Category: News and Views
Stevie Wonder's dead attorney and right-hand man for decades duped him into signing a contract he never saw, a contract that makes the singer pay the lawyer's family indefinitely and forever so claims Stevie.
Stevie just filed legal docs, obtained by TMZ, in which he says his longtime lawyer, Johanan Vigoda, put a contract in front of Stevie's face when he was 21 years old. The deal was, Stevie would pay Johanan 6% of all music royalties. But there's a clause that says payments to the lawyer's family go on "forever."
Johanan died in 2011, but Stevie's record company continued to pay Johanan's widow. Stevie says he didn't realize payments were being made for nearly 2 years, and when he caught wind, he ordered payments to be stopped. He claims he trusted Johanan and the lawyer never said the 6% would survive his death.
Stevie says in his docs he was betrayed by a man he trusted and wants a judge to declare he no longer has a duty to pay royalties, because the attorney took advantage of a blind man.
Johanan's widow has filed her own lawsuit, demanding Stevie pay from the time he stopped and forever in the future. She wants $7 mil minimum.
Stievies a extremely rich man and can hire the best legal defence.
He'll be fine.
I totally agree. I'd love to see him help us poor blind getting jobs! Hahaha! I'm a good singer, and that's no brag!
you should sing for me some time then
Seriously. He has had many other things done to him that were not right due to him being blind.
They dressed him badly, they allowed him to keep his blindisms, and many other things that were not right.
However, he's not the only musician that has been taken advantage of for lack of other things.
Some couldn't read well, so didn't understand what they signed, and they could see.
Lack of education harms many to this day when it come to business.
I'm not saying his issues were right, but at his level, it is sort of a mute gripe.
If the lawyer were alive, he'd be disbarred, so I'm sure this legal matter will be solved.
The man is dead, how do we know he didn't tell Stevie the truth? I mean, I know he was a lawyer and all but surely they tell the truth __some__ of the time! :P
Fuck Stevie. He gives us a bad name. Or a bad image.
I disagree. I think he gives us a positive image.
The man is truly talented as well.
Because he was 9 years old when Motown took his life over, they are the ones responsible for his education.
They did him a disservice.
While sending others to charm school, and having them learn to dress and such, they used Stievie's blindness as part of his appeal.
To us not good public image, but looking past all that, the man is wonderful, and has done much for music arts.
When Steve was 12 he was on American bandstand, and my mother commented he certainly shook his head a lot. He signed autographs with a slate and stylus so people had a braille autograph which was different for the teenagers. Too bad he didn't dress good. isn't it always the case you hear about somebody being taken advantage of after that person who took advantage of the other dies?
I'm conflicted on this.
I think anyone who's willing to actually take advantage this way is being pretty friggin' slimy.
On the other hand, if Stevie was 21 when he supposedly signed this contract, then surely he had enough brains to ask someone to read the contract to him? Because unfortunately if he read the whole thing (or had it read to him in its entirety) and then signed it, he's screwed. And now that his attorney is dead, it's going to be Stevie's word against the attorney's word.
A right mess, however you look at it.
And for that reason, I felt we shouldn't worry about Stievie.
By 21, he knew better.
Yeah, he was very talented...at making babies! :d
I suppose it's possible that he thought he'd gotten the whole contract, and hadn't. That's a very real possibility, and he couldn't just get an emailed copy of the contract in accessible format back then. So for all anyone knows, someone read him a perfectly reasonable-sounding contract, and just omitted the slimy bit.
The fact is just this. We're never gonna know.
He's got the cash, so can make lots of babies.
I understand he takes good care of them all.
Plus, how about the women? He didn't get them on his own?
This kind of reminds me of what happened to John Fogerty of Credence back in the 1990s. Attorneys, especially good ones who know how to be manipulative can do and say things that can sometimes make even someone decades older than us make what turn out to be bad decisions.
James