Michael K Pickens

In October 2012, Michael Pickens, son of famed corporate raider and oilman T. Boone Pickens, started a blog. the blog began to morph into something much uglier; the result, says Michael’s family, of a heated Thanksgiving dinner. To date, he has written that his chemical addiction was the result of abuse at the hands of his father; that his sister and brother had stolen money from their mother; that his siblings are also drug addicts; that his father had purposefully sabotaged a son-in-law’s business. Boone, along with three of his children, sued 58-year-old Michael in Dallas County Court, alleging cyberbullying and cyberstalking. The family has leveled five counts against him: invasion of privacy, defamation, libel, harmful access by computer, and extortion. Boone and his children Pam, Tom and Elizabeth say that Michael is lying in an effort to extort $20 million from Boone. This is not the first time Michael has been accused of misconduct. In 2007, he was sentenced to five years probation after pushing penny stocks in 2004. Boone paid the restitution Michael owed, some $1.2 million, and also paid for him to go into drug rehabilitation at Alina Lodge, an institution that Michael regards very highly in his blog.