La Plata, MD — In a civil jury trial that stretched into its fourth day, former NBA player Marcus Gaither testified Friday, Aug. 22 in Charles County Circuit Court that he helped broker a $1.5 million recording contract for Kemia Giddens, a commitment she couldn’t fulfill after allegedly suffering an severe allergic reaction to a prescription for Percocet that was filled incorrectly at CVS Pharmacy.
Gaither told attorney for the plaintiff, Glenn Chickenberger that the $1.5 million being put up by investors, “that was just to get her started. There was no limit to how big she could have gotten after that,” he said.
The former Utah Jazz player recalled a telephone conversation with Giddens following her illness. I could hear it in her voice,” he said. “It felt like her spirit was torn.”
Defense attorney Sarah Bagley asked Gaither if he stood to profit from Giddens’ work through the contract. He admitted that he was to get $150,000 for brokering the deal with two music promoters and would have earned 2 percent of any profits from her album.
“The promoters were making the investment in order to make money,” he said. “Obviously, they saw her potential.”
Giddens was then called to the witness stand, where noted lawyer Willie Gary took over the questioning, chronicling through her answers how she was a hard worker who started working with her grandmother when she was 10 years old, performed in the church choir, sang in school chorus and performed in the school’s drama club. She told the jury that from the time she was 13, “I knew what I wanted to do.”
The rising star was part of a band when she was 15 years old, signing with a label from Motown Records at age 15. Between the age of 17 and 18 she began working as a solo artist and signed a contract with Arista Records. She began doing studio work with such artists as Faith Evans and Mary J. Blige. She said she attended nursing school “as something to fall back on” but dropped out after two or three months, saying “it just wasn’t where my heart was.”
She told the jury that her livelihood as a singer and songwriter has been affected by the medications, including prednisone, which she has been taking for relief from her illness. She said to write songs “you need to be able to focus,” and the medication was making that difficult.
Gary queried whether or not Steven Johnson Syndrome has taken its toll on her career. “That’s an understatement,” she said. “My whole life, it’s changed.” She said she felt her career had been destroyed.
She told the jury she was scarred “from head to toe” from her skin eruptions, saying in an industry where image is everything, “I don’t fit in anymore.”
The court was informed again that she has 77 scars from the blistering sores that have erupted on her body.
Gary showed an excerpt from a play, “A House is Not a Home” in which Giddens played the lead role and noted the plaintiff had signed a contract to perform for $17,500 a week and also signed a contract to play the lead role in the movie version of the play, but had to cancel after two performances because of her skin eruptions.
“Clearly, you weren’t going to be able to be a part of a show with scars all over you,” he said. Gary had the jury look at a photograph of Giddens’ arm in full eruption, dried skin peeling from a red blister.
“When you come to see a play, is that what you want to see?” Giddens asked.
It was a key moment in a trial where photographs have been at issue between CVS defense attorneys Jan Simonsen and Bagley and Gary’s legal team. The plaintiff’s attorneys brought 91 photographs of Giddens in various stages of eruption, which Simonsen argued were far too many. They eventually agreed to discuss the photographs at a later time.
Gary finally asked Giddens if she is able to lead a normal life. “There is nothing normal about what’s happening to me,” she responded.
Simonsen pounced on Giddens’ previous testimony that she hadn’t taken the incorrectly-filled prescription until after she had run out of her medication, pointing out that following Giddens’ Feb. 8, 2009 auto accident that injured her shoulder, neck and back, she had at least six prescriptions filled of Percocet, Darvocet and Endocet.
“And is it true that up until July 5, when you took the Percocet that was in question, the mislabeled bottle, you had been able to take five milligrams of Percocet without any issues, is that right?” Simonsen asked.
“Yes,” she said. Giddens admitted that there were times when she took one and a half pills of the mislabeled medicine and once she took two pills.
Simonsen pointed out that both INOVA Fairfax Hospital in Virginia and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore identified her condition as erythema multiforme and not Steven Johnson Syndrome.
“They said the two are often identified together because they are similar,” Giddens said.
The trial, in its fourth day, still appears to have a long way to go. Testimony will resume Monday.
Contact Joseph Norris at josnorris@thebaynet.com