Careful what you wish for

 

A legal win for Mariah Carey could

 see her trapped by her own words

By David Baker 

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.”

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.

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.

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. 

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.

A judge will now decide if Morgan Carey’s request for limited discover is granted and if the case is thrown out.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

And the sad part of it is that her attack on Morgan, like the one on Alison, was all so unnecessary. 

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.

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.

Such an irony. Ever desperate for attention, Mariah Carey could soon find herself imprisoned by her own hateful, publicity-seeking words.

*****

Decision time for Mariah?

Settle or face questions under oath; that may be the choice when judge rules on discovery request  

By David Baker

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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."

   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."

   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. 

  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.

   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.

   A judge will now decide if the Morgan Carey's request for discovery will be granted.

---

   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.

   That document says the screenplay is titled "Devil's Hollow" - that it is in the horror/thriller genre - and "inspired by actual events."

    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.

   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?"

   Over the following several days she became increasingly erratic and confused, while still talking about Morgan's call.

   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.

   The police arrived;  Alison was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where she remained for a month. 

   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. 

      Could any part of "Devil's Hollow" be based on the call that caused his sister so much distress?

    ---

   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. 

  So we hastily recorded the clip and uploaded it to Dropbox.

  Two days later a story appeared on the British news website Mail Online,  quoting Morgan slamming Mariah.  And there was Alison's video.

   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.

   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.

---

   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.

  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.

  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. 

   The callous indifference of this family is simply stunning.

****

   

 

Commentary

 

Attorneys for Mariah Carey ask a judge to throw out  her brother's claims over statements in her memoir

   By David Baker

   Posted June 2, 2021

   Attorneys for Mariah Carey have now filed a response to Morgan Carey’s lawsuit over statements in Mariah Carey’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.

   The usual response would be what’s called an “answer”, in which the defendant responds to each paragraph in the complaint.

   But in this case, the attorneys instead are asking a judge to toss out the entire case before it even starts. 

   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.

   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.

  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. 

   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?

  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.

  Something you might find in, well, a work of fiction. 

  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.

   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.

   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.

  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.

   Seven of the eight claims in Morgan Carey’s complaint allege defamation; the eighth is for intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

   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.

  To succeed, the statements in a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress must be outrageous and extreme and intended to hurt the victim.

   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.” 

  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.

   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. 

  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.

   It’s hard to imagine a more callous act. 

   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.

    The broader question here is, were Mariah Carey’s attacks on her siblings really necessary? 

   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.

  She should be thankful for her incredible fortune. At the very least, she should have left her siblings out of her book.

   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.

   And that really is outrageous and extreme.

****

Hearing set on motion to dismiss claim

   The return date for Mariah Carey’s motion to dismiss her brother’s complaint is next month.

    In many cases, there is no actual hearing. Instead, the judge decides the request “on the papers” submitted by the parties.

   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.

  The hearing is set for July 6 in state Supreme Court, New York County.

-- David Baker

Mariah case update

 

Court documents suggest Morgan Carey's claim against Mariah might be headed to settlement

Attorneys agree to a delay in filing of responses to brother Morgan's claim for alleged defamation in Mariah's Carey's 2020 tell all memoir

 By David Baker

Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2021

 Morgan Carey’s lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey and her publishers over her memoir continues with indications that the claim against the publishers and the co-writer of the book may be dismissed, leaving Mariah Carey as the only defendant.

   In March, Morgan Carey filed a complaint - the document that starts a lawsuit - alleging that his reputation has been damaged by statements in Mariah Carey’s book “The Meaning of Mariah Carey”, which was published in September 2020.

   Along with Mariah Carey, the claim also names as defendants Macmillan Publishing Group, Andy Cohen Books, and Michaela Angela Davis, who wrote the words at Mariah Carey’s direction. 

   Once a complaint is served, a defendant normally has 20 days (a little longer in some circumstances) to respond. That response is usually in the form of what’s called an answer, which contains numbered responses to each of the numbered paragraphs in the complaint.

   An answer usually provides little information about the case; most responses either admit an indisputable allegation (the date the book was published, for example); deny an allegation; or say “the answering defendant lacks sufficient  knowledge to admit or deny the allegation.”

    However, in this case, none of the defendants’ attorneys have served an answer. Instead, after acknowledging receipt of the complaint, they have agreed in a document called a stipulation to extend the deadline, in Mariah Carey’s case, until May 14, and in the case against the publishers and the co-writer, until May 28.

   This suggests two things: First, that a publishing agreement states that Mariah Carey, not the publishers and the co-writer, will be responsible for any claims arising from statements in the book - a possibility supported by a sentence in the stipulation that says the defendants may ask the court to dismiss the complaint without them filing an answer. 

   Such an agreement would explain the publishers’ willingness to publish obviously controversial statements while presumably knowing that the target of Mariah Carey’s vicious attacks would not become aware of the explosive claims until stories about them appeared in the media just before the book was published.

   So Mariah Carey may soon be the only defendant. Which leads to the second explanation for the delay; that settlement negotiations are taking place.

   Back in February, an attorney then considering taking Alison Carey’s case was told by one of Mariah Carey’s attorneys that Mariah Carey “would rather pay thousands of dollars to fight Alison’s claim than give Alison five dollars.”

   That’s tough talk, meant to scare off  plaintiffs’ lawyers who just want to collect their 40 percent plus expenses without a long, expensive legal battle. But the reality may be very different. It’s not the cost Mariah has to worry about; it’s the public exposure involved in defending a claim - having to answer detailed questions under oath during depositions (which, in Alison’s claim, given statements in the book, some of which could be about Mariah Carey’s knowledge of the abuse inflicted on Alison as a child.)

   Deposition transcripts or parts of them can become public as exhibits attached to other documents filed in a case. They also become part of the court record when a case is about to go to trial. A request can be made for a transcript to be made confidential, but anyone can be present at depositions unless a protective order is obtained, which requires convincing evidence that the person’s presence would cause “serious harm.” 

  That, and having to respond to detailed written questions under oath is a big incentive to settle.

   And Mariah Carey has previously tried to avoid giving a deposition. In one of several lawsuits filed against her by former employees she claimed that being deposed in a law office would put her at risk of catching COVID-19. Then, when the lawyers offered to have her appear via video from her home she claimed that even that was too risky because she could still catch the virus from the video camera operator required by the rules to be there to verify the event. 

   That excuse won’t work now; items she posted on Twitter and Instagram in early April show her getting her second shot of a COVID vaccine. For Mariah Carey, no event is too trivial for a call to the press or posts on social media. 

   So now, settle or fight, this spoilt multimillionaire is about to face the consequences of her spiteful, unnecessary attacks on her two less fortunate siblings.

——

As noted above, the deadline for Mariah Carey’s initial response to her brother’s claim is this Friday, May 14. Check back here after that date for details.

Unfit mother?

                 Would Mariah Carey have let her
           mother take care of her daughter?

    

By David Baker

    For all that Mariah Carey wrote in her sibling-bashing book, one topic was missing; she said nothing about the horrific abuse inflicted on her sister Alison by their mother when Alison was a child. 

   That raises a couple of questions: Was Mariah subjected to any of the same abuse?  If not, why was she spared? And either way, why is she not now sympathetic to the sister she acknowledged is “…very broken”?

   She certainly knows what happened to Alison. It’s been described numerous times in newspapers and on TV.  As someone who posts on social media and who is constantly searching the Internet for her name -- and who’s own mother was accused in a legal filing of allowing Alison to be sexual abused -- Mariah cannot credibly claim to not know.

   And if she thinks what happened was okay—and that it didn’t destroy Alison’s life—here’s a question: Would she allow her own  9-year-old daughter to endure the horrific psychological and sexual abuse Alison has described?

***

   It's been almost five months since The Meaning of Mariah Carey was published, coming up on the time when a paperback edition was a book would be released.

 

   But in this case the publishers have some decisions  to make.

    

    Do they leave in the parts about Alison and her brother Morgan, even though they are the subject of legal claims, and risk further legal exposure?

   

   Or do they take the disputed parts out, in what would likely be claimed was an admission of liability?

   Or they could simply abandon any plans to publish a paperback, thus losing additional income from the book -- and the constant attention Mariah craves.

    Mariah has also suggested there might will be a movie version of the book.  But would any production company approve say, a scene that portrays the incidents Mariah alleges in the chapter about Alison?  Or one with an actor playing Morgan slamming their mother's head against a wall -- as Mariah claims happened?

   That seems unlikely.  So the idea of a movie might be dead - because Mariah couldn't resist slamming her two siblings 

***

   Speaking of Mariah’s daughter -- and her twin brother:  At 9 years old, they have a relatively limited view of the world, shaped mostly by what their parents tell them.

 

    But that will change. The time will come when they will go on the Internet and learn about the aunt they have never met and that, as always, there is another side to the story.

    At that point they will realize what that they were led to believe was not the whole picture and, as a result will likely view both Alison -- and their mother -- in a very different light.

***

    Almost from birth, Mariah has made her two children public figures. Photos on Twitter and Instagram; videos on Facebook. They have even appeared on stage with her.

    All of which may result in them growing up, like their mother, with a grotesquely distorted sense of their own importance and their place in the world.

****

    BIG NEWS  The filing in early February of Alison's legal notice of a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress over Mariah's memoir was reported across the country and around the world by dozens of publications, including:  Variety, Billboard, Rolling Stone, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Long Island Newsday, People Magazine and USA Today; and in Britain, the BBC, The Sun, the Independent, the Times and New Musical Express.  Reports also appeared on outlets in several other countries including Germany, Italy and Australia.

    A month later  Morgan Carey filed his own lawsuit which was also widely reported, with all the stories also mentioning Alison's claim, many of them in the first paragraph.

Meanwhile, Alison is preparing for an in-depth TV interview in which she will talk about not just the devastating trauma she suffered as a child but also other events in her life, many of them not revealed before, even to her family. 

                                                            ******

Second suit filed

Mariah Carey is now facing a legal claim from both her siblings over her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey.  On March 3, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Morgan Carey, who like his sister Alison, is claiming that statements in the book have caused him emotional distress. But unlike Alison, Morgan also is claiming that his reputation has been damaged by Mariah's allegation that he was involved in criminal activity, and that he tried to extort money from her after she signed a record deal.

Here's a link to the legal document, known as a complaint:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b91e5x44isgnjtv/morgan_carey_v_mariah-carey_et_al.pdf?dl=0

Childhood horror

 Alison Carey says she was forced to stab

a child during terrifying satanic rituals

By David Baker

© 2020 David Baker.

For decades, Alison Carey has tried to forget how as a child she was forced to watch as babies and small children was stabbed as sacrifices during horrific middle of the night satanic rituals.

And now she describes how at least once she was forced to stab a child herself.

She says the rituals took place near the family’s home in Huntington, Long Island. Woken up at 2 a.m., she was taken by her mother Patricia to a building next to a Unitarian Universalist church on Long Island’s north shore that, with its large turrets, she describes as looking like a castle.

“I remember them dragging me through the woods between the church and the castle,” she said.

Once outside the building, she remembers a line of people wearing long cloaks and hoods going inside in a procession to an area on the ground floor.

“There was a circle, like a shallow dip in the ground,” she said.  “There was a bunch of people around the circle and they were all watching.

“There was an alter, and they’d have a baby, really young, maybe 6 months old. They would be chanting, some other language. I didn’t know what they were saying. I didn’t understand it at all.”

“The baby would be unconscious,” she said, her eyes cast down, her voice breaking at the memory. “Why would they do that?  Why wouldn’t they enjoy hearing the baby screaming?

“They would get somebody to stab the baby in the chest. There was blood all over the place.

“I don’t remember what happened next. I blacked out. If you saw someone stab a baby, what would happen to you?”

The worst horror, she says, was when she was forced to stab a child herself - who may or may not have already been dead; she doesn’t know. She says she thinks she, Alison, was given a drug - presumably a sedative to stop her becoming upset with what she was about to be forced to do.

She describes standing beside the child and stabbing her with some kind of dagger. She says she was then immediately moved away and doesn’t know what happened to the body.

“It was just a little girl they made me stab” she said  “Maybe 4 or 5 months old.

“I didn’t want the children to die” she said, quietly choking back tears. “I would have done anything to save them. But what could I do? I was just a kid.” 

These were memories she suppressed for decades, only beginning to recall the most horrific ones after she was hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat by an intruder in her home in 2015, leaving her with a brain injury in a still unsolved attack.

Alison says sexual activity was also a part of the terrifying rituals, and that she was routinely abused by the adults. But it was the murder of children that would affect her for decades.

“It’s not that I’m saying there was no sexual abuse. It’s just that killing people and the blood, and then forcing me to stab someone, a child - it was never an adult - those are the things I remember. 

“I was thinking, ‘Are they going to live, are they going to die? Am I going to have to drink blood?’ Any baby’s blood, whether they killed them or I killed them. It didn’t matter; drink the blood.”

Alison says she doesn’t know if her sister Mariah was ever at the rituals. Mariah, born in 1969 when Alison was almost 8 years old, would have been a baby when Alison was forced to attend the satanic ceremonies.

But she says her mother would threaten to harm Mariah if Alison didn’t do what her mother wanted. 

 

“I was told not to tell anyone what happened,” she said. “And I didn’t. I loved my baby sister. I would never let anything bad happen to her.”

For decades Alison tried to suppress the terrible images in her mind. She turned to drugs - a very common attempt at escape for victims of childhood atrocities. She even found a therapist who specialized in treating victims of satanic abuse.

But the damage was done. Diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, depression and multiple-personality disorder, she has made bad decisions and struggled to manage her life, a situation compounded by the brain injury in 2015 that affected her short-term memory and vision.

Twice in the 1990s and again in 2016 she was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer - another common occurrence for victims of childhood sexual abuse, who feel they are worthless to anyone except for loveless sex. The most recent case ended with a fine. (An online ad that led to the last arrest was composed by someone who, unlike Alison, had a computer. The first Alison knew that it contained lyrics from one of her sister’s songs was when it was reported by the media).

Alison has had no contact with her mother or sister for several years. Her other sibling, a brother a year old than her, got media attention in 2016 with sensational claims in newspaper stories and on TV shows, but did little to assist Alison with the money he made. There has been little communication with him since.

Alison acknowledges that over the years she has received help from members of her family. But then they gave up and, despite their considerable resources, didn’t step up even after her devastating brain injury.  Several months after the attack she was in an upstate hospital for eight weeks, close to death following surgery to stop a brain hemorrhage, but neither her mother nor her sister came to visit.

Now she is resigned to the fact that her family has disowned her. She isn’t looking for help from them.

But she does want her mother to be held accountable for the incomprehensible sadistic abuse she inflicted on her eldest daughter.

Accountable for a childhood lost.  A life destroyed.  A living Hell.  A deliberate tragedy.

**********

davidbaker@fastmail.com

Twitter: @DavidFBaker

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