Howard Weitzman, a lawyer whose clients included Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and Car manufacturer John DeLorean, has expired
LOS ANGELES — Howard Weitzman, a lawyer whose clients included Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and automobile manufacturer John DeLorean, has expired.
Weitzman died Wednesday from the Pacific Palisades part of Los Angeles following a short illness, his wife, Margaret Weitzman, stated.
Weitzman came into nationwide fame as defense lawyer for DeLorean, who had been accused of cocaine trafficking in 1982. Weitzman claimed that the FBI had entrapped DeLorean and obtained a not guilty verdict from the jury in 1984.
“This situation is a sick situation. It’s a tragedy and a travesty of justice,” Weitzman told jurors throughout the trial.
On a day after his attorney delivered a particularly rousing cross-examination of an FBI representative, DeLorean told reporters,”I could say is I thank God for Howard Weitzman.”
Weitzman’s news conferences about the court measures during the trial attracted him a nationwide audience, along with the admiration of colleagues, that would endure for the remainder of his livelihood.
“He helpfully places his obscure court questions into context, suggests his existing plan and produces little homilies on the hazards of a government entrapment performance gone wild,” that the Washington Post said in the moment.
The fiery side he revealed through the DeLorean trial and sometimes during the others came out infrequently. He was mild mannered and amiable in courtroom and out it, and thankfully hunted settlements to prevent trials.
In the past years of his lifetime, Weitzman was best called the lawyer for the Jackson estate, a job he took on from its beginning after the pop superstar’s departure in 2009.
He defended against the estate from collaborators and lenders seeking a part of the cash Jackson left , and contrary to two guys who alleged Jackson molested them boys, also directing the litigation against HBO for broadcasting those allegations from the documentary”Leaving Neverland.”
Weitzman, who represented Jackson throughout his lifetime, was one of the singer’s most outspoken defenders amidst misuse allegations, seldom missing a opportunity to openly proclaim Jackson’s innocence.
Weitzman was created in Los Angeles, and worked in his parents supermarket company for a kid. He had a career in baseball, winning a school national tournament as a second baseman in 1961, however if hopes of a significant league career diminished he went into law school in the University of Southern California.
He started his criminal law practice in 1965 and established himself as an energetic defender in occasionally notorious circumstances.
In later decades Hollywood actors are his most prominent customers as he became a founding partner in the law firm Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump LLP.
He defended Bieber at a 2011 paternity suit and represented him several subsequent suits.
