Jack Gordon

Jack Gordon is best known as LaToya Jackson’s infamous ex-manger/husband. She later accused him of mental control and physical abuse during the 11 years they were together. Gordon died in 2005, aged 65. LaToya even sent a security expert to his burial to confirm his death, as she knew that he had faked his death before. Who was Jack Gordon, and what role did he play in the Jackson family saga? Let’s first take a look at his earlier life.

Jack Gordon was born in Springfield, Illinois on November 10, 1939. His father was Abraham Gordon, a Russian immigrant, and his mother was Faye Stein, an Illinois native of Jewish heritage. What of Gordon’s formative years? Not much is publicly known, so we have to fast-forward to the 70′s when he is already in his 30′s. At this time, he ran an arcade business at the Circus Circus in Las Vegas. Later, he became the owner of two massage parlors in California. In the late 70’s, it was reported that two of his partners from Las Vegas had been murdered and that he was the prime suspect.

In 1979, Gordon ran into trouble with the law once again. The previous year, he’d offered Harry Reid, then-chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, $12,000 to approve two new gaming machines for casino use. Gordon believed the new games would make him more than $100 million in profit. Reid notified the FBI and agents videotaped a meeting with Gordon in his office. At the point where Reid asked, “Is this the money?” FBI agents burst into the office to arrest Gordon. He was convicted of conspiracy along with cemetery salesman Joe Daly and sentenced to six months’ jail.

Gordon’s defense attorney Richard Wright remembers visiting him in jail. As he was escorted in, the guard was exceptionally friendly, asking if Wright wanted water and ending with a courteous, “Will that be all, sir?” When he mentioned the guard’s unusual behavior to Gordon, Wright recalled, “Jack rubs his thumb against his finger, indicating he was giving him money. I went ballistic,” Wright said. “You’re telling me you’re taking care of the guards in here? Knock this shit off!”

After he served his time, Gordon visited Wright and asked for the gold jewelry he’d left in his care. Wright handed him the jewelry, Gordon unbuttoned his shirt, put on the gold and was ready to return to his old life.

Sometime in the 80′s and probably through mutual connections in Las Vegas, Jack Gordon became associated with Joe Jackson. In 1987, the relationship culminated with Jackson bringing Gordon into the family fold as co-manager of his 31 year-old daughter LaToya.

Gordon was now in his late 40’s and able to exhert much influence over LaToya, even at her age. He eventually took over as sole manager and the two were married in 1989. Under Gordon’s management, LaToya gained much publicity for herself; in 1991, she posed for Playboy. Soon after, she published “La Toya: Growing Up In The Jackson Family”, a scathing tell-all account of her life growing up as a Jackson. In December 1993, Gordon organised a press conference in Tel Aviv, where LaToya read a statement telling the world that she believed the sex abuse allegations against her brother Michael. She stated, “I cannot and will not be a silent collaborator in his crimes against young children… Forget about the superstar, forget about the icon. If he was any other 35-year-old man who was sleeping with little boys, you wouldn’t like this guy.” Gordon claimed LaToya had proof, which she was prepared to disclose for a fee of $500,000, sparking a bidding war between US and UK tabloids. A deal was never made, as LaToya’s proof never surfaced.

LaToya ran away from Gordon in 1997, after she refused to dance in a Las Vegas strip club. After their bitter divorce, Gordon made a career as one of the world’s foremost suppliers of D-list celebrities. His client list included John Bobbitt, the unlucky young US Marine whose penis was sliced off by his ‘temporarily insane’ wife; Divine Brown, the prostitute who was caught performing oral sex on Hugh Grant; and Heidi Fleiss, the notorious ‘Hollywood Madam’ who was jailed for whore-mongering and tax evasion.

In the late 90’s, Gordon also became the manager of Paula Jones, whose charges of sexual harassment against President Clinton set off the chain of events that led to his impeachment. He arranged a deal for her to appear nude in the Penthouse magazine, and just like he’d previously done with LaToya, got her a promotion contract for a psychic hotline. When he and Jones fell out over money, he went on television to declare that her story of being harassed by Clinton in a hotel room was untrue. Gordon’s claims turned him into a hate figure among anti-Clintonites, who saw Jones as a kind of martyr. He received threats of revenge, and there was much speculation as to his motives. “I never should have got involved in politics,” he moaned.

Gordon has been described as a ‘fairground guy’ with a mission; he wanted his clients to make as much money as possible from their 15 minutes of fame. He certainly had a very colorful career, and probably made quite a decent living out of all the deals he made.

As for LaToya, after her divorce from Jack Gordon, she ended up going back into the family fold and absolving herself of all responsibility for her actions by declaring that Gordon had her completely controlled and brainwashed. She claimed he’d threatened to have brother Michael and sister Janet killed if she didn’t follow his orders.

In a retrospective interview LaToya gave to a Dutch TV channel, she claimed that Gordon had a lot of friends in New York’s Mulberry Street and that she had seen a lot of things to make her feel sure he would carry out his threats.

Why did LaToya feel the need to run away from home and take up with a violent person who made her do things against her will? Was she so sick of living in her famous brother’s shadow that she would do anything to get some attention of her own, even if it meant betraying him?

In her autobiography, LaToya reveals that her parents Joseph and Katherine raised their children in a very strict environment, never allowing them to socialize with friends outside the home. She writes, “He [Joseph] banished the outside world from our home until our home became our world”. This pathological control was exerted over the children, even into early adulthood. Was LaToya’s vulnerability to someone like Gordon a product of her closed off and sheltered life?

Gordon knew many influential people in the music business, film and politics and he was connected to both the Genovese and the Gambino families, two top New York-based mafia families.

In 1994, during the course of investigating powerful New York mobster James “Little Jimmy” Ida, a Genovese crime family member, an FBI wiretap intercepted conversations between the gangster and Gordon. Gordon was described by the FBI as an “associate” of the Genovese crime family who paid the gang at least $1,500 a month for two years to “protect” Latoya from harassment by rival mobsters.

Gordon is also said to have employed the services of organized crime defense attorney and current Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, who has a long history of mafia connections.

How could a guy with such a background gain access into the Jackson family?

As far as we know, Joe Jackson introduced Jack Gordon to his daughter and made him her manager. Jackson was an extremely ambitious person. He would’ve networked with many people in the entertainment industry in his efforts to take his family to the top. Jack Gordon may not have been a pivotal player in big business and he probably did not actually play a very influential role in the mafia network, but he had enough ambition and street-smarts to know who to talk to and how to gain entry into the lives of wannabe celebrities. It is well known that in order to get ahead in the music industry, you need to be in with the right people, and the right people are not necessarily always righteous.

Gordon and LaToya used her family name to do irreparable damage to Michael Jackson’s reputation. To have your sister publicly declare she believes you are a child molester is something you don’t recover from very easily. Did Gordon arrange the event in Tel Aviv purely for the money, or was he working for someone else? It’s no secret that there were many hidden interests in de-crowning the King Of Pop, the child molestation accusations of 1993 being the first in a long line of efforts to do so.

Sources:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Apr-28-Thu-2005/news/26395618.html

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jackgordon1.html

“La Toya: Growing Up In The Jackson Family” LaToya Jackson

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19941104&slug=1939685

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940822&slug=1926612

http://bkc.mikovice.com/rr/huckster_1_text.pdf

Video, La Toya Jackson on The Phil Donahue Show 1991: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVJX0JqCbc

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