While the Sycamore Inn had its share of celebrities in the '30s and '40s, Sellas said that last year the restaurant had a surprise visit from La Toya Jackson.

"La Toya Jackson came in at Christmas time, on a Saturday night, and we were packed," Sellas said. "The minute she walked in heads just [turned], and she wanted some privacy. Well, we couldn't give her much privacy." Sellas said that Jackson then circled the room, went into the bar, had a drink and left.

"She wanted some place where she could go and be private," Sellas said. "Well, that's pretty hard to do here on a Saturday night and at Christmas time."

source: http://busjournal.com/content/archives/aug98/corp_prof.html

LaToya Bummed Out by Psychic Friends by Joal Ryan  Somehow, you'd think LaToya Jackson would have seen this coming.

An attorney for the entertainer actually places most of the blame for the botched business deal with an infamous figure in LaToya's past: ex-husband, ex-manager Jack Gordon.

Gordon, you'll recall, is the guy who once allegedly attacked LaToya with a white leather chair. He was arrested on possession of a weapon (the chair) and later explained that any furniture-wielding he may have done was in self-defense against LaToya, who attacked him first with, no chair, but a sharp object.

Well, surprise, surprise, Gordon and LaToya divorced in 1996 (a shock to fans who remember the way Gordon lovingly cared for LaToya after she was clubbed by Roman thugs armed with metal pipes--no chairs). Anyway, Brian Oxman, LaToya's lawyer, claims that Gordon renegotiated a contract with Zodiac Group and Galaxy Communications--the psychic phone people--after the split. The deal netted Gordon an $80,000 advance, but LaToya ended up with zilch, even if the contract did call for her to receive $2,000 a month, plus royalties (once Gordon's advance was earned back), Oxman says.

"Jack Gordon had no right to do this," Oxman tells the Los Angeles-based City News Service. "He did not get Ms. Jackson's permission, and when she heard about it, she was very upset."

But LaToya, apparently following the money, is suing, not Gordon, but Zodiac and Galaxy. She wants $450,000, she says is due her, plus interest.

No comment from either of the two companies.

The LaToya Jackson Psychic Friends Network launched in 1992.

source: eonline.com

The Case: LaToya Jackson, aberrant sister of aberrant pop star Michael Jackson, is suing the Florida-based Zodiac Group Inc.--promoter of "LaToya Jackson's Psychic Friends Network"--for $500,000, claiming unpaid royalties, misappropriation of trade name, image and likeness, and unfair competition. Zodiac's parent company, Galaxy Communications Inc., is also named in the complaint.

Backstory: According to wire reports, Jackson agreed to lend her name to the dial-a-psychic service in 1992, signing a contract that was supposed to pay her an advance of $150,000, plus 10 cents for every phone call.

But it doesn't look like any of LaToya's ESP-gifted pals were able to predict the future behavior of her husband, Jack Gordon.

Gordon and Jackson divorced in 1996--you may remember, he was arrested for throwing a big leather chair at the Jackson family outcast, only to later claim it was in self-defense because she was coming at him with a sharp object. Afterward, Gordon renegotiated (allegedly without LaToya's consent) the contract with Zodiac, writing into his immediate future an $80,000 advance.

Jackson was supposed to get $2,000 a month--the rest of the royalties would go toward repaying Gordon's advance, according to reports.

"LaToya hasn't been paid for two years," Jackson's lawyer Oxman says. "[Zodiac] wants to run with [her] endorsement for ever and ever, but that's not the way it works. You've got to pay for the use of somebody's name and their image and their endorsement."

Too bad her fortune-telling friends didn't let her in on that.

Status: No hearings scheduled.

source: eonline.com

Famous person LaToya Jackson is doing more of the stuff that keeps her famous: Trying to stay in the center of (semi-) controversy. This time, Michael's older sister has countersued a German promoter who accused La Toya of accepting a $20,000 appearance fee for an event in Holland and then skipping out on the appearance part. Jackson terms the promoter's lawsuit a form of harassment.

source: eonline.com

The controversial sister of the king of pop ends her marriage in Las Vegas six years after tying the knot in Reno.
Pop star Michael Jackson's sister La Toya and her controversial manager-husband, Jack Gordon, were divorced Tuesday in Las Vegas, ending a six-year marriage that endured mutual accusations of spousal abuse and intrafamilial sniping on TV talk shows.

      Gordon confirmed the divorce Wednesday, explaining that Clark County Family Court Judge Fran Fine lifted a gag order she had imposed earlier in the case. But Jackson's California attorney, Brian Oxman, denied the gag order had been lifted and refused to comment on the case.

      The public was shut out of Fine's courtroom during the trial. The written divorce judgment, which will be based upon verbal orders Fine gave at the case's conclusion, had not been completed Wednesday, so exact terms were unavailable. However, Gordon said Fine ordered an equal division of the community property, which he said is worth more than $4 million. He said neither party is to pay the other alimony.

      Oxman responded, "That is not the settlement. It is untrue. I think Mr. Gordon is incapable of telling you what happened."

      But Oxman added he is still bound by the gag order and not allowed to disclose the terms. "I think it is grossly unfair that this man would violate court order after court order and talk to you, while I am prohibited from talking to you. He just doesn't care about the law."

      Gordon says he is 58 and Jackson is 41. They were married in Reno on Sept. 5, 1991, according to court documents. At the time, Jackson denied the marriage, but Gordon described it as "a marriage of protection," intended to stave off anticipated career meddling by Jackson's controversial father, Joe, who founded the Jackson entertainment industry on the talents of his many children.

      It was while married to Gordon that La Toya Jackson wrote an autobiography and appeared on dozens of talk shows, making startling and damaging allegations about life in the Jackson clan. Later, she said Gordon urged her to make the revelations.

      Gordon denies he encouraged her to attack her family. "In the first place, I don't know any of these things she said about her brother Michael. I know Michael, but I don't know if any of those things are true."
      He continued, "She also said that I kidnapped her, confined her to her room, and beat her every day. ... Yet during the 11 years this was supposed to be going on, she did at least 2,000 television shows, and a lot of them were live, and she certainly could have said, `Help!' if that was going on."

      The Jackson marriage was not Gordon's first brush with notoriety. He served time in prison for attempting in 1978 to bribe Harry Reid, now a U.S. senator but then chairman of Nevada's Gaming Control Board. In 1984, Gordon was convicted of pandering in a plea-bargain arranged by Las Vegas lawyer Oscar Goodman.
      One detail revealed in the divorce documents was that Gordon acts as agent for Goodman in the lawyer's sideline career as a movie actor. Goodman played himself in the hit movie "Casino," which followed the career of his former client, mobster Tony Spilotro, who was beaten to death in 1986.

      At one point during the trial, Fine jailed Gordon for contempt. "I couldn't say she was wrong to do that," Gordon said. "That tells you how much I came to respect this judge, that I would say that after she put me in jail."

      He said he spent 23 days locked up. Much of it he spent unnoticed, until word of his confinement leaked to the media. "After that I spent it signing autographs. In jail you always sign them, `Have a good TIME,' with the word `time' all in capital letters."
      After Tuesday's decision, he said, "I felt like 10,000 tons had been lifted off me. ... La Toya was mad, though."

      He said she spun the tires of her $120,000 Mercedes-Benz as she left the court parking lot, waving an erect middle digit at Gordon and his lawyer, Neil Beller.

      That accusation is one he can discuss, Oxman said, because it wasn't part of the divorce case. "She is one of the sweetest women you will ever meet," he said. "She wouldn't even know how to do that."

source: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1997/Jun-26-Thu-1997/news/5615300.html

'What! La LaToya Jackson playing for the workers of Chernobyl? And doing a PA in the Palace of Culture, with the ballet doing the support slot? - You must be joking!'
'No, we're talking serious multimedia performance convergence culture."
"What a load of bollocks!"

Well, IMF member Falcon Stuart just got back from the Ukraine, where he brokered a deal to enable all of the above to happen. LaToya played a saturday night command performance for the workers, their children and the directors of the Nuclear Power Station of Chernobyl.

It was an open air free concert in the central square of the Company Town, Slavutich City, 17 km from the plant, and lOOkm from Kiev.

Ukrainian security arrangements were very enthusiastic. The rider stipulated three security personnel, but LaToya was greeted at the airport by ten fully armed, radio controlled bodyguards from Kiev's Security Society Corporation. The whole team had come along for the ride. For hardware enthusiasts: this year's favoured piece to pack is the Fireline 500.

For the concert, LaToya did her flash trash Las Vegas lounge show, aided by her two dancing boys, Renaldo and Antonio. It went down a storm with the kids, who were all corralled into the large front of stage area, protected by a human crash barrier of soldiers. Unsupervised by their parents they went mental, which is always great for a performer. The following day a demand concert was held in Kiev's finest seated venue, the Ukrainian Hall. Kiev's only reliable promoters Alex Kovjoun and Roman Alter decided that the only way to make the venue work was to create a post modern pop package show.

So the show began with a fifty strong all girl marching band, who stomped through the audience and on to the massive 60 ft wide stage. This was followed by Irena, gymnast and mini-pops superstar with her acrobatic dance team. Next up was Admirale, the Ukraine's top modem ballet troupe, and then on came LaToya and her crew to do their glam multiple costume change act.

The audience was mainly composed of Kiev's new economic Mafia. Virtually all the Ukraine's new businesses are run by guys in their twenties. The MD of Heineken Ukraine, for example, is only 26. As for the show, it was a terrific event, despite some muttering that the performance wasnÕt long enough and they weren't sure if LaToya was really singing. After all, there had been a four and a half year gap since the last American act, Sonic Youth, played Kiev, so to have a personal appearance by a member of the Jackson family was a great achievement for all involved. And considering that the pop music industry is the ultimate bastion of naked exploitative capitalism, it seems that the Ukraine is adjusting very well.

source: http://www.u-net.com/imf/news/latoya.html

 NEW YORK (AP) -- LaToya Jackson's husband and manager paid the Genovese crime family $1,500 a month to protect the singer, FBI documents reveal.
The payoffs were made to shield Jackson from mentally disturbed fans and possible shakedowns by other crime families, law enforcement sources told the Daily News, citing secret FBI papers.
According to the documents, Jackson's husband, Jack Gordon, started paying the protection money in 1994. The payments continued until at least last year.
The 39-year-old entertainer, the estranged sister of pop superstar Michael Jackson, filed for divorce in Las Vegas in May after a troubled six-year marriage. She accused her husband of beating her with a bottle "because I
refused to perform" in a European concert.

source: http://secure.canoe.ca/JamMusicArtistsJ/jackson_latoya.html

La Toya VS The Jacksons The Combatants: Papa Joe whacked the kids, plastic surgeons whacked the kids, the kids eventually whacked each other and Michael whacked because of kids (allegedly), prompting the press to dub him "Wacko Jacko." Yet, the only one the whole family hates is LaToya, because she turned snitch. Think of it as "The Sopranos Go Motown!"

The Upper Hand: Sadly, Jackson family-feud stories have become as rare as Richard Dawson sightings. But with this brood, new hijinks are never far from the surface. Janet, the Jackson 5 and the Gloved One are the most likely sources of 21st century tabloid fodder--provided the plastic surgeons don't reduce the whole clan to whirling nubs first.

source: eonline.com

"When you pimp or pander or beat a woman to do these things, it's only appropriate that you give back what you made off her," Mr. Oxman said.

The lawsuit was filed Monday under a 1994 federal law against gender-based violence. It comes six weeks after Ms. Jackson filed for divorce from her husband of six years.
Ms. Jackson, who has appeared nude in Playboy magazines and videos, claims she was hospitalized after a 1993 attack.

"The idea was that she was beaten until she posed, which makes it gender- and sexually oriented," Mr. Oxman said.

She also claims Mr. Gordon beat and kicked her for refusing to start up a phone-sex line and perform at topless clubs. Mr. Gordon, who has offices in New York, did not immediately return a call for comment yesterday.

source: http://www.s-t.com/daily/06-96/06-26-96/a04wn098.htm#XINDEX1

THE EVENT: Publicity-crazed La Toya Jackson, perhaps miffed that brother Michael's impending divorce is hogging the spotlight, made her catwalk debut in the "alta moda" fashion shows in Rome. Jackson, carried onstage by a buff himbo in painted-on sailor pants, prowled the runway wearing silver stiletto heels, a skintight mermaid gown adorned with sequins and shells, and with her elaborately coifed blonde hair adorned by a similarly clad Barbie doll.
THE DOWNSIDE: She may try to wrangle a major appearance in "Unzipped, Part Two."

THE SILVER LINING: This may be the ideal career move for Ms. Jackson, since models are generally seen, not heard.

source: People