teenaged Morgan and their father, Alfred Roy Carey, is questionable. In the book she claims that it took “12 police officers” to pull them apart. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> She was 3 years old. Are we really to believe that in an obviously stressful situation, a terrified 3-year-old counted the number of officers involved?</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> But according to the motion, this and other passages are not meant to be taken literally. Rather, they are colorful, hyperbolic writing, intended to paint a picture in the readers’ minds of events she claims occurred.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Something you might find in, well, a work of fiction. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> In most lawsuits, a defendant would face detailed examinations, answering, under oath, both written questions, and in person during a deposition. It’s part of what’s called discovery, in which parties to a lawsuit exchange information prior to trial.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> In their response to Morgan’s lawsuit, defendant Carey’s lawyers say one of the reasons his claim should be tossed out is that he failed to provide details of his alleged financial losses caused by the book.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> But this is disingenuous: These lawyers certainly know that there is no requirement for that kind of detail in a complaint. A complaint can be long and detailed, or it can be very brief; as long as it clearly states the reason that the defendant is being sued it is sufficient.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> The details the defense lawyers are saying are missing would usually be demanded in those written questions in documents called interrogatories, and in demands for bills of particulars - the very process that with last week’s motion defendant Carey is trying to avoid.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Seven of the eight claims in Morgan Carey’s complaint allege defamation; the eighth is for intentional infliction of emotional distress. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> That’s the same claim that defendant Carey’s sister Alison Carey alleged in a notice of claim filed in February over statements about her in the book.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> To succeed, the statements in a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress must be outrageous and extreme and intended to hurt the victim.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> That might be hard for Morgan to prove. But Alison’s situation is very different. As defendant Carey was quoted as saying just before her book was published, Alison is “damaged, and “very broken.” </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> And although she refuses to acknowledge it, she knows why. She knows about the horrific sexual and psychological abuse Alison endured as a child that resulted in a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, causing terrifying flashbacks of the unspeakable abuse.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> And she knows about the traumatic brain injury from when Alison was hit on the back of the head and left for dead by an intruder at her home in 2015, resulting in surgery four months later to stop a cerebral hemorrhage and leaving her with short-term memory loss and limited vision in one eye. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> But despite all that, defendant Carey used her description of events she claims occurred 40 years ago to vilify her much less fortunate sister - and then pushed the details out to media organizations just before publication of the book.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> It’s hard to imagine a more callous act. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Now in a hospital a month after a life-threatening medical emergency and facing weeks of rehab, Alison is also struggling with the loss of the father of one of her children, who was shot dead by a police officer last week.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> The broader question here is, were Mariah Carey’s attacks on her siblings really necessary? </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Mariah Carey is one of the luckiest people on the planet. She was barely out of high school when she began a life of enormous wealth and luxury. Yes, her life was hard before she hit it big. But there are thousands of people who are just as talented and work just as hard for far longer, but never make it.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> She should be thankful for her incredible fortune. At the very least, she should have left her siblings out of her book.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Instead, she portrays herself as a bitter victim, publicly smearing her "broken" sister with damaging, hurtful allegations while denying her an opportunity to defend herself before the stories appeared.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> And that really is outrageous and extreme.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">****</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hearing set on motion to dismiss claim</span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <i> The return date for Mariah Carey’s motion to dismiss her brother’s complaint is next month.</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i> In many cases, there is no actual hearing. Instead, the judge decides the request “on the papers” submitted by the parties.</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i> But in this case, Mariah Carey has requested oral argument. If this is granted, lawyers for both sides will appear at a hearing to make their cases.</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i> The hearing is set for July 6 in state Supreme Court, New York County.</i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><i>-- David Baker</i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0