Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Man Behind the Myth from Walking Moon Studios on Vimeo.
Taking inspiration from the recent News of the World scandal.
http://mjjr.net/content/mjcase/main.html
Πρωτότυπος τίτλος: Could he be guilty?
Mετάφραση: Άris Mixalopoulos
Το συγκεκριμένο κείμενο δημοσιεύτηκε το 2005,την περίοδο της δίκης του Μάικλ Τζάκσον. (Διαβάστε περισσότερα για την υπόθεση του 1993 εδω και για την υπόθεση- δίκη του 2005 εδω )
Έχω συχνά επικρίνει τα μέσα για έλλειψη αντικειμενικότητας όταν ασχολούνται με τις κατηγορίες εναντίον του Michael Jackson. Συνειδητοποίησα όμως ξαφνικά ότι ήμουν εντελώς υποκριτής. Πόσο άδικο είναι εκ μέρους μου να υποθέσω ότι είναι αθώος,μόνο και μόνο επειδή ο πατέρας του πρώτου του κατήγορου είχε παραδεχτεί ότι είχε χορηγήσει στο γιό του φάρμακο αλλοίωσης της μνήμης και είχε μαγνητοσκοπηθεί να συζητάει σχέδιο για την καταστροφή του Michael Jackson; Αντιλαμβάνομαι τώρα το λάθος μου και έχω αποφασίσει να λάβω υπ’οψιν μου την περίπτωση κατά την οποία ο Μάικλ Τζάκσον μπορεί να ήταν ένοχος. Αποφάσισα να μπω στη θέση του κατηγορούμενου και να εξετάσω την όλη κατάσταση από τη σκοπιά ενός ένοχου ανθρώπου. Και ιδού τι ανακάλυψα:
Γεια σας, είμαι ο Μάικλ Τζάκσον, ο πιο επιλεκτικός παιδόφιλος στον κόσμο. Ενώ οι περισσότεροι παιδεραστές έχουν εκατοντάδες θύματα, εγώ έχω κατά μέσο όρο ένα αγόρι κάθε δέκα χρόνια. Το θέμα είναι ότι με ελκύουν εκείνα μόνο τα παιδιά των οποίων οι γονείς είναι άπληστοι και έχουν μανία με τις αγωγές. Θυμάστε την υπόθεση του 1993; Επιτρέψτε μου να σας φρεσκάρω τη μνήμη.
Ο Evan Chandler, ο πατέρας του πρώτου μου θύματος, απαίτησε 20 εκατομμύρια δολάρια ως αντάλλαγμα για τη σιωπή του. Είχα κάθε καλή πρόθεση να του δώσω τελικά τα χρήματα αλλά αποφάσισα να περιμένω να με καταγγείλει πρώτα. Σκέφτηκα ότι θα ήταν πολύ διασκεδαστικό να διαπομπευτώ δημοσίως, να με εξετάσουν γυμνό, να με ερευνήσει η αστυνομία και όλα τα υπόλοιπα που ακολουθούν τις κατηγορίες για σεξουαλική κακοποίηση. Υπήρχε βέβαια το μικρό αυτό πρόβλημα του να πάω φυλακή αλλά ευτυχώς για μένα είχα την καταπληκτική ιδέα να πληρώσω το αγόρι για να μην καταθέσει. (Καλά ε, φανταστικό σχέδιο ! Μακάρι να το είχα σκεφτεί όταν ο Evan Chandler προσπάθησε να με εκβιάσει για πρώτη φορά.) Φαίνεται, ωστόσο, ότι υπάρχει κάποιο τυπογραφικό λάθος στο έγγραφο του συμβιβασμού, διότι προφανώς λέει ότι το αγόρι και η οικογένειά του μπορούσαν ακόμη να καταθέσουν εναντίον μου σε ποινικό δικαστήριο. Ωχ! [link]
Παρ’ όλο που οι ηλίθιοι συνήγοροί μου μού χάλασαν το σχέδιο της παρεμπόδισης του μάρτυρα, εντούτοις, κατάφερα τελικά να ξεφύγω γιατί το αγόρι δεν ήθελε να καταθέσει εναντίον μου στο ποινικό δικαστήριο. Ούτε οι γονείς του ήθελαν. Φαίνεται ότι μόλις οι Chandlers πήραν την επιταγή, δεν θεωρούσαν πλέον απαραίτητο να ζητήσουν δικαιοσύνη για το φτωχό γιό τους που κακοποιήθηκε. Αυτό θα πει καλή τύχη, έτσι δεν είναι; Το πρώτο αγόρι που αποφάσισα να κακοποιήσω απλά έτυχε να έχει γονείς που ήταν πρόθυμοι να εκπορνεύσουν το γιό τους. O Evan μάλιστα,ζήτησε από έναν δικαστή να του επιτρέψει να κυκλοφορήσει ένα CD με τραγούδια σχετικά με την κακοποίηση. Καλό, ε; O Εvan Chandler είναι καταπληκτικός τύπος. [link], [link]
Για τα επόμενα δέκα χρόνια αποφάσισα να μην κάνω τίποτα. Όλα αυτά όμως άλλαξαν μετά από την προβολή ενός ντοκιμαντέρ που ονομάζεται “Living with Michael Jackson”. Γνώριζα το αγόρι που είχαν δείξει στο ντοκιμαντέρ για σχεδόν δύο χρόνια και δεν τον ακούμπησα ποτέ,παρά μόνο αφού παρέλασα μαζί του σε όλα τα τηλεοπτικά δίκτυα και είπα ότι είχε κοιμηθεί αρκετές φορές στο σπίτι μου. Τότε όλοι άρχισαν να λένε ότι κάτι σεξουαλικό συνέβαινε και εγώ σκέφτηκα, « Ε,λοιπόν αυτή δεν είναι καθόλου άσχημη ιδέα. Αλλά να πάρει μπορεί να με καταγγείλει, εάν τον κακοποιήσω, γι’αυτό ας προσλάβω έναν δικηγόρο πρώτα.» Έπειτα πήρα τον Mark Geragos και του ζήτησα να με υπερασπιστεί για ένα έγκλημα που δεν είχα ακόμη διαπράξει.
Μόλις εξασφάλισα τη σωστή νομική εκπροσώπηση, τα πάντα ήταν έτοιμα. Μέχρι αυτό το σημείο οι σχέσεις μου με την οικογένεια ήταν ακόμη φιλικές όμως εγώ τους απήγαγα όλους, έκλεψα τα έπιπλά τους και τους υποχρέωσα να πουν καλά πράγματα για έμενα μπροστά στην κάμερα. Γιατί μπήκα σε όλον αυτόν τον κόπο; Μα γιατί ήθελα να βελτιώσω την εικόνα μου μετά την προβολή του ντοκιμαντέρ του Martin Bashir (μη ρωτήσετε τι ρόλο παίζουν τα έπιπλα σε όλα αυτά). Για κάποιο λόγο, ωστόσο, δεν συμπεριέλαβα τα στιγμιότυπα της οικογένειας στο βίντεο που έκανα ως απάντηση στο ντοκιμάντερ του Bashir… γεγονός που κατά κάποιον τρόπο αναιρεί τον σκοπό της απαγωγής, έτσι δεν είναι; Αφού είχα τις δηλώσεις τους σε βίντεο, τότε είναι που κακοποίησα το αγόρι, παρ’όλο που ο σκοπός της όλης συνωμοσίας ήταν να πείσω τον κόσμο ότι δεν ήμουν παιδεραστής. Άντε βγάλτε νόημα από αυτό! [link]
Τώρα, πιθανότατα θα σκέφτεστε ότι είμαι πολύ κρετίνος, όμως το ορκίζομαι, δεν ήμουν τόσο κακός με την οικογένεια. Τους αγόρασα δώρα, τους έδωσα τις πιστωτικές μου κάρτες, τους επέτρεψα να πάνε για ψώνια, τους άφησα να επισκεφτούν τον δικηγόρο τους – πόσοι άλλοι απαγωγείς που κακοποιούν παιδιά επιτρέπουν τόσο προνόμια στα θύματά τους; Να πάρει, επέτρεψα στη μητέρα ακόμα και να τηλεφωνήσει σε έναν φίλο της. Και απ’ ότι έμαθα, είχε πράγματι πει στον φίλο της – ας τον ονομάσουμε Jamie Masada – ότι την κρατούσα παρά την θέλησή της. Ε, μην κοιτάτε εμένα. Δεν φταίω εγώ που ο ηλίθιος δεν αξιώθηκε να καλέσει την αστυνομία.
Τέλος πάντων, τα πράγματα πήγαιναν σύμφωνα με το σχέδιό μου, μέχρι που έμαθα ότι το Τμήμα της Υπηρεσίας για το παιδί και την οικογένεια του Λος Άντζελες και η αστυνομική υπηρεσία της Σάντα Μπάρμπαρα επρόκειτο να ξεκινήσουν έρευνα. Ευτυχώς όλο μου το προσωπικό ήξερε τι συνέβαινε, συνόδεψαν το παιδί στη συνέντευξη με τις υπηρεσίες και το εκφόβησαν ώστε να πει ότι δε συνέβαινε τίποτα. Για κάποιο παράξενο λόγο όμως τόσο η Υπηρεσία για το παιδί και την οικογένεια όσο και η αστυνομία της Σάντα Μπάρμπαρα δεν αντιλήφθηκαν το γεγονός ότι η οικογένεια κρατούνταν αιχμάλωτη. Παράξενο, ε; Όπως όμως θα έλεγε και ο φίλος μου,ο Tom Sneddon, « είναι το Λος Άντζελες, τι περιμένετε;» Ένα λεπτό όμως… το δικό του τμήμα ερεύνησε επίσης. Τέλος πάντων, όπως και να έχει εγώ απαλλάχτηκα από οποιοδήποτε αδίκημα. Αν και λίγο έλειψε να με ξεσκεπάσουν, εγώ αποφάσισα να παρενοχλήσω το παιδί, αφού είχε εξεταστεί από τις αρχές. Βγάζει πάρα πολύ νόημα, έτσι δεν είναι; [link]
Το σχέδιό μου υπέστη και άλλο πλήγμα όταν η οικογένεια δραπέτευσε από τη Νέβερλαντ. Για κάποιο λόγο δεν πήγαν στην αστυνομία μετά την μεγάλη τους απόδραση και μάλιστα μπόρεσα ακόμη και να τους πείσω να γυρίσουν πίσω. Στη συνέχεια σκέφτηκα ένα ακόμη, πιο πανούργο, σχέδιο σύμφωνα με το οποίο μόλις είχα τελειώσει την κακοποίηση του αγοριού, θα έστελνα την οικογένεια στη Βραζιλία για να τους εμποδίσω να μιλήσουν με τις αρχές … ξέρετε, επειδή δεν υπάρχει τρόπος να επικοινωνήσει κανείς με το Αστυνομικό τμήμα της Σάντα Μπάρμπαρα από τη Βραζιλία.
Υπήρχε ακόμη το ενδεχόμενο, ωστόσο, ότι η οικογένεια μπορεί να έβρισκε κάποιο τηλέφωνο ή κομπιούτερ στη Βραζιλία (λίγο τραβηγμένο, το ξέρω), έτσι έβαλα τον Geragos να αναγκάσει όλη την οικογένεια να υπογράψει και άλλα έγγραφα που έλεγαν ότι δεν είχα κάνει τίποτα κακό. Άρα, με λίγα λόγια, όλο μου το προσωπικό, ο Mark Geragos, το Τμήμα της Υπηρεσίας για το παιδί και την οικογένεια του Λος Άντζελες, το αστυνομικό τμήμα της Σάντα Μπάρμπαρα και όλοι μου οι φίλοι και τα μέλη της οικογένεια που επισκέφτηκαν το ράντσο τη συγκεκριμένη χρονική περίοδο, είναι εξίσου ένοχοι. Αυτό όλο ήταν μια μεγάλη συνωμοσία η οποία σχεδιάστηκε ώστε να μπορέσω να κακοποιήσω αυτό το καημένο αγόρι και να κλέψω τα έπιπλα της μητέρα του. [link]
Ναι, η υπόθεση της κατηγορούσας αρχής είναι απολύτως λογική.
Σημείωση: Αν και το συγκεκριμένο κείμενο υποτίθεται ότι είναι σατυρικό, το παραπάνω σενάριο βασίζεται αποκλειστικά στις πληροφορίες της κατηγορούσας αρχής. Χωρίς πλάκα.
Εξαιρετικά αφιερωμένο σε όλους εκείνους που μετά το θάνατο του Μάικλ Τζάκσον βρήκαν την ευκαιρία να κανιβαλίσουν πάνω του. Φαίνεται ότι αυτός είναι ο τρόπος τους για να αισθανθούν λίγο καλύτερα για την αποτυχία της δικής τους ζωής.
http://www.reflectionsonthedance.com/Interview-with-Patrick-Treacy.html
αρχική πηγή : http://theun-blindzone.blogspot.com/2010/10/m.html
Μετάφραση:Αris Mixalopoulos
Οι περισσότεροι γνωρίζουν τον Μάικλ Τζάκσον ως ένα παγκόσμιο είδωλο, έναν ταλαντούχο χορευτή, μια μουσική ιδιοφυία, ως το «Βασιλιά της Ποπ».
Ο Patrick Treacy, αισθητικός χειρουργός και ανθρωπιστής από το Δουβλίνο της Ιρλανδίας, είχε την κάπως σπάνια ευκαιρία να γνωρίσει τον άνθρωπο πίσω από αυτόν τον τίτλο. Για να πάρετε μια γεύση για τον άνθρωπο και τον ανθρωπιστή που πολύ λίγοι είδαν:
«Συνάντησα για πρώτη φορά τον Μάικλ μετά τη δίκη του στη Santa Maria, όταν ήρθε να ζήσει στην Ιρλανδία (2006-2007),»είπε ο δρTreacy. O Michael είχε προσεγγίσει τον Treacy με την ελπίδα ότι θα τον αναλάμβανε ως ασθενή ενώ βρισκόταν εκεί και θα τον βοηθούσε στον έλεγχο των δερματολογικών του παθήσεων. Από εκεί, μια επαγγελματική καθώς και φιλική σχέση, άνθισε.
«Έγινε γρήγορα προφανές ότι μοιραζόμασταν κοινά ανθρωπιστικά ιδεώδη και την ίδια αγάπη για την αφρικανική ήπειρο», είπε ο Τreacy. « Μάλιστα, τα πρώτα του λόγια όταν συναντηθήκαμε ήταν «Ευχαριστώ για όλα όσα κάνεις για τους ανθρώπους στην Αφρική», αναφώνησε ο δρ Treacy.
«Έμεινα έκπληκτος όταν έβγαλε ένα παλιό περιοδικό από την τσέπη του,το οποίο είχε ένα άρθρο που είχε γραφτεί το 1992 και το οποίο περιέγραφε μερικές από τις εμπειρίες μου από την επαφή με άδεια χωριά της Αφρικής. Είχα ονομάσει τη συγκεκριμένη ιστορία «Η σιωπή της Σαβάνας». Το άρθρο κάλυπτε τα βήματά μου καθώς μετακινιόμουν από την Κένια, μέσω της Τανζανίας και της Ζάμπιας, καθ’οδόν προς τη Νότια Αφρική, όπου επρόκειτο να εργαστώ ως γιατρός». (Τα περισσότερα από αυτά τα άρθρα εκδόθηκαν αργότερα στην ιρλανδική Medical Times, και αποτέλεσαν τη βάση για μια βραβευμένη στήλη.)
Ο Μάικλ συγκινήθηκε ιδιαίτερα από το άρθρο του Treacy που περιέγραφε το τοπίο της Αφρικής και τις ερειπωμένες πόλεις που εκκενώθηκαν εξαιτίας της πανούκλας.
« Ξέρεις, έκλαψα όταν το διάβασα το άρθρο αυτό» είπε ο Μάικλ με πραγματική ευσπλαχνία στη φωνή του» εξήγησε ο Τreacy. « Ο Μάικλ συνέχισε, «Πρέπει να κάνουμε κάτι μαζί για τους ανθρώπους στην Αφρική». «Με αυτό, αρχίσαμε να σχεδιάζουμε μια συναυλία στη Ρουάντα» είπε ο Τreacy.
O Mάικλ ήξερε ένα παλιό αεροδρόμιο που θα μπορούσαν να νοικιάσουν ώστε να διοργανώσουν τη συναυλία και προσφέρθηκε να πάει τον Τreacy με το αεροπλάνο του να γνωρίσει τον Νέλσον Μαντέλα προσωπικά. «Γνώριζε ότι είχα συμμετάσχει στους αγώνες για την απελευθέρωσή του,» είπε ο Τreacy.
H αποστολή του Μάικλ γίνεται γρήγορα εμφανής σε αυτούς που αφιερώνουν λίγο χρόνο για να κοιτάξουν βαθύτερα. Ήθελε να θεραπεύσει τον κόσμο, να δείξει αγάπη σε όλους όσους τύχαινε να συναντήσει στο διάβα του καθώς επίσης και εκείνους των οποίων τους δρόμους εσκεμμένα ξεκίνησε να προσπεράσει, και όπως και ο ίδιος δήλωσε, να συνεχίσει να αγαπάει και να βοηθάει τους ανθρώπους με τον τρόπο που ο Ιησούς είπε.
«Ο Μάικλ είχα μια πολύ βαθιά χριστιανική πίστη και πίστευε ότι οι ιδιωτικές πράξεις φιλανθρωπίας θεωρούνται ενάρετες μόνο όταν δεν γίνονται για να θαυμάζονται από τους άλλους», δήλωσε ο δρ Τreacy. «Θα πρέπει να θυμόμαστε αυτό που είπε ο Ιησούς « Προσέξτε να μην κάνετε τις ενάρετες πράξεις σας μπροστά σε άλλους, για να τις δουν εκείνοι. Εάν το κάνετε, δεν θα ανταμειφτείτε από τον ουράνιο Πατέρα σας».
Ο Μάικλ, καθοδηγούμενος από την πίστη του, παρέμεινε πιστός σ’αυτές τις βιβλικές αρχές,και αυτός είναι ο λόγος που έκανε το μεγαλύτερο μέρος των φιλανθρωπιών του μυστικά. Αυτός είναι ο λόγος που τόσο λίγοι, εκτός από τους φανατικούς θαυμαστές του και αυτούς αρκετά κοντά ώστε να έχουν μια ελάχιστη θέα, γνώριζαν πραγματικά το βάθος των ευεργεσιών του.
Εκτός από το κοινό πάθος τους για τον φιλανθρωπισμό, ο Tracey θεωρούσε τον Μάικλ φίλο του. «Γνώριζα τον Μάικλ ως φίλο. Οι ιδιότητες της φιλίας περιλαμβάνουν την ειλικρίνεια, την ικανότητα να μπορείς να παρέχεις στήριξη σε περιόδους κρίσης και επίτευξης στόχου, να είσαι περιποιητικός και προσαρμοστικός, αλλά πάνω απ’ όλα περιλαμβάνουν την εμπιστοσύνη» δήλωσε ο Tracey. «Ο Μάικλ, ωστόσο, ήταν πάνω απ’όλα αυτά. Περίμενε την εμπιστοσύνη και το σεβασμό λόγω της έμφυτής του καλοσύνης, όμως δεν τα έπαιρνα πάντα ως αντάλλαγμα από τους ανθρώπους».
Ο Τreacy χρησιμοποίησε ένα παράδειγμα από τον Mahavanain Boυδισμό για να εκφράσει τα συναισθήματα της φιλίας με τον Μάικλ Τζάκσον.
«Στον Mahavanain Boυδισμό, υπάρχει μια φωτισμένη ύπαρξη γνωστή ως «bodhisattva». Σε αυτή τη θέση, ένα άτομο αποφασίζει να αναβάλει την επίτευξη της νιρβάνας, προκειμένου να ανακουφίσει τον πόνο των άλλων», δηλώνει ο Tracey. O Tracey αισθάνεται ότι αυτό περιγράφει σε μεγάλο βαθμό το είδος του ανθρώπου που ήταν ο Μάικλ. Να παραιτείται από τη δική του ευτυχία για να βοηθήσει στο να θεραπευτούν οι άλλοι και αυτός ο πλανήτης.
«Είχα την τύχη να γνωρίσω μερικούς από αυτούς τους οραματιστές, όπως τον Νέλσον Μαντέλα, τη Μητέρα Τερέζα, τον Μπόνο, τον Τζον Λένον, τον Μάικλ Τζάκσον», είπε ο Tracey. «Μόνο πέντε άνθρωποι σε σχεδόν μισό αιώνα. Αρκετοί για να τους μετρήσεις στα δάχτυλα ενός χεριού. Ο καθένας από αυτούς, ουσιαστικά κινούμενος από μια αίσθηση μεγάλης συμπόνιας, δημιουργεί «bodhicitta» προς όφελος τελικά όλων των αισθανόμενων όντων. Γνώριζα την Λαίδη Νταιάνα Σπένσερ κατά τη διάρκεια της δεκαετίας του ενενήντα από ιατρικής πλευράς και έχω βρεθεί κοντά στον Δαλάι Λάμα χωρίς να τον έχω ουσιαστικά γνωρίσει. Όλοι αυτοί οι άνθρωποι, με τεράστια επιρροή, παγκόσμιοι αγγελιοφόροι που χρησιμοποιούν τις δυνάμεις τους για να κάνουν αυτόν τον κόσμο ένα καλύτερο μέρος για τον καθένα μας να ζήσει. Ο Νέλσον Μαντέλα αντιτάχθηκε στην αδικία του απαρτχάιντ, η Μητέρα Τερέζα και ο Μπόνο στην αδικίας της φτώχιας, ο Τζον Λένον στην αδικίας του πολέμου, όμως ο Μάικλ Τζάκσον προχώρησε παραπέρα. Το σύνολο του καλλιτεχνικού του έργου μετέφερε ένα πνευματικό μήνυμα γι’αυτές και για όλες τις άλλες αδικίες της ανθρώπινης φυλής… εκείνες του ρατσισμού, της ανισότητας, των ασθενειών, της πείνας, της διαφθοράς. Αυτό για μένα ήταν η ενσάρκωση του φίλου Μάικλ Τζάκσον.»
Ο Treacy θεωρεί ότι το τραγούδι του Τζάκσον, «Man in the Mirror», είναι αυτοαναλυτικό. «Όλοι οι μεγάλοι πνευματικοί ηγέτες πέρασαν μια περίοδο αυτό-ανάλυσης, αμφισβήτησης και διαλογισμού. Νομίζω ότι αυτό είναι μέρος της πραγματικής του κληρονομίας.»
Κάνοντας ένα νεύμα για την επικείμενη δίκη του θεράποντα γιατρού του Μάικλ Τζάκσον όταν πέθανε, δρ. Conrad Murray, o Treacy λέει, « Υπάρχουν δυνάμεις που προσπαθούν να δυσφημίσουν το όνομά του [Τζακσον] πριν από τη νέα δίκη στο Λος Άντζελες. Τα Μέσα ετοιμάζονται να ρίξουν περισσότερα πυρά στο «τέρας» που ήταν «εθισμένο στα ναρκωτικά» και που πιθανόν να ήταν ένοχο για παιδοφιλία, παρ’ όλο που αθωώθηκε σε όλες τις κατηγορίες που συνδέονταν με αυτή,» είπε ο Τreacy.
«Πολύ λίγοι άνθρωποι θυμούνται τώρα πια ότι δώρισε όλα τα χρήματα από το τραγούδι που προανέφερα για φιλανθρωπικούς σκοπούς. Μετά τη Victory Tour του 1984, δώρισε το μερίδιό του από τα κέρδη της περιοδείας, που ανερχόταν σε 5 εκατομμύρια δολάρια, σε φιλανθρωπίες. Το 1985, έγραψε μαζί με τον Lionel Richie το τραγούδι “We Are the World” και δώρισε όλα τα έσοδα για την βοήθεια των φτωχών στην Αφρική. Το “We Are the World” πούλησε σχεδόν 20 εκατομμύρια αντίτυπα, καθιστώντας το ένα από τα singles με τις μεγαλύτερες πωλήσεις όλων των εποχών. Το έργο συγκέντρωσε εκατομμύρια για την ανακούφιση της πείνας».
Τα μέσα μαζικής ενημέρωσης έχουν αναμφίβολα παίξει σημαντικό ρόλο στην παραποίηση του ποιος ήταν πραγματικά ο Μάικλ Τζάκσον.
«Υπάρχουν δύο είδη μεσών μαζικής ενημέρωσης που λειτουργούν στην κοινωνία μας σήμερα», δήλωσε ο δρ.Treacy.
«Εκείνα, όπως το BBC, που ενστερνίζονται την αντικειμενικότητα και θεωρούν καθήκον τους να προσφέρουν αξιόπιστα ντοκιμαντέρ και δημοσιογραφικές έρευνες επικαιρότητας γραμμένες κυρίως για τους ακροατές και τους αναγνώστες τους. Αυτό το είδος της επαγγελματικής δημοσιογραφίας δεν χρειάζεται συνήθως να ικανοποιήσει διαφημιστές με υψηλά ποσοστά πωλήσεων, με διαχειριστές ακροατών (αξιολογήσεις ΤΑΜ) ή αριθμoύς AGB»,δηλώνει ο Τreacy.
«Το άλλο είδος των δημοσιογράφων συντάσσει ιστορίες οι οποίες είναι γραμμένες αποκλειστικά και μόνο για να ευχαριστήσουν τους διαφημιστές. Αυτές οι ιστορίες είναι συνήθως υποκειμενικές, στερούνται αξιοπιστίας και προσπερνούν τη νομιμότητα. Οι πηγές πληροφοριών τους συχνά στερούνται κατάλληλων διαπιστευτηρίων και μπορεί να είναι αναξιόπιστες.
Δυστυχώς, οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι στη δυτική μας κοινωνία είναι ανενημέρωτοι ή ανεπαρκώς εκπαιδευμένοι και μερικές φορές μπορεί να μην είναι σε θέση να διαφοροποιήσουν ανάμεσα στα υποκειμενικά στοιχεία της πειστικότητας μιας πηγής ή ενός μηνύματος. Τα μέσα βασίζονται σε τέτοιους ανθρώπους για να αυξήσουν τις πωλήσεις των εκδόσεών τους. Για την επίτευξη υψηλού όγκου πρέπει να γράψουν για κάποιον που οι περισσότεροι γνωρίζουν. Η απουσία κανονισμού στην εν λόγω αγορά οδηγεί σε οργιώδη δυσφήμιση χαρακτήρα και αυτό είναι νομικά πιο εύκολο όταν το εν λόγω πρόσωπο έχει αποβιώσει.»
Αυτή η εσφαλμένη αντίληψη των μέσων ενημέρωσης προκάλεσε ακόμα και τον ίδιο τον Τreacy να θέλει να προστατέψει τον Μάικλ από κάτι που θα μπορούσε να παρερμηνευθεί από το κοινό και από τα φανατικά ΜΜΕ, ως οτιδήποτε άλλο εκτός από την ευγενή πρόθεση που ήταν.
Συνηθισμένος σε έντονες καταστάσεις και ο ίδιος, ο Treacy (το 1988 αιχμαλωτίστηκε από τον Σαντάμ Χουσείν όταν τόλμησε να μπει σε μια ευρύτερη περιοχή όπου εξουθενωτικές επιθέσεις είχαν λάβει χώρα, στέλνοντας πολλούς σε ένα κοντινό νοσοκομείο στη Βαγδάτη. Αφέθηκε ελεύθερος μόλις 4 μέρες πριν από την έναρξη του πρώτου πολέμου του Κόλπου, τον Αύγουστο του 1990), είχε πλήρης επίγνωση του πως θα μπορούσε να φανεί στο κοινό, και επίσης, πως θα μπορούσε να παρουσιαστεί από τα μέσα ενημέρωσης, εάν ο Μαίκλ ακολουθούσε την καρδία του και πήγαινε στο νοσοκομείο Crumlin Childrens του Δουβλίνου για να επισκεφτεί δυο παιδία που είχαν υποστεί σοβαρά εγκαύματα εξαιτίας μιας πρόσφατης επίθεσης.
«Ο Gavin Murray, πέντε ετών, και η αδελφή του Millie, εφτά, είχαν σημαδευτεί για πάντα από τις φλόγες που προήλθαν από βόμβα βενζίνης κατά τη διάρκεια ενός πολέμου συμμοριών. Οι φλόγες τους είχαν καταβροχθίσει ενώ κάθονταν στο πίσω μέρος του αυτοκινήτου της μητέρας τους στο Pineview Gardens, Limerick στις 10 Σεπτεμβρίου του 2006. Τα παιδιά είχαν φρικτά τραύματα και αφόρητους πόνους ως επακόλουθο της επίθεσης. Ήταν τέτοια η έκταση των τραυμάτων του Gavin, που το δεξί του αυτί είχε ουσιαστικά λιώσει όταν τελικά τον απομάκρυναν από το φλεγόμενο αυτοκίνητο. Είχε υποστεί 25 τοις εκατό εγκαυμάτα στο πρόσωπο, το κεφάλι,την πλάτη, τα χέρια και έπρεπε να τον ναρκώνουν όταν επρόκειτο να καθαρίσουν τις πληγές του και να αλλάξουν τους επιδέσμους του. H Μillie υπέστη 30 τοις εκατό εγκαύματα στο πρόσωπο, το δεξί χέρι, το δεξί μηρό και τη μέση. Οι πληγές της αναπλάστηκαν με δερματικά μοσχεύματα που λήφθηκαν από την πλάτη και τα πόδια της. Και τα δύο παιδιά πρέπει να φορούν προστατευτικό ρουχισμό και εξακολουθούν να λαμβάνουν καθημερινή φροντίδα για τους τραυματισμούς τους.
Οι άνθρωποι έλεγαν ότι «τα παιδιά μετατράπηκαν σε ανθρώπινους πυρσούς».
Η Sheila Murray, η μητέρα των παιδιών, είπε «Όταν έβγαιναν από την καταστολή πονούσαν τρομερά, όμως εγώ έπρεπε να είμαι εκεί για να τους υποστηρίζω. Τις περισσότερες φορές εγκατέλειπα το δωμάτιο γιατί δεν άντεχα να βλέπω πια. Θα είναι σημαδεμένα για μια ζωή. Πρέπει να ξαγρυπνώ τα περισσότερα βράδια μαζί με τον Gavin καθώς έχει άσχημους εφιάλτες. Και τα δύο φοβούνται να κοιμηθούν μόνα τους, κι έτσι κοιμούνται μαζί μου.»
«Ο Μάικλ ήθελε να πάει να τους επισκεφτεί και το συζητήσαμε εκτενώς», είπε ο Treacy. « Πίστευα ότι ήταν άσχημη ιδέα επειδή τα Μέσα δεν ήξεραν που ήταν και αυτό θα μπορούσε να τον εκθέσει στην εχθρότητα τους και θα μπορούσε να ερμηνευτεί με εντελώς λανθασμένο τρόπο το να παει σε ένα παιδιατρικό νοσοκομείο μετά τις κατηγορίες και τη δίκη του 2005.
Ήθελε να πάω μαζί του και εγώ του είπα ότι θα πήγαινα μόνος μου να δω πως ήταν τα παιδιά, καθώς κάποτε εργαζόμουν ως γιατρός στο συγκεκριμένο νοσοκομείο.
Με ρωτούσε συνεχώς «Πονάνε; Θα τους δοθεί μορφίνη; Πόσο άσχημα έχουν καεί; Θα πας να τους δεις για μένα; Θα τους μείνουν σημάδια; Είναι φτωχοί; Γιατί δεν μπορούσε να πάει να τους δει;»
Ο Μάικλ θα μου έλεγε, «Γιατί τα λες αυτά τα πράγματα Patrick, ότι δεν μπορώ να πάω να τα δω; Πιστεύεις ότι θα μπορούσα ποτέ να βλάψω παιδιά;»
Μου είπε στη συνέχεια μια μεγάλη ιστορία για το πώς μια συγκεκριμένη εταιρία του είχε στήσει παγίδα, σχετικά με τη δίκη της Σάντα Μπάρμπαρα,για να παραδώσει μετοχές του (όσο λιγότερα ειπωθούν τόσο το καλύτερο)
Του είπα «Μάικλ, δεν πιστεύω ότι θα μπορούσες ποτέ να βλάψεις κάποιο παιδί!»
Κι εκείνος μου είπε « Τότε, γιατί δε με αφήνεις να πάω στο νοσοκομείο;»
«Επειδή, η αθωότητά σου θα σου δημιουργήσει προβλήματα» του απάντησα.
«Ποια αθωότητα;» είπε εκείνος.
«Ξέρεις, η ανικανότητά σου να δεις το πώς τα μέσα θα το παρουσιάσουν όλο αυτό, είναι η αιτία που βρέθηκες αρχικά σε δύσκολη θέση!» του απάντησα εγώ.
«Νομίζεις ότι θα μπορούσα ποτέ να βλάψω κάποιο παιδί;» ξαναρώτησε.
«Όχι!» απάντησα.
Μου είπε,«Το εννοείς αυτό από τα βάθη της καρδίας σου;»
Του είπα « Μάικλ, νομίζω ότι είσαι μια σύγχρονη εκδοχή του Ιησού Χριστού!»
«Αν ο Ιησούς ήταν εδώ τώρα,θα τον σταματούσες;» με ρώτησε.
Το σκέφτηκα για μια στιγμή και με ειλικρίνεια είπα «Όχι!»
Και τότε εκείνος είπε «Δεν έχεις γνωρίσει ποτέ τον Ιησού και δεν ξέρεις πως ήταν σαν άτομο παρ’ όλα αυτά θα στεκόσουν δίπλα του. Λες ότι ξέρεις εμένα,αλλά δεν δέχεσαι να το κάνεις! Αυτό είναι υποκριτικό!»
Του είπα «Μάικλ,έχεις δίκιο.»
Συνέχιζα να πιστεύω ότι δεν έπρεπε να πάει στο νοσοκομείο και εναντιώθηκα σε αυτό και πρέπει να πω ότι το μετανιώνω μέχρι και σήμερα που δεν στάθηκα δίπλα του όταν με χρειάστηκε περισσότερο.
Ξέρεις, τα παιδιά επικοινώνησαν μαζί μου μέσω κάποιου άλλου και είπαν ότι μια από τις σημαντικότερες στιγμές της ζωής τους ήταν το γεγονός ότι ο Μάικλ νοιάστηκε γι’αυτά.»
Οι παρερμηνείες σχετικά με τον Μάικλ Τζάκσον που έγιναν πιστευτές από το κοινό και τροφοδοτήθηκαν από τον μέσα μαζικής ενημέρωσης, κυμάνθηκαν από τον τρόπο ζωής του, στη φωνή του και το χρώμα του δέρματός του. (Διαβάστε περισσότερα εδώ)
Ήταν φανερό ότι το δέρμα του Τζάκσον άρχισε να γίνεται όλο και πιο ανοιχτό κατά τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1980. Τα μέσα, σπρωγμένα από τη μανία τους να γράψουν το οτιδήποτε για τον Τζάκσον, χωρίς καμία απόδειξη, ανέφεραν ότι ο Μάικλ χρησιμοποιούσε λευκαντικά προϊόντα για να ασπρίσει το δέρμα του και άλλαξε την εμφάνισή του για να μοιάζει πιο πολύ με ευρωπαίο.
«Είναι επιστημονικά και επαρκώς τεκμηριωμένο ότι το 1986, ο Μάικλ διαγνώστηκε με Λεύκη (Vitiligo) και Ερυθηματώδη Λύκο», εξηγεί ο δρ. Τreacy. «Η λεύκη είναι μια χρόνια διαταραχή που προκαλεί αποχρωματισμό τμημάτων του δέρματος. Αυτό συμβαίνει όταν τα μελανοκύτταρα, τα κύτταρα υπεύθυνα για το χρώμα του δέρματος, πεθαίνουν ή αδυνατούν να λειτουργήσουν. Η αιτία της λεύκης είναι άγνωστη, αλλά έρευνες δείχνουν ότι μπορεί να προκύψει από αυτοάνοσες, γενετικές, νευρικές ή ιογενείς αιτίες,όπως και οξειδωτικό στρες.»
Η λεύκη του Μάικλ Τζάκσον καταγράφηκε και παρουσιάστηκε λεπτομερώς στις εκθέσεις νεκροψίας του που δόθηκαν στη δημοσιότητα τον τελευταίο χρόνο.
Εκτός από Λεύκη, ο Τζάκσον υπέφερε επίσης και από ένα ακόμα αυτοάνοσο νόσημα που ονομάζεται Λύκος. «Ο Λύκος είναι μια πάθηση που επηρεάζει διάφορους ανθρώπους με διαφορετικούς τρόπους»,δηλώνει ο δρ.Treacy. «Αυτοί ποικίλουν από δερματικές εκδηλώσεις, πρήξιμο στις αρθρώσεις και υπερβολική κόπωση. Και οι δύο αυτές νόσοι τον έκαναν [τον Τζάκσον] ευαίσθητο στο ηλιακό φως ( εξ ου και οι ομπρέλα που κρατούσε πάντα όταν βρισκόταν σε εξωτερικούς χώρους), καθώς η λεύκη αύξανε τις πιθανότητες για την ανάπτυξη καρκίνου του δέρματος, και ο λύκος μπορούσε να επανενεργοποιηθεί από την ύφεση. Είναι επίσης γνωστό ότι χρησιμοποιούσε τοπικά φάρμακα για να εξισορροπήσει τις διαφορετικές αποχρώσεις του δέρματός του,γεγονός που επίσης τον έκανε ευαίσθητο στις επιπτώσεις της υπεριώδους ακτινοβολίας.»
Ο Treacy και ο Τζάκσον κράτησαν επαφή, αν και δεν τον είχε δει τα τελευταία 2 χρόνια της ζωής του, αφου ο Μαικλ επέστρεψε στην Αμερική.
«Όταν έμαθα για τον θάνατό του, ένιωσα ένα μείγμα θλίψης και σύγχυσης και ότι ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι όλων μας πέθανε μαζί του. Ένιωσα ενοχλημένος που ο κόσμος δεν είχε ποτέ την ευκαιρία να γνωρίσει τον Μάικλ ως άτομο, και ελπίζω να βρει παρηγοριά και ευτυχία στον ουρανό ώσπου να συναντηθούμε πάλι.»
Ο κύριος στη φωτογραφία ονομάζεται Lee Thomas και έχει κάτι κοινό με τον “ Βασιλιά της Ποπ”, Michael Jackson. Αυτό δεν είναι η ικανότητά του στο χορό και το τραγούδι αλλά το γεγονός ότι και οι δύο προσβλήθηκαν από την ίδια δερματική πάθηση που ονομάζεται Vitiligo ( στα ελληνικά,Λεύκη). Η Λεύκη είναι μια χρόνια διαταραχή που προκαλεί αποχρωματισμό και σημάδια στο δέρμα. Εμφανίζεται όταν τα μελανοκκύταρα, τα κύτταρα που είναι υπεύθυνα για το χρώμα του δέρματος, πεθαίνουν ή δεν είναι σε θέση να λειτουργήσουν. Αυτό έχει σαν αποτέλεσμα τον αποχρωματισμό τμημάτων η ολόκληρου του δέρματος ή τη δημιουργία κηλίδων. Τα αιτία που προκαλούν την εμφάνιση της λεύκης δεν είναι γνωστά (για περισσότερες πληροφορίες http://www.medlook.net/article.asp?item_id=1627 )
Michael Jackosn (1981) |
Ο Jackson διαγνώστηκε ότι υπέφερε από Λεύκη κατά τη διάρκεια της δεκαετίας του 80′. Αυτή η δραματική αλλοίωση του χρώματος του δέρματός του έχει γίνει πολλές φορές αντικείμενο αστείων και ανεκδότων, με πολλούς να υπαινίσσονται ή ακόμη και να υποστηρίζουν ότι η αλλαγή αυτή ήταν εσκεμμένη. Οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι δεν θα δικαιολογούσουν σε καμία περίπτωση ένα δημόσιο πρόσωπο που άλλαξε τόσο ριζικά τα χαρακτηρίστηκα του προσώπου του και συμπεριφέρεται περίεργα.Ισως όμως θα πρέπει να αναλογιστούμε τον ρόλο που αυτή η περίεργη ασθένεια μπορεί να είχε παίξει στα προφανή θέματα αυτοεκτίμησης που είχε ο μεγάλος αυτός καλλιτέχνης.
Όταν το 1993 σε μια ζωντανή τηλεοπτική συνέντευξη ο Τζάκσον, εμφανώς συγκινημένος, ανακοίνωσε τους λόγους για την αλλαγή του χρώματος του δέρματός του, ήταν προφανές ότι το θέμα ήταν αρκετά επώδυνο γι’ αυτόν. Ο Τζάκσον εξήγησε ότι χρησιμοποιούσε μέικ απ για να κάνει τον τόνο του δέρματός του πιο ενιαίο καθώς, όπως είπε, η ασθένεια αυτή δημιουργεί κηλίδες στο δέρμα.
Η προσωπική του μακιγιέζ είπε το 2004 : « Άρχισε να εμφανίζεται (η ασθένεια) σχετικά νωρίς, προσπαθούσε να το κρύψει κι από μένα ακόμη…
προσπάθησε να το κρύψει γιααρκετό καιρό. Προσπαθούσε να το καλύψει με μακιγιάζ μέχρι που επεκτάθηκε πολύ. Είναι σε ολόκληρο το σώμα του. Προσπαθούσαμε να το κρύψουμε και να το καλύψουμε όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο μέχρι τη στιγμή που αναγκάστηκε να πει στο κοινό , « Κοιτάξτε, δεν προσπαθώ να γίνω λευκός, έχω μια δερματική πάθηση»
Στην αρχή προσπαθούσα να καλύψω τα λεύκα σημεία ώστε να ταιριάζουν με το σκούρο τμήμα του δέρματός του όμως στη συνέχεια επεκτάθηκε τόσο πολύ που έπρεπε να προχωρήσουμε στο πιο ανοιχτό τμήμα του δέρματός του, επειδή όλο του το σώμα αντιδρούσε … όλο του το σώμα έπρεπε να είναι καλυμμένο με μακιγιάζ, κάθε εκατοστό. Ήταν λοιπόν πιο εύκολο να κάνουμε την μετάβαση από τη σκούρα στην ανοιχτή απόχρωση που είναι σήμερα.»
Οι σκεπτικιστές όρμησαν αμέσως στον Τζάκσον διαδίδοντας φήμες για προιόντα λεύκανσης του δέρματος και εξωτερικευμένου ρατσισμού. Πολλοί ισχυρίστηκαν, και ακόμα το κάνουν, ότι ο Jackson δεν επιθυμούσε πλέον να είναι μαύρος. Μερικοί είπαν ότι απεχθανόταν τόσο πολύ τον πατέρα του ώστε να αλλοιώσει την ίδια του τη φυλή. Άλλοι,πάλι,είπαν ότι έγινε σεξουαλικά και φυλετικά μη προσδιορίσιμος ώστε να μπορεί νααπευθύνεται σε ένα ευρύτερο κοινό.
Ο ίδιος ο Μichael Jackson είπε το 1993 : « Είμαι μαύρος Αμερικάνος, είμαι περήφανος για τη φυλή μου. Είμαι περήφανος γι’ αυτό που είμαι. Έχω πολύ περηφάνια και αξιοπρέπεια.
Προσπαθούμε να την ελέγξουμε [την ασθένεια] και χρησιμοποιώντας μακιγιάζ την κάνει πιο ενιαία [την Λεύκη] γιατί δημιουργεί κηλίδες στο δέρμα μου.»
Ο Μαικλ Τζάκσον , σύμφωνα με όσους τον γνώρισαν προσωπικά αλλά και τον ίδιο, ήταν ένα πολύ ντροπαλό άτομο που είχε
τρομερή ανασφάλεια με την εμφάνισή του. Αυτό ξεκίνησε στην εφηβεία με το τρομερό πρόβλημα ακμής που είχε αλλά και το γεγονός ότι ο πατέρας του συνήθιζε να τον κοροϊδεύει για τη μεγάλη του μύτη. Μπορεί κανείς να φανταστεί το χτύπημα που θα πρέπει να επέφερε στην ήδη ταραγμένη του αυτοεκτίμηση η συγκεκριμένη αρρώστια. Και το γεγονός ότι έπρεπε να βιώνει όλη αυτή την κατάσταση μπροστά στα μάτια όλου του κόσμου δεν βοηθούσε την υπόθεση.
Κάποτε διάβασα την έξης φράση “ Όταν στην αλυσίδα των γνώσεων που έχει ο κάθε άνθρωπος λείπουν κρίκοι, προσπαθούν να καλύψουν το κενό με προκαταλήψεις”
Mετά το θάνατο του Τζάκσον πολλές πληροφορίες και στοιχεία για την ασθένεια του ήρθαν στο φώς. Σύμφωνα λοιπόν με το πόρισμα των ιατροδικαστών ο Μάικλ Τζάκσον,πράγματι,υπέφερα από Λεύκη.
ΑP ( Associated Press) : Οι ιατροδικαστές βρήκαν αποχρωματισμό του δέρματος γύρω από το στήθος του, στην κοιλιά του, το πρόσωπο, τα χέρια
http://site2.mjeol.com/attachments/2819_AP_JacksonWasHealthy_10-1-09.jpg
Το έγγραφο της ιατροδικαστική έρευνας
To συγκεκριμένο γάντι ανήκε στον Μάικλ Τζάκσον. Πολλοί κοντινοί του συνεργάτες υποστηρίζουν ότι ο Τζάκσον το πρωτοφόρεσε για να κρύψει τα σημάδια της Λεύκης που είχαν αρχίσει να κάνουν την εμφάνιση στο αριστερό του χέρι. Στο γάντι φαίνονται καθαρά τα σημάδια απο το μακιγιάζ που χρησιμοποιούσε ο τραγουδιστής ακόμα και στα άκρα του. Το γάντι, όπως και το καπέλο που φορούσε ο τραγουδιστής προκειμένουν να προφυλάσσεται απο την υπερβολική ακτινοβολία του ήλιου, αργότερα έγινα το σήμακατατεθέν του.
Michael Jackson (1984) |
O Michael Jackson σε νεαρή ηλικία. |
Σ’αυτές τις φωτογραφίες φαίνονται καθαρά τα σημάδια του Vitilligo (Λεύκης) στα πόδια του Michael Jackson.
The Untold Story
Mary A. Fischer
GQ, October 1994
Did Michael Do It? The untold story of the events that brought down a superstar
Before O.J. Simpson, there was Michael Jackson—another beloved black celebrity seemingly brought down by allegations of scandal in his personal life. Those allegations—that Jackson had molested a 13-year-old boy—instigated a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, two grand-jury investigations and a shameless media circus. Jackson, in turn, filed charges of extortion against some of his accusers. Ultimately, the suit was settled out of court for a sum that has been estimated at $20 million; no criminal charges were brought against Jackson by the police or the grand juries. This past August, Jackson was in the news again, when Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’s daughter, announced that she and the singer had married.
As the dust settles on one of the nation’s worst episodes of media excess, one thing is clear: The American public has never heard a defense of Michael Jackson. Until now.
It is, of course, impossible to prove a negative—that is, prove that something didn’t happen. But it is possible to take an in-depth look at the people who made the allegations against Jackson and thus gain insight into their character and motives. What emerges from such an examination, based on court documents, business records and scores of interviews, is a persuasive argument that Jackson molested no one and that he himself may have been the victim of a well-conceived plan to extract money from him.
More than that, the story that arises from this previously unexplored territory is radically different from the tale that has been promoted by tabloid and even mainstream journalists. It is a story of greed, ambition, misconceptions on the part of police and prosecutors, a lazy and sensation-seeking media and the use of a powerful, hypnotic drug. It may also be a story about how a case was simply invented.
“This attorney I found, I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find,” Chandler said in the recorded conversation with Schwartz. “All he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can, and humiliate as many people as he can. He’s nasty, he’s mean, he’s very smart, and he’s hungry for the publicity.”
Neither Michael Jackson nor his current defense attorneys agreed to be interviewed for this article. Had they decided to fight the civil charges and go to trial, what follows might have served as the core of Jackson’s defense—as well as the basis to further the extortion charges against his own accusers, which could well have exonerated the singer.
Jackson’s troubles began when his van broke down on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles in May 1992. Stranded in the middle of the heavily trafficked street, Jackson was spotted by the wife of Mel Green, an employee at Rent-a-Wreck, an offbeat car-rental agency a mile away. Green went to the rescue. When Dave Schwartz, the owner of the car-rental company, heard Green was bringing Jackson to the lot, he called his wife, June, and told her to come over with their 6-year-old daughter and her son from her previous marriage. The boy, then 12, was a big Jackson fan. Upon arriving, June Chandler Schwartz told Jackson about the time her son had sent him a drawing after the singer’s hair caught on fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. Then she gave Jackson their home number.
“It was almost like she was forcing [the boy] on him,” Green recalls. “I think Michael thought he owed the boy something, and that’s when it all started.”
Certain facts about the relationship are not in dispute. Jackson began calling the boy, and a friendship developed. After Jackson returned from a promotional tour, three months later, June Chandler Schwartz and her son and daughter became regular guests at Neverland, Jackson’s ranch in Santa Barbara County. During the following year, Jackson showered the boy and his family with attention and gifts, including video games, watches, an after-hours shopping spree at Toys “R” Us and trips around the world—from Las Vegas and Disney World to Monaco and Paris.
By March 1993, Jackson and the boy were together frequently and the sleepovers began. June Chandler Schwartz had also become close to Jackson “and liked him enormously,” one friend says. “He was the kindest man she had ever met.”
Jackson’s personal eccentricities—from his attempts to remake his face through plastic surgery to his preference for the company of children—have been widely reported. And while it may be unusual for a 35-year-old man to have sleepovers with a 13-year-old child, the boy’s mother and others close to Jackson never thought it odd. Jackson’s behavior is better understood once it’s put in the context of his own childhood.
“Contrary to what you might think, Michael’s life hasn’t been a walk in the park,” one of his attorneys says. Jackson’s childhood essentially stopped—and his unorthodox life began—when he was 5 years old and living in Gary, Indiana. Michael spent his youth in rehearsal studios, on stages performing before millions of strangers and sleeping in an endless string of hotel rooms. Except for his eight brothers and sisters, Jackson was surrounded by adults who pushed him relentlessly, particularly his father, Joe Jackson—a strict, unaffectionate man who reportedly beat his children.
Jackson’s early experiences translated into a kind of arrested development, many say, and he became a child in a man’s body. “He never had a childhood,” says Bert Fields, a former attorney of Jackson’s. “He is having one now. His buddies are 12-year-old kids. They have pillow fights and food fights.” Jackson’s interest in children also translated into humanitarian efforts. Over the years, he has given millions to causes benefiting children, including his own Heal The World Foundation.
But there is another context—the one having to do with the times in which we live—in which most observers would evaluate Jackson’s behavior. “Given the current confusion and hysteria over child sexual abuse,” says Dr. Phillip Resnick, a noted Cleveland psychiatrist, “any physical or nurturing contact with a child may be seen as suspicious, and the adult could well be accused of sexual misconduct.”
Jackson’s involvement with the boy was welcomed, at first, by all the adults in the youth’s life—his mother, his stepfather and even his biological father, Evan Chandler (who also declined to be interviewed for this article). Born Evan Robert Charmatz in the Bronx in 1944, Chandler had reluctantly followed in the footsteps of his father and brothers and become a dentist. “He hated being a dentist,” a family friend says. “He always wanted to be a writer.” After moving in 1973 to West Palm Beach to practice dentistry, he changed his last name, believing Charmatz was “too Jewish-sounding,” says a former colleague. Hoping somehow to become a screenwriter, Chandler moved to Los Angeles in the late Seventies with his wife, June Wong, an attractive Eurasian who had worked briefly as a model.
Chandler’s dental career had its precarious moments. In December 1978, while working at the Crenshaw Family Dental Center, a clinic in a low-income area of L.A., Chandler did restoration work on sixteen of a patient’s teeth during a single visit. An examination of the work, the Board of Dental Examiners concluded, revealed “gross ignorance and/or inefficiency” in his profession. The board revoked his license; however, the revocation was stayed, and the board instead suspended him for ninety days and placed him on probation for two and a half years. Devastated, Chandler left town for New York. He wrote a film script but couldn’t sell it.
Months later, Chandler returned to L.A. with his wife and held a series of dentistry jobs. By 1980, when their son was born, the couple’s marriagewas in trouble. “One of the reasons June left Evan was because of his temper,” a family friend says. They divorced in 1985. The court awarded sole custody of the boy to his mother and ordered Chandler to pay $500 a month in child support, but a review of documents reveals that in 1993, when the Jackson scandal broke, Chandler owed his ex-wife $68,000—a debt she ultimately forgave.
A year before Jackson came into his son’s life, Chandler had a second serious professional problem. One of his patients, a model, sued him for dental negligence after he did restoration work on some of her teeth. Chandler claimed that the woman had signed a consent form in which she’d acknowledged the risks involved. But when Edwin Zinman, her attorney, asked to see the original records, Chandler said they had been stolen from the trunk of his Jaguar. He provided a duplicate set. Zinman, suspicious, was unable to verify the authenticity of the records. “What an extraordinary coincidence that they were stolen,” Zinman says now. “That’s like saying ‘The dog ate my homework.’ ” The suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Despite such setbacks, Chandler by then had a successful practice in Beverly Hills. And he got his first break in Hollywood in 1992, when he cowrote the Mel Brooks film Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Until Michael Jackson entered his son’s life, Chandler hadn’t shown all that much interest in the boy. “He kept promising to buy him a computer so they could work on scripts together, but he never did,” says Michael Freeman, formerly an attorney for June Chandler Schwartz. Chandler’s dental practice kept him busy, and he had started anew family by then, with two small children by his second wife, a corporate attorney.
At first, Chandler welcomed and encouraged his son’s relationship with Michael Jackson, bragging about it to friends and associates. When Jackson and the boy stayed with Chandler during May 1993, Chandler urged the entertainer to spend more time with his son at his house. According to sources, Chandler even suggested that Jackson build an addition onto the house so the singer could stay there. After calling the zoning department and discovering it couldn’t be done, Chandler made another suggestion—that Jackson just build him a new home.
That same month, the boy, his mother and Jackson flew to Monaco for the World Music Awards. “Evan began to get jealous of the involvement and felt left out,” Freeman says. Upon their return, Jackson and the boy again stayed with Chandler, which pleased him—a five-day visit, during which they slept in a room with the youth’s half brother. Though Chandler has admitted that Jackson and the boy always had their clothes on whenever he saw them in bed together, he claimed that it was during this time that his suspicions of sexual misconduct were triggered. At no time has Chandler claimed to have witnessed any sexual misconduct on Jackson’s part.
Chandler became increasingly volatile, making threats that alienated Jackson, Dave Schwartz and June Chandler Schwartz. In early July 1993, Dave Schwartz, who had been friendly with Chandler, secretly tape-recorded a lengthy telephone conversation he had with him. During the conversation, Chandler talked of his concern for his son and his anger at Jackson and at his ex-wife, whom he described as “cold and heartless.” When Chandler tried to “get her attention” to discuss his suspicions about Jackson, he says on the tape, she told him “Go fuck yourself.”
“I had a good communication with Michael,” Chandler told Schwartz. “We were friends. I liked him and I respected him and everything else for what he is. There was no reason why he had to stop calling me. I sat in the room one day and talked to Michael and told him exactly what I want out of this whole relationship. What I want.”
Admitting to Schwartz that he had “been rehearsed” about what to say and what not to say, Chandler never mentioned money during their conversation. When Schwartz asked what Jackson had done that made Chandler so upset, Chandler alleged only that “he broke up the family. [The boy] has been seduced by this guy’s power and money.” Both men repeatedly berated themselves as poor fathers to the boy.
Elsewhere on the tape, Chandler indicated he was prepared to move against Jackson: “It’s already set,” Chandler told Schwartz. “There are other people involved that are waiting for my phone call that are in certain positions. I’ve paid them to do it. Everything’s going according to a certain plan that isn’t just mine. Once I make that phone call, this guy [his attorney, Barry K. Rothman, presumably] is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. And I’ve given him full authority to do that.”
Chandler then predicted what would, in fact, transpire six weeks later: “And if I go through with this, I win big-time. There’s no way I lose. I’ve checked that inside out. I will get everything I want, and they will be destroyed forever. June will lose [custody of the son]…and Michael’s career will be over.”
“Does that help [the boy]?” Schwartz asked.
“That’s irrelevant to me,” Chandler replied. “It’s going to be bigger than all of us put together. The whole thing is going to crash down on everybody and destroy everybody in sight. It will be a massacre if I don’t get what I want.”
Instead of going to the police, seemingly the most appropriate action in a situation involving suspected child molestation, Chandler had turned to a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. He’d turned to Barry Rothman.
“This attorney I found, I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find,” Chandler said in the recorded conversation with Schwartz. “All he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can, and humiliate as many people as he can. He’s nasty, he’s mean, he’s very smart, and he’s hungry for the publicity.” (Through his attorney, Wylie Aitken, Rothman declined to be interviewed for this article. Aitken agreed to answer general questions limited to the Jackson case, and then only about aspects that did not involve Chandler or the boy.)
To know Rothman, says a former colleague who worked with him during the Jackson case, and who kept a diary of what Rothman and Chandler said and did in Rothman’s office, is to believe that Barry could have “devised this whole plan, period. This [making allegations against Michael Jackson] is within the boundary of his character, to do something like this.” Information supplied by Rothman’s former clients, associates and employees reveals a pattern of manipulation and deceit.
Rothman has a general-law practice in Century City. At one time, he negotiated music and concert deals for Little Richard, the Rolling Stones, the Who, ELO and Ozzy Osbourne. Gold and platinum records commemorating those days still hang on the walls of his office. With his grayish-white beard and perpetual tan—which he maintains in a tanning bed at his house—Rothman reminds a former client of “a leprechaun.” To a former employee, Rothman is “a demon” with “a terrible temper.” His most cherished possession, acquaintances say, is his 1977 Rolls-Royce Corniche, which carries the license plate “BKR 1.”
Over the years, Rothman has made so many enemies that his ex-wife once expressed, to her attorney, surprise that someone “hadn’t done him in.” He has a reputation for stiffing people. “He appears to be a professional deadbeat… He pays almost no one,” investigator Ed Marcus concluded (in a report filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, as part of a lawsuit against Rothman), after reviewing the attorney’s credit profile, which listed more than thirty creditors and judgment holders who were chasing him. In addition, more than twenty civil lawsuits involving Rothman have been filed in Superior Court, several complaints have been made to the Labor Commission and disciplinary actions for three incidents have been taken against him by the state bar of California. In 1992, he was suspended for a year, though that suspension was stayed and he was instead placed on probation for the term.
In 1987, Rothman was $16,800 behind in alimony and child-support payments. Through her attorney, his ex-wife, Joanne Ward, threatened to attach Rothman’s assets, but he agreed to make good on the debt. A year later, after Rothman still hadn’t made the payments, Ward’s attorney tried to put a lien on Rothman’s expensive Sherman Oaks home. To their surprise, Rothman said he no longer owned the house;three years earlier, he’d deeded the property to Tinoa Operations, Inc., a Panamanian shell corporation. According to Ward’s lawyer, Rothman claimed that he’d had $200,000 of Tinoa’s money, in cash, at his house one night when he was robbed at gunpoint. The only way he could make good on the loss was to deed his home to Tinoa, he told them. Ward and her attorney suspected the whole scenario was a ruse, but they could never prove it. It was only after sheriff’s deputies had towed away Rothman’s Rolls Royce that he began paying what he owed.
Documents filed with Los Angeles Superior Court seem to confirm the suspicions of Ward and her attorney. These show that Rothman created an elaborate network of foreign bank accounts and shell companies, seemingly to conceal some of his assets—in particular, his home and much of the $531,000 proceeds from its eventual sale, in 1989. The companies, including Tinoa, can be traced to Rothman. He bought a Panamanian shelf company (an existing but nonoperating firm) and arranged matters so that though his name would not appear on the list of its officers, he would have unconditional power of attorney, in effect leaving him in control of moving money in and out.
Meanwhile, Rothman’s employees didn’t fare much better than his ex-wife. Former employees say they sometimes had to beg for their paychecks. And sometimes the checks that they did get would bounce. He couldn’t keep legal secretaries. “He’d demean and humiliate them,” says one. Temporary workers fared the worst. “He would work them for two weeks,” adds the legal secretary, “then run them off by yelling at them and saying they were stupid. Then he’d tell the agency he was dissatisfied with the temp and wouldn’t pay.” Some agencies finally got wise and made Rothman pay cash up front before they’d do business with him.
The state bar’s 1992 disciplining of Rothman grew out of a conflict-of-interest matter. A year earlier, Rothman had been kicked off a case by a client, Muriel Metcalf, whom he’d been representing in child-support and custody proceedings; Metcalf later accused him of padding her bill. Four months after Metcalf fired him, Rothman, without notifying her, began representing the company of her estranged companion, Bob Brutzman.
The case is revealing for another reason: It shows that Rothman had some experience dealing with child-molestation allegations before the Jackson scandal. Metcalf, while Rothman was still representing her, had accused Brutzman of molesting their child (which Brutzman denied). Rothman’s knowledge of Metcalf’s charges didn’t prevent him from going to work for Brutzman’s company—a move for which he was disciplined.
By 1992, Rothman was running from numerous creditors. Folb Management, a corporate real-estate agency, was one. Rothman owed the company $53,000 in back rent and interest for an office on Sunset Boulevard. Folb sued. Rothman then countersued, claiming that the building’s security was so inadequate that burglars were able to steal more than $6,900 worth of equipment from his office one night. In the course of the proceedings, Folb’s lawyer told the court, “Mr. Rothman is not the kind of person whose word can be taken at face value.”
In November 1992, Rothman had his law firm file for bankruptcy, listing thirteen creditors—including Folb Management—with debts totaling $880,000 and no acknowledged assets. After reviewing the bankruptcy papers, an ex-client whom Rothman was suing for $400,000 in legal fees noticed that Rothman had failed to list a $133,000 asset. The former client threatened to expose Rothman for “defrauding his creditors”—a felony—if he didn’t drop the lawsuit. Cornered, Rothman had the suit dismissed in a matter of hours.
Six months before filing for bankruptcy, Rothman had transferred title on his Rolls-Royce to Majo, a fictitious company he controlled. Three years earlier, Rothman had claimed a different corporate owner for the car—Longridge Estates, a subsidiary of Tinoa Operations, the company that held the deed to his home. On corporation papers filed by Rothman, the addresses listed for Longridge and Tinoa were the same, 1554 Cahuenga Boulevard—which, as it turns out, is that of a Chinese restaurant in Hollywood.
It was with this man, in June 1993, that Evan Chandler began carrying out the “certain plan” to which he referred in his taped conversation with Dave Schwartz. At a graduation that month, Chandler confronted his ex-wife with his suspicions. “She thought the whole thing was baloney,” says her ex-attorney, Michael Freeman. She told Chandler that she planned to take their son out of school in the fall so they could accompany Jackson on his “Dangerous” world tour. Chandler became irate and, say several sources, threatened to go public with the evidence he claimed he had on Jackson. “What parent in his right mind would want to drag his child into the public spotlight?” asks Freeman. “If something like this actually occurred, you’d want to protect your child.”
Jackson asked his then-lawyer, Bert Fields, to intervene. One of the most prominent attorneys in the entertainment industry, Fields has been representing Jackson since 1990 and had negotiated for him, with Sony, the biggest music deal ever—with possible earnings of $700 million. Fields brought in investigator Anthony Pellicano to help sort things out. Pellicano does things Sicilian-style, being fiercely loyal to those he likes but a ruthless hardball player when it comes to his enemies.
Given the facts about sodium Amytal and a recent landmark case that involved the drug, the boy’s allegations, say several medical experts, must be viewed as unreliable, if not highly questionable.“It’s a psychiatric medication that cannot be relied on to produce fact.”
On July 9, 1993, Dave Schwartz and June Chandler Schwartz played the taped conversation for Pellicano. “After listening to the tape for ten minutes, I knew it was about extortion,” says Pellicano. That same day, he drove to Jackson’s Century City condominium, where Chandler’s son and the boy’s half-sister were visiting. Without Jackson there, Pellicano “made eye contact” with the boy and asked him, he says, “very pointed questions”: “Has Michael ever touched you? Have you ever seen him naked in bed?” The answer to all the questions was no. The boy repeatedly denied that anything bad had happened. On July 11, after Jackson had declined to meet with Chandler, the boy’s father and Rothman went ahead with another part of the plan—they needed to get custody of the boy. Chandler asked his ex-wife to let the youth stay with him for a “one-week visitation period.” As Bert Fields later said in an affidavit to the court, June Chandler Schwartz allowed the boy to go based on Rothman’s assurance to Fields that her son would come back to her after the specified time, never guessing that Rothman’s word would be worthless and that Chandler would not return their son.
Wylie Aitken, Rothman’s attorney, claims that “at the time [Rothman] gave his word, it was his intention to have the boy returned.” However, once “he learned that the boy would be whisked out of the country [to go on tour with Jackson], I don’t think Mr. Rothman had any other choice.” But the chronology clearly indicates that Chandler had learned in June, at the graduation, that the boy’s mother planned to take her son on the tour. The taped telephone conversation made in early July, before Chandler took custody of his son, also seems to verify that Chandler and Rothman had no intention of abiding by the visitation agreement. “They [the boy and his mother] don’t know it yet,” Chandler told Schwartz, “but they aren’t going anywhere.”
On July 12, one day after Chandler took control of his son, he had his ex-wife sign a document prepared by Rothman that prevented her from taking the youth out of Los Angeles County. This meant the boy would be unable to accompany Jackson on the tour. His mother told the court she signed the document under duress. Chandler, she said in an affidavit, had threatened that “I would not have [the boy] returned to me.” A bitter custody battle ensued, making even murkier any charges Chandler made about wrong-doing on Jackson’s part. (As of this August [1994], the boy was still living with Chandler.) It was during the first few weeks after Chandler took control of his son—who was now isolated from his friends, mother and stepfather—that the boy’s allegations began to take shape.
At the same time, Rothman, seeking an expert’s opinion to help establish the allegations against Jackson, called Dr. Mathis Abrams, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist. Over the telephone, Rothman presented Abrams with a hypothetical situation. In reply and without having met either Chandler or his son, Abrams on July 15 sent Rothman a two-page letter in which he stated that “reasonable suspicion would exist that sexual abuse may have occurred.” Importantly, he also stated that if this were a real and not a hypothetical case, he would be required by law to report the matter to the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services (DCS).
According to a July 27 entry in the diary kept by Rothman’s former colleague, it’s clear that Rothman was guiding Chandler in the plan. “Rothman wrote letter to Chandler advising him how to report child abuse without liability to parent,” the entry reads.
At this point, there still had been made no demands or formal accusations, only veiled assertions that had become intertwined with a fierce custody battle. On August 4, 1993, however, things became very clear. Chandler and his son met with Jackson and Pellicano in a suite at the Westwood Marquis Hotel. On seeing Jackson, says Pellicano, Chandler gave the singer an affectionate hug (a gesture, some say, that would seem to belie the dentist’s suspicions that Jackson had molested his son), then reached into his pocket, pulled out Abrams’s letter and began reading passages from it. When Chandler got to the parts about child molestation, the boy, says Pellicano, put his head down and then looked up at Jackson with a surprised expression, as if to say “I didn’t say that.” As the meeting broke up, Chandler pointed his finger at Jackson, says Pellicano, and warned “I’m going to ruin you.”
At a meeting with Pellicano in Rothman’s office later that evening, Chandler and Rothman made their demand – $20 million.
On August 13, there was another meeting in Rothman’s office. Pellicano came back with a counteroffer—a $350,000 screenwriting deal. Pellicano says he made the offer as a way to resolve the custody dispute and give Chandler an opportunity to spend more time with his son by working on a screenplay together. Chandler rejected the offer. Rothman made a counterdemand—a deal for three screenplays or nothing—which was spurned. In the diary of Rothman’s ex-colleague, an August 24 entry reveals Chandler’s disappointment: “I almost had a $20 million deal,” he was overheard telling Rothman.
Before Chandler took control of his son, the only one making allegations against Jackson was Chandler himself—the boy had never accused the singer of any wrongdoing. That changed one day in Chandler’s Beverly Hills dental office.
In the presence of Chandler and Mark Torbiner, a dental anesthesiologist, the boy was administered the controversial drug sodium Amytal—which some mistakenly believe is a truth serum. And it was after this session that the boy first made his charges against Jackson. A newsman at KCBS-TV, in L.A., reported on May 3 of this year that Chandler had used the drug on his son, but the dentist claimed he did so only to pull his son’s tooth and that while under the drug’s influence, the boy came out with allegations. Asked for this article about his use of the drug on the boy, Torbiner replied: “If I used it, it was for dental purposes.”
Given the facts about sodium Amytal and a recent landmark case that involved the drug, the boy’s allegations, say several medical experts, must be viewed as unreliable, if not highly questionable.
“It’s a psychiatric medication that cannot be relied on to produce fact,” says Dr. Resnick, the Cleveland psychiatrist. “People are very suggestible under it. People will say things under sodium Amytal that are blatantly untrue.” Sodium Amytal is a barbiturate, an invasive drug that puts people in a hypnotic state when it’s injected intravenously. Primarily administered for the treatment of amnesia, it first came into use during World War II, on soldiers traumatized—some into catatonic states—by the horrors of war. Scientific studies done in 1952 debunked the drug as a truth serum and instead demonstrated its risks: False memories can be easily implanted in those under its influence. “It is quite possible to implant an idea through the mere asking of a question,” says Resnick. But its effects are apparently even more insidious: “The idea can become their memory, and studies have shown that even when you tell them the truth, they will swear on a stack of Bibles that it happened,” says Resnick.
Recently, the reliability of the drug became an issue in a high-profile trial in Napa County, California. After undergoing numerous therapy sessions, at least one of which included the use of sodium Amytal, 20-year-old Holly Ramona accused her father of molesting her as a child. Gary Ramona vehemently denied the charge and sued his daughter’s therapist and the psychiatrist who had administered the drug. This past May, jurors sided with Gary Ramona, believing that the therapist and the psychiatrist may have reinforced memories that were false. Gary Ramona’s was the first successful legal challenge to the so-called “repressed memory phenomenon” that has produced thousands of sexual-abuse allegations over the past decade.
As for Chandler’s story about using the drug to sedate his son during a tooth extraction, that too seems dubious, in light of the drug’s customary use. “It’s absolutely a psychiatric drug,” says Dr. Kenneth Gottlieb, a San Francisco psychiatrist who has administeredsodium Amytal to amnesia patients. Dr. John Yagiela, the coordinator of the anesthesia and pain control department of UCLA’s school of dentistry, adds, “It’s unusual for it to be used [for pulling a tooth]. It makes no sense when better, safer alternatives are available. It would not be my choice.”
Because of sodium Amytal’s potential side effects, some doctors will administer it only in a hospital. “I would never want to use a drug that tampers with a person’s unconscious unless there was no other drug available,” says Gottlieb. “And I would not use it without resuscitating equipment, in case of allergic reaction, and only with an M.D. anesthesiologist present.”
Chandler, it seems, did not follow these guidelines. He had the procedure performed on his son in his office, and he relied on the dental anesthesiologist Mark Torbiner for expertise. (It was Torbiner who’d introduced Chandler and Rothman in 1991, when Rothman needed dental work.)
The nature of Torbiner’s practice appears to have made it highly successful. “He boasts that he has $100 a month overhead and $40,000 a month income,” says Nylla Jones, a former patient of his. Torbiner doesn’t have an office for seeing patients; rather, he travels to various dental offices around the city, where he administers anesthesia during procedures.
This magazine has learned that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is probing another aspect of Torbiner’s business practices: He makes housecalls to administer drugs—mostly morphine and Demerol—not only postoperatively to his dental patients but also, it seems, to those suffering pain whose source has nothing to do with dental work. He arrives at the homes of his clients—some of them celebrities—carrying a kind of fishing-tackle box that contains drugs and syringes. At one time, the license plate on his Jaguar read “SLPYDOC.” According to Jones, Torbiner charges $350 for a basic ten-to-twenty-minute visit. In what Jones describes as standard practice, when it’s unclear how long Torbiner will need to stay, the client, anticipating the stupor that will soon set in, leaves a blank check for Torbiner to fill in with the appropriate amount.
Torbiner wasn’t always successful. In 1989, he got caught in a lie and was asked to resign from UCLA, where he was an assistant professor at the school of dentistry. Torbiner had asked to take a half-day off so he could observe a religious holiday but was later found to have worked at a dental office instead.
A check of Torbiner’s credentials with the Board of Dental Examiners indicates that he is restricted by law to administering drugs solely for dental-related procedures. But there is clear evidence that he has not abided by those restrictions. In fact, on at least eight occasions, Torbiner has given a general anesthetic to Barry Rothman, during hair-transplant procedures. Though normally a local anesthetic would be injected into the scalp, “Barry is so afraid of the pain,” says Dr. James De Yarman, the San Diego physician who performed Rothman’s transplants, “that [he] wanted to be put out completely.” De Yarman said he was “amazed” to learn that Torbiner is a dentist, having assumed all along that he was an M.D.
In another instance, Torbiner came to the home of Nylla Jones, she says, and injected her with Demerol to help dull the pain that followed her appendectomy.
On August 16, three days after Chandler and Rothman rejected the $350,000 script deal, the situation came to a head. On behalf of June Chandler Schwartz, Michael Freeman notified Rothman that he would be filing papers early the next morning that would force Chandler to turn over the boy. Reacting quickly, Chandler took his son to Mathis Abrams, the psychiatrist who’d provided Rothman with his assessment of the hypothetical child-abuse situation. During a three-hour session, the boy alleged that Jackson had engaged in a sexual relationship with him. He talked of masturbation, kissing, fondling of nipples and oral sex. There was, however, no mention of actual penetration, which might have been verified by a medical exam, thus providing corroborating evidence.
The next step was inevitable. Abrams, who is required by law to report any such accusation to authorities, called a social worker at the Department of Children’s Services, who in turn contacted the police. The full-scale investigation of Michael Jackson was about to begin.
Five days after Abrams called the authorities, the media got wind of the investigation. On Sunday morning, August 22, Don Ray, a free-lance reporter in Burbank, was asleep when his phone rang. The caller, one of his tipsters, said that warrants had been issued to search Jackson’s ranch and condominium. Ray sold the story to L.A.’s KNBC-TV, which broke the news at 4 P.M. the following day.
After that, Ray “watched this story go away like a freight train,” he says. Within twenty-four hours, Jackson was the lead story on seventy-three TV news broadcasts in the Los Angeles area alone and was on the front page of every British newspaper. The story of Michael Jackson and the 13-year-old boy became a frenzy of hype and unsubstantiated rumor, with the line between tabloid and mainstream media virtually eliminated.
The extent of the allegations against Jackson wasn’t known until August 25. A person inside the DCS illegally leaked a copy of the abuse report to Diane Dimond of Hard Copy. Within hours, the L.A. office of a British news service also got the report and began selling copies to any reporter willing to pay $750. The following day, the world knew about the graphic details in the leaked report. “While laying next to each other in bed, Mr. Jackson put his hand under [the child’s] shorts,” the social worker had written. From there, the coverage soon demonstrated that anything about Jackson would be fair game.
“Competition among news organizations became so fierce,” says KNBC reporter Conan Nolan, that “stories weren’t being checked out. It was very unfortunate.” The National Enquirer put twenty reporters and editors on the story. One team knocked on 500 doors in Brentwood trying to find Evan Chandler and his son. Using property records, they finally did, catching up with Chandler in his black Mercedes. “He was not a happy man. But I was,” said Andy O’Brien, a tabloid photographer.
Next came the accusers—Jackson’s former employees. First, Stella and Philippe Lemarque, Jackson’ ex-housekeepers, tried to sell their story to the tabloids with the help of broker Paul Barresi, a former porn star. They asked for as much as half a million dollars but wound up selling an interview to The Globe of Britain for $15,000. The Quindoys, a Filipino couple who had worked at Neverland, followed. When their asking price was $100,000, they said ” ‘the hand was outside the kid’s pants,’ ” Barresi told a producer of Frontline, a PBS program. “As soon as their price went up to $500,000, the hand went inside the pants. So come on.” The L.A. district attorney’s office eventually concluded that both couples were useless as witnesses.
Next came the bodyguards. Purporting to take the journalistic high road, Hard Copy’s Diane Dimond told Frontline in early November of last year that her program was “pristinely clean on this. We paid no money for this story at all.” But two weeks later, as a Hard Copy contract reveals, the show was negotiating a $100,000 payment to five former Jackson security guards who were planning to file a $10 million lawsuit alleging wrongful termination of their jobs.
On December 1, with the deal in place, two of the guards appeared on the program; they had been fired, Dimond told viewers, because “they knew too much about Michael Jackson’s strange relationship with young boys.” In reality, as their depositions under oath three months later reveal, it was clear they had never actually seen Jackson do anything improper with Chandler’s son or any other child:
“So you don’t know anything about Mr. Jackson and [the boy], do you?” one of Jackson’s attorneys asked former security guard Morris Williams under oath.
“All I know is from the sworn documents that other people have sworn to.”
“But other than what someone else may have said, you have no firsthand knowledge about Mr. Jackson and [the boy], do you?”
“That’s correct.”
“Have you spoken to a child who has ever told you that Mr. Jackson did anything improper with the child?”
“No.”
When asked by Jackson’s attorney where he had gotten his impressions, Williams replied: “Just what I’ve been hearing in the media and what I’ve experienced with my own eyes.”
“Okay. That’s the point. You experienced nothing with your own eyes, did you?”
“That’s right, nothing.”
(The guards’ lawsuit, filed in March 1994, was still pending as this article went to press.)
[NOTE: The case was thrown out of court in July 1995.]
Next came the maid. On December 15, Hard Copy presented “The Bedroom Maid’s Painful Secret.” Blanca Francia told Dimond and other reporters that she had seen a naked Jackson taking showers and Jacuzzi baths with young boys. She also told Dimond that she had witnessed her own son in compromising positions with Jackson—an allegation that the grand juries apparently never found credible.
A copy of Francia’s sworn testimony reveals that Hard Copy paid her $20,000, and had Dimond checked out the woman’s claims, she would have found them to be false. Under deposition by a Jackson attorney, Francia admitted she had never actually see Jackson shower with anyone nor had she seen him naked with boys in his Jacuzzi. They always had their swimming trunks on, she acknowledged.
The coverage, says Michael Levine, a Jackson press representative, “followed a proctologist’s view of the world. Hard Copy was loathsome. The vicious and vile treatment of this man in the media was for selfish reasons. [Even] if you have never bought a Michael Jackson record in your life, you should be very concerned. Society is built on very few pillars. One of them is truth. When you abandon that, it’s a slippery slope.”
The investigation of Jackson, which by October 1993 would grow to involve at least twelve detectives from Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties, was instigated in part by the perceptions of one psychiatrist, Mathis Abrams, who had no particular expertise in child sexual abuse. Abrams, the DCS caseworker’s report noted, “feels the child is telling the truth.” In an era of widespread and often false claims of child molestation, police and prosecutors have come to give great weight to the testimony of psychiatrists, therapists and social workers.
Police seized Jackson’s telephone books during the raid on his residences in August and questioned close to thirty children and their families. Some, such as Brett Barnes and Wade Robson, said they had shared Jackson’s bed, but like all the others, they gave the same response—Jackson had done nothing wrong. “The evidence was very good for us,” says an attorney who worked on Jackson’s defense. “The other side had nothing but a big mouth.”
Despite the scant evidence supporting their belief that Jackson was guilty, the police stepped up their efforts. Two officers flew to the Philippines to try to nail down the Quindoys’ “hand in the pants” story, but apparently decided it lacked credibility. The police also employed aggressive investigative techniques—including allegedly telling lies—to push the children into making accusations against Jackson. According to several parents who complained to Bert Fields, officers told them unequivocally that their children had been molested, even though the children denied to their parents that anything bad had happened. The police, Fields complained in a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams, “have also frightened youngsters with outrageous lies, such as ‘We have nude photos of you.’ There are, of course, no such photos.” One officer, Federico Sicard, told attorney Michael Freeman that he had lied to the children he’d interviewed and told them that he himself had been molested as a child, says Freeman. Sicard did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.
All along, June Chandler Schwartz rejected the charges Chandler was making against Jackson—until a meeting with police in late August 1993. Officers Sicard and Rosibel Ferrufino made a statement that began to change her mind. “[The officers] admitted they only had one boy,” says Freeman, who attended the meeting, “but they said, ‘We’re convinced Michael Jackson molested this boy because he fits the classic profile of a pedophile perfectly.’ ”
“There’s no such thing as a classic profile. They made a completely foolish and illogical error,” says Dr. Ralph Underwager, a Minneapolis psychiatrist who has treated pedophiles and victims of incest since 1953. Jackson, he believes, “got nailed” because of “misconceptions like these that have been allowed to parade as fact in an era of hysteria.” In truth, as a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study shows, many child-abuse allegations—48 percent of those filed in 1990 —proved to be unfounded.
“It was just a matter of time before someone like Jackson became a target,” says Phillip Resnick. “He’s rich, bizarre, hangs around with kids and there is a fragility to him. The atmosphere is such that an accusation must mean it happened.”
The seeds of settlement were already being sown as the police investigation continued in both counties through the fall of 1993. And a behind-the-scenes battle among Jackson’s lawyers for control of the case, which would ultimately alter the course the defense would take, had begun.
By then, June Chandler Schwartz and Dave Schwartz had united with Evan Chandler against Jackson. The boy’s mother, say several sources, feared what Chandler and Rothman might do if she didn’t side with them. She worried that they would try to advance a charge against her of parental neglect for allowing her son to have sleepovers with Jackson. Her attorney, Michael Freeman, in turn, resigned in disgust, saying later that “the whole thing was such a mess. I felt uncomfortable with Evan. He isn’t a genuine person, and I sensed he wasn’t playing things straight.”
Over the months, lawyers for both sides were retained, demoted and ousted as they feuded over the best strategy to take. Rothman ceased being Chandler’s lawyer in late August, when the Jackson camp filed extortion charges against the two. Both then hired high-priced criminal defense attorneys to represent them.. (Rothman retained Robert Shapiro, now O.J. Simpson’s chief lawyer.) According to the diary kept by Rothman’s former colleague, on August 26, before the extortion charges were filed, Chandler was heard to say “It’s my ass that’s on the line and in danger of going to prison.” The investigation into the extortion charges was superficial because, says a source, “the police never took it that seriously. But a whole lot more could have been done.” For example, as they had done with Jackson, the police could have sought warrants to search the homes and offices of Rothman and Chandler. And when both men, through their attorneys, declined to be interviewed by police, a grand jury could have been convened.
“It was just a matter of time before someone like Jackson became a target. He’s rich, bizarre [and] hangs around with kids…
In mid-September, Larry Feldman, a civil attorney who’d served as head of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Association, began representing Chandler’s son and immediately took control of the situation. He filed a $30 million civil lawsuit against Jackson, which would prove to be the beginning of the end.
Once news of the suit spread, the wolves began lining up at the door. According to a member of Jackson’s legal team, “Feldman got dozens of letters from all kinds of people saying they’d been molested by Jackson. They went through all of them trying to find somebody, and they found zero.”
With the possibility of criminal charges against Jackson now looming, Bert Fields brought in Howard Weitzman, a well-known criminal-defense lawyer with a string of high-profile clients—including John DeLorean, whose trail he won, and Kim Basinger, whose Boxing Helena contract dispute he lost. (Also, for a short time this June, Weitzman was O.J. Simpson’s attorney.) Some predicted a problem between the two lawyers early on. There wasn’t room for two strong attorneys used to running their own show.
From the day Weitzman joined Jackson’s defense team, “he was talking settlement,” says Bonnie Ezkenazi, an attorney who worked for the defense. With Fields and Pellicano still in control of Jackson’s defense, they adopted an aggressive strategy. They believed staunchly in Jackson’s innocence and vowed to fight the charges in court. Pellicano began gathering evidence to use in the trial, which was scheduled for March 21, 1994. “They had a very weak case,” says Fields. “We wanted to fight. Michael wanted to fight and go through a trial. We felt we could win.”
Dissension within the Jackson camp accelerated on November 12, after Jackson’s publicist announced at a press conference that the singer was canceling the remainder of his world tour to go into a drug-rehabilitation program to treat his addiction to painkillers. Fields later told reporters that Jackson was “barely able to function adequately on an intellectual level.” Others in Jackson’s camp felt it was a mistake to portray the singer as incompetent. “It was important,” Fields says, “to tell the truth. [Larry] Feldman and the press took the position that Michael was trying to hide and that it was all a scam. But it wasn’t.”
On November 23, the friction peaked. Based on information he says he got from Weitzman, Fields told a courtroom full of reporters that a criminal indictment against Jackson seemed imminent. Fields had a reason for making the statement: He was trying to delay the boy’s civil suit by establishing that there was an impending criminal case that should be tried first. Outside the courtroom, reporters asked why Fields had made the announcement, to which Weitzman replied essentially that Fields “misspoke himself.” The comment infuriated Fields, “because it wasn’t true,” he says. “It was just an outrage. I was very upset with Howard.” Fields sent a letter of resignation to Jackson the following week.
“There was this vast group of people all wanting to do a different thing, and it was like moving through molasses to get a decision,” says Fields. “It was a nightmare, and I wanted to get the hell out of it.” Pellicano, who had received his share of flak for his aggressive manner, resigned at the same time.
With Fields and Pellicano gone, Weitzman brought in Johnnie Cochran Jr., a well-known civil attorney who is now helping defend O.J. Simpson. And John Branca, whom Fields had replaced as Jackson’s general counsel in 1990, was back on board. In late 1993, as DAs in both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties convened grand juries to assess whether criminal charges should be filed against Jackson, the defense strategy changed course and talk of settling the civil case began in earnest, even though his new team also believed in Jackson’s innocence.
Why would Jackson’s side agree to settle out of court, given his claims of innocence and the questionable evidence against him? His attorneys apparently decided there were many factors that argued against taking the case to civil court. Among them was the fact that Jackson’s emotional fragility would be tested by the oppressive media coverage that would likely plague the singer day after day during a trial that could last as long as six months. Politics and racial issues had also seeped into legal proceedings—particularly in Los Angeles, which was still recovering from the Rodney King ordeal—and the defense feared that a court of law could not be counted on to deliver justice. Then, too, there was the jury mix to consider. As one attorney says, “They figured that Hispanics might resent [Jackson] for his money, blacks might resent him for trying to be white, and whites would have trouble getting around the molestation issue.” In Resnick’s opinion, “The hysteria is so great and the stigma [of child molestation] is so strong, there is no defenseagainst it.”
Jackson’s lawyers also worried about what might happen if a criminal trial followed, particularly in Santa Barbara, which is a largely white, conservative, middle-to-upper-class community. Any way the defense looked at it, a civil trial seemed too big a gamble. By meeting the terms of a civil settlement, sources say, the lawyers figured they could forestall a criminal trial through a tacit understanding that Chandler would agree to make his son unavailable to testify.
Others close to the case say the decision to settle also probably had to do with another factor—the lawyers’ reputations. “Can you imagine what would happen to an attorney who lost the Michael Jackson case?” says Anthony Pellicano. “There’s no way for all three lawyers to come out winners unless they settle. The only person who lost is Michael Jackson.” But Jackson, says Branca, “changed his mind about [taking the case to trial] when he returned to this country. He hadn’t seen the massive coverage and how hostile it was. He just wanted the whole thing to go away.”
On the other side, relationships among members of the boy’s family had become bitter. During a meeting in Larry Feldman’s office in late 1993, Chandler, a source says, “completely lost it and beat up Dave [Schwartz].” Schwartz, having separated from June by this time, was getting pushed out of making decisions that affected his stepson, and he resented Chandler for taking the boy and not returning him.
“Dave got mad and told Evan this was all about extortion, anyway, at which point Evan stood up, walked over and started hitting Dave,” a second source says.
To anyone who lived in Los Angeles in January 1994, there were two main topics of discussion—the earthquake and the Jackson settlement. On January 25, Jackson agreed to pay the boy an undisclosed sum. The day before, Jackson’s attorneys had withdrawn the extortion charges against Chandler and Rothman.
The actual amount of the settlement has never been revealed, although speculation has placed the sum around $20 million. One source says Chandler and June Chandler Schwartz received up to $2 million each, while attorney Feldman might have gotten up to 25 percent in contingency fees. The rest of the money is being held in trust for the boy and will be paid out under the supervision of a court-appointed trustee.
“Remember, this case was always about money,” Pellicano says, “and Evan Chandler wound up getting what he wanted.” Since Chandler still has custody of his son, sources contend that logically this means the father has access to any money his son gets.
By late May 1994, Chandler finally appeared to be out of dentistry. He’d closed down his Beverly Hills office, citing ongoing harassment from Jackson supporters. Under the terms of the settlement, Chandler is apparently prohibited from writing about the affair, but his brother, Ray Charmatz, was reportedly trying to get a book deal.
In what may turn out to be the never-ending case, this past August, both Barry Rothman and Dave Schwartz (two principal players left out of the settlement) filed civil suits against Jackson. Schwartz maintains that the singer broke up his family. Rothman’s lawsuit claims defamation and slander on the part of Jackson, as well as his original defense team—Fields, Pellicano and Weitzman—for the allegations of extortion. “The charge of [extortion],” says Rothman attorney Aitken, “is totally untrue. Mr. Rothman has been held up for public ridicule, was the subject of a criminal investigation and suffered loss of income.” (Presumably, some of Rothman’s lost income is the hefty fee he would have received had he been able to continue as Chandler’s attorney through the settlement phase.)
As for Michael Jackson, “he is getting on with his life,” says publicist Michael Levine. Now married, Jackson also recently recorded three new songs for a greatest-hits album and completed a new music video called “History.”
And what became of the massive investigation of Jackson? After millions of dollars were spent by prosecutors and police departments in two jurisdictions, and after two grand juries questioned close to 200 witnesses, including 30 children who knew Jackson, not a single corroborating witness could be found. (In June 1994, still determined to find even one corroborating witness, three prosecutors and two police detectives flew to Australia to again question Wade Robson, the boy who had acknowledged that he’d slept in the same bed with Jackson. Once again, the boy said that nothing bad had happened.)
The sole allegations leveled against Jackson, then, remain those made by one youth, and only after the boy had been give a potent hypnotic drug, leaving him susceptible to the power of suggestion.
“I found the case suspicious,” says Dr. Underwager, the Minneapolis psychiatrist, “precisely because the only evidence came from one boy. That would be highly unlikely. Actual pedophiles have an average of 240 victims in their lifetime. It’s a progressive disorder. They’re never satisfied.”
Given the slim evidence against Jackson, it seems unlikely he would have been found guilty had the case gone to trial. But in the court of public opinion, there are no restrictions. People are free to speculate as they wish, and Jackson’s eccentricity leaves him vulnerable to the likelihood that the public has assumed the worst about him.
So is it possible that Jackson committed no crime—that he is what he has always purported to be, a protector and not a molester of children? Attorney Michael Freeman thinks so: “It’s my feeling that Jackson did nothing wrong and these people [Chandler and Rothman] saw an opportunity and programmed it. I believe it was all about money.”
To some observers, the Michael Jackson story illustrates the dangerous power of accusation, against which there is often no defense—particularly when the accusations involve child sexual abuse. To others, something else is clear now—that police and prosecutors spent millions of dollars to create a case whose foundation never existed.
Excerpt from “The Nation in the Mirror” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone. Iss. 977/978 New York:
Ostensibly a story about bringing a child molester to justice, the Michael Jackson trial would instead be a kind of homecoming parade of insipid American types grifters, suckers and no-talent schemers, mired in either outright unemployment… or the bogus non-careers of the information age, looking to cash in any way they can.The MC of the proceedings was District Attorney Tom Sneddon, whose metaphorical role in this American reality show was to represent the mean gray heart of the Nixonian Silent Majority – the bitter mediocrity itching to stick it to anyone who’d ever taken a vacation to Paris. The first month or so of the trial featured perhaps the most compromised collection of prosecution witnesses ever assembled in an American criminal case – almost to a man a group of convicted liars, paid gossip hawkers or worse. The early witnesses against Jackson included a bodyguard who missed court because he was in custody facing charges stemming from a series of armed robberies, including holding up a Jack in the Box at gunpoint; a former Neverland maid who’d stolen a sketch Jackson had made of Elvis Presley and sold it to the tabloids for thirty grand; another former employee who’d lost a wrongful-termination suit against Jackson and had to pay part of a $1.4 million settlement as a result.
And then there was the very key figure in the case, the accuser’s mother, who had to plead the Fifth Amendment on the first day of her testimony to avoid cross-examination on a welfare-fraud allegation – a witness so completely full of sh—t that Sneddon’s own assistants cringed openly throughout most of her five days of testimony. In the next six weeks, virtually every piece of his case imploded in open court, and the chief drama of the trial quickly turned into a race to see if the DA could manage to put all of his witnesses on the stand without getting any of them removed from the courthouse in manacles.
Sneddon’s hard-on for Jackson was a faith-based vengeance grab every bit as blind and desperate as George Bush’s “case” against Saddam Hussein. If Ahmad Chalabi had ever been to Neverland, Sneddon would have put him on the stand too.
His case was bullsh—t. California vs. Jackson turned out to be basically a tale of a family of low-rent grifters trying to lay a criminal-molestation charge on a rich celebrity as a prelude to a civil suit.