Thread by @JuliaBerkowitz1

🧵Thread:

Reviewing the Estate's July 2025 petition and watching Geragos's interview on TMZ, this is what I think is going on with the Cascio case.

What you witnessed yesterday, MG interview, DM article is noise out of desperation by the Cascio camp, as legally THEY are the ones in trouble right now.

So the bottom line in this current legal action is: after their payments from the 2019 agreement between them and the Estate ran out in 2024, the Cascios went back to the Estate to try to extort for more money, this time $213 million or else!

The "else" was threatening with a civil lawsuit with allegations of CSA against MJ and "extending the circle of knowledge" of the allegations, particularly they threatened going to Sony with their allegations, who just bought the MJ catalog.

On August 29, the Cascio's then-lawyer, Howard King wrote the Estate an e-mail, in which he repeated these threats. That they were stupid enough to put these threats in e-mail is a good thing for the Estate.

In response to these extortion attempts, the Estate on September 17 filed to the court for arbitration against Cascio for civil extortion, anticipatory breach of their agreement and declaratory relief (asking the arbitrator to officially confirm the validity of the agreement).

Despite of this the Cascios continued with their threats and extortion attempt by sending unfiled draft lawsuits to the Estate - another documentary evidence for their extortion attempt.

The Cascios switched to Geragos in early 2025 and he is now trying to clean up the mess for them. Based on Geragos's interview it seems to me his strategy is arguing that the 2019 agreement is invalid. Because if the 2019 agreement is valid then the Cascios are in trouble.

They clearly violated it by trying to extort the Estate for more money and threatening to go public and file a lawsuit.

The agreement expressly states that any disagreements between the parties has to be dealt with confidentially in arbitration, so even threatening to go public as a way of trying to get your way is a breach of it (anticipatory breach).

So how does Geragos argue for the argument's invalidity? By his interview it seems his argument is that it is invalid because the Cascios didn't have a lawyer when they signed it. Legally that is nonsense. Not having a lawyer doesn't make an agreement invalid under California law

Also, the Cascios are well experienced in litigations, have worked with many high profile lawyers before, they are not some naive, unsophisticated party. So this argument isn't likely to fly in court.

Geragos also alluded to that the beneficiaries of the Estate (MJ's kids and Katherine) didn't know of the agreement. But here even Levin pointed out that this doesn't make the agreement invalid. An Estate isn't obligated to get approval for every agreement from the beneficiaries.

So this is what's going on now. The leak to the Daily Mail, Geragos' interview and his bizarre deflections in it are all noise. If the arbitrator rules the agreement is validn (which seems very likely) the Casios are in big trouble as they clearly breached the agreement.