NEW YORK — A Hollywood auction house hired by Michael Jackson to sell off the contents of his shuttered Neverland Ranch said it is pressing ahead with plans to put some 2,000 items on the block in April, despite the pop legend’s surprise bid this month to halt the sale.
Julien’s Auctions said Jackson’s representatives had been deeply and enthusiastically involved in the sale for many months until a sudden reversal last month. The company’s president, Darren Julien, said in a sworn statement filed with a Los Angeles court that the singer’s representatives even tried to intimidate him into postponing the sale, warning that the auctioneers would be in danger “from Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam,” if they didn’t call it off.
Alan Gutman, a lawyer for Jackson’s company MJJ Productions, accused Julien of making “scurrilous attacks.” The Associated Press
