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I came to New York to attend NYU to study music business.
Yeah, I was 16 years old, um I- I turned 17 shortly thereafter,
but when I arrived in August of 2001, I was 16 years old.
Of course, 9/11 happened just- I believe my second week of classes?
So that colors the memories, um, of that time,
but it was- it was overwhelming in general.
I mean- I was on my own. Um, I-
I went to go see Michael Jackson on September 10th,
and I was starting classes.
I was responsible for getting myself to classes every single day. You know?
It- it was definitely overwhelming, you know?
I came to New York University to study music business, and part of the reason
that I was so interested in music business was because, um,
I'd been such a big fan of Michael Jackson,
not only of his music and his dance and all that,
which is incredible, but also of his business acumen
so I came to NYU knowing so much about publishing,
and royalty rates, and things like that because I had studied all of his business deals.
You know- our first week of classes,
we had this program, um, meeting that we would do
which, um, they were weekly assemblies
where everybody in our major would get together and
discuss things that were happening in the industry,
um, we would have speakers come in from, you know,
various record labels or NARAS, which, you know,
works with the Grammys and- and different songwriters, things like that.
It was a time to come together and
really assess the landscape of the music business and
the very first program meeting,
I was introducing myself to the group, as a whole.
and I don't remember if I was running for some sort of like-
representative position or if I just wanted to
introduce myself for whatever reason?
But, I was wearing a Jackson's Victory Tour T-Shirt, and it was vintage.
I had just bought it in the village, and a young man came up to me
and told me that he liked my shirt and, ah…
That young man turned out to be Jordan Chandler.
I have on the phone with me investigative journalist, Charles Thomson,
who is the winner of 6 national awards for his recent, um,
investigative work exposing the Shoebury pedophile ring.
So Charles, you've sat in on a lot of pedophile cases.
What would you say are the main differences
between the cases that you've sat in on and the Michael Jackson case?
Of course, the first difference
is that the cases that I've covered were all criminal cases
where there was was no real financial incentive to make an allegation,
so the motive of seeking millions of dollars is removed.
And then in the cases where we see convictions that I’ve been sitting in,
you had victims who were credible, who were consistent,
and that's never been the case in the allegations against Michael Jackson.
They've never been consistent.
They've always turned out to be perjurers
and people who were just looking for a payout.
Michael Jackson was one of the most famous people on the planet.
It turns out he was also the target of intensive FBI scrutiny.
I have also read that you have
extensively studied the Michael Jackson FBI files.
What were the findings of the FBI files and
were child porn was ever discovered at Neverland?
No child porn was ever found at Neverland.
And in fact, there was a story that said
child porn had been found around the time of the trial
So the judge and the prosecutor both released
a stipulation publicly which was that:
No child pornography was ever found at Neverland
or at any of Michael Jackson's properties.
So that's not just something that the fans say.
That's the judge in the trial and even the prosecutor
said that there was no child porn.
In terms of what the FBI files tell us, ah, what they tell us
is that for over a decade, the FBI was intermittently
involved in investigating Michael Jackson.
There's no evidence of sustained surveillance or
sustained investigation, only of the authorities
occasionally calling the FBI to assist them
with their own investigations, but nonetheless,
the files tell us that more than 20 different FBI departments
investigated Michael Jackson at one time or another,
and none of them found any evidence of any wrongdoing.
Perhaps the most compelling piece of information
that came out of those files was that
when the prosecutors in the 2003 - '05 Arvizo case
sent away all of the computers that they seized at Neverland
to the FBI for analysis, the FBI was unable to find
anything incriminating on a single one of them.
So the FBI files don't exonerate Michael Jackson,
but they certainly don't incriminate him.
In 2005, there was a study done by ABC
with the top psychiatrists in the country and they all concluded that
Michael Jackson’s behavior would be very rare amongst pedophiles.
And there are other psychologists and psychiatrists who echo that belief.
Someone who is always trying to dispute that notion
is a man named Jim Clemente.
Jim Clemente, to this day, believes that Michael Jackson
does fit the profile of a pedophile and that Michael Jackson
did have child porn at Neverland.
They found, um, images
and I think they were of a photoshoot with
Michael Jackson's nephew,
Taj.
I think he was still a teenager.
And there's a picture that's on the internet that I
Um, It's a picture of Michael. You see that?
WHAT?! OH MY…. Yes, yes.
- So there are pictures in this series where’s he actually- he’s actually
GRABBING their cloth and trying to RIP it off him,
laughing, and joking, and trying to get him naked.
And he's I mean, he's virtually naked in this picture
- This is his NEPHEW... this FORTY something year old man - Yeah..
And why is he posing in a picture where Michael's
shirt is open, exposing his chest and
this kid's chest- I mean-
- He's basically naked! - upper body is basically naked, he’s got no underwear on,
right next to Michael Jackson.
I mean, it's disgusting.
My name is Taj Jackson. I'm the nephew of Michael Jackson.
"3T! 3T! 3T! 3T! 3T"
I wait for the day when I can say that girl's mine
Cuz I would do anything for you, yes I would.
I'll give you love ...
You know, and I know it's not gonna be put to rest,
but I hope that it's really put to rest
because these pictures have been circulating.
These pictures are annoying that they're circulating.
You know, we sued one of the tabloids because they
said that they were child pornography and we had them retract that,
because that's not what they were. They were for an album.
They were for a single cover, "Why".
I was wandering in the rain...
My uncle was doing the music video for
"Stranger in Moscow" at the time and we came down to visit him.
but also, we were “Let's take this opportunity since we're all here,
Let's do the 'Why' photoshoot as well."
There was wardrobe. There was a camera director. There was makeup.
We wanted to do something edgy for our "Why" photoshoot.
We wanted the guys and the girls and we and we thought we were "too cute"
You know a 3T like too "saccharine" and we wanted to have some “edge”
some- you know? Something to us.
It's not like I can't escape what's in my soul. - It's frustrating because this is what they do all the time in this way.
Luckily I was involved in it, you know? This was my younger brother, TJ.
If he was here, he'd be even probably more upset than I am right now.
Like it's implied that TJ was clueless or TJ didn't know what was going on.
TJ was very aware of what was going on. TJ wanted him to go farther!
I was uncomfortable taking off my shirt, and so I did have to take off my shirt.
It was never like he said, "No, you take off your shirt and you do this and that."
It was whatever we wanted to do because we wanted to be edgy.
And it worked because people are talking about it!
Now, unfortunately, they're trying to dirty it, but it was edgy.
He mentioned that you know, Michael's laughing in that- because we were joking!
We, you know, for us, we wanted to do something edgy!
But we always laughed when we were around my uncle
and he laughed when he was around us, and so
that should tell you something: that there was no tension. You're not seeing our faces like
"We don't want to do this" or whatever because we were pushing him to do this.
It really- it makes me feel angry to be honest, um, just because
That photo shoot was a great memory for me
and to hear someone try and dirty it up in that way?
The way they're trying to twist it as if my uncle came and said,
"Hey, I'm just gonna start ripping off clothes." That's farthest from the truth.
There was plenty of people there, you know,
that witnessed everything that would back up
you know- my story or my uncle's story if he was alive.
But at the same time this guy who
basically is just guessing what happened
at the photo shoot by pictures.
What gets me upset is just people-
outside people judging my uncle without knowing the scenario.
One thing I do want to say is you know,
people like that that just, you know, on the outside,
And he's supposed to be a professional?
And you hear him. He sounds giddy, you know?
He sounds like someone that is just spiteful and hateful
and it's those kind of people like-
they need something in their life. They really do, you know?
Leave our family alone.
You never done things that was missing in your life?
You just go back to do it, and Mike just like to just have great fun
and the stuff he liked to do, adults don't like doing that.
I think he had more fun hanging out with just everyday people
that he didn't even know who they were, you know?
Either they were local people or touristsor whatever
and he didn't even know who they were, you know?
He'd just meet ‘em and talk to ‘em,
get to know a little bit: “Hey you wanna come out to the ranch?"
You were invited to Michael Jackson's Neverland before.
- I mean, it was amazing. I've been there, probably 8 times.
- 8 times?
- Yeah! I spent the night. The first time I ever went was actually the time I spent the night.
He walked us through his entire house, um,
his bedroom, his memorabilia room, bathrooms, every-
every place in his house.
We were like, telling him how beautiful it was,
and he was like, "You've never been here before?!"
and my friends and I looked at each other like,
"Nope, we sure haven't, like-
when would we have been here?"
You know? So he would invite- if there were fans sitting outside,
he would, like, see us and tell Violet, who was security,
to let us in and he would let us do whatever.
- So that speaks volume to just
how easily he trusts people to like- come into his life, even.
- Yeah, I mean
unfortunately, he trusted a lot of people he shouldn't have trusted in his life.
- they go, "oh you slept in the same bedroom as him".
It's like I don't think you understand. Michael Jackson's bedroom is 2 stories,
and it has like- like 3 bathrooms and this and that,
so when I slept in his bedroom, yeah
but you have to understand the whole scenario,
and the thing is with Michael
is that he's not very good at explaining himself,
and he never really has been.
- Michael Jackson, his bedroom was 2 stories
so when you first walked in, I didn't realize at first it was his bedroom
because his bed wasn't there on the bottom floor.
but it was just, it was kind of- very cluttered with a lot of things.
I like- actually sat on his bed and he was just kind of
just talking about Neverland to us, and
that was surreal.
Michael was going to Miami, so myself and a couple of friends
flew in from Europe to spend some time with him.
And before he had to go,
he told us that we could stay and that we can enjoy Neverland as much as we wanted.
While the ranch manager took us to the main house,
he told me that Michael had said to give us the Royal Treatment,
And we sure got the Royal Treatment.
When we went up to the main house,
all the staff were lined up on the stairs welcoming us,
and they told us that there-
we could move around as freely as we wanted to.
There were no places that were off-limits.
- And this was 16 years ago,
so it's been a while, but I just remember like-
being completely in shock the whole time.
Most people are just-
I can't believe that he let us in his house like that.
Several weeks later,
after we'd already come back to classes after 9/11,
I was working as a work-study in the music department.
So, he came in to register for private guitar lessons.
He always carried his guitar with him everywhere he went
and um, we had a nice conversation.
He remembered me from our program meeting.
We had a little chat, exchanged pleasantries,
and he gave me his form,
and as I went to register him for these private lessons,
I saw his name for the first time, which was Jordan Chandler.
and I believe he told me his first name,
but I didn't know his last name at that point.
And when I saw Jordan Chandler on a piece of paper, I just-
I couldn't quite place it then either.
Um, it just sounded very very familiar,
and keep in mind, at the time , um,
Jordan Chandler's name wasn't widely known
because in the U.S., you know, alleged crimes of sex abuse,
particularly when they're minors, are very protected.
but I went online, and I 'Asked Jeeves'- dating myself-
and um, I suddenly realized that he was in fact the first accuser from 1993.
So Evan Chandler and June Chandler, originally June Wong,
had a child named Jordan Chandler who turns out to be the first alleged victim.
June Chandler divorced Evan Chandler and married a man named David Schwartz.
Charles, can you tell me about Evan Chandler?
So Evan Chandler was born in New York.
He was actually born Evan Charmatz, but he wanted a career as a screenwriter,
so he moved to California and changed his name from Charmatz to Chandler
because he thought that Charmatz was too Jewish-sounding.
He became a dentist, but he didn't really enjoy it and also was not really very good at it.
He was censured by the regulatory board for shoddy work.
He was also accused at one point of sexually assaulting
a female patient while he was working on her.
He had a very kind of a brief career as a screenwriter.
He got a screenwriting credit around 1993 on the film, 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights'.
We're men, we're men in tights. We roam around the forest looking for fights.
Apparently, he was working on Mel Brooks
when he came up with the 'Men in Tights' idea-
or he said his son came up with the 'Men in Tights' idea-
this is the same 13-year-old boy, and apparently,
maybe Mel was under some kind of ether or anesthetic
but he decided it was a great idea
and went along with the dentist and they put the movie together.
I would imagine a dentist to the stars would be exposed
to a lot of the glamour in Hollywood.
He can see his successful customers talking on the phone making deals
and it looks so easy to someone on the outside, you know?
And he figured he wanted to get a little piece of the pie and get you know?
Stop drilling teeth and maybe become a producer and really make some big bucks.
So Michael Jackson is in Los Angeles
with some of his team and they're driving along
Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills and the car breaks down.
There's a lady in the area who sees Michael Jackson stranded by the side of the road
and calls her husband who works at a business
called Rent-A-Wreck, which is a car rental business.
Rent-A-Wreck is owned by Dave Schwartz.
So Dave Schwartz calls his wife June
because he knows that Jordan Chandler, her son, is a massive Michael Jackson fan.
There was one employee at Rent-A-Wreck who said that when June arrived,
she was kind of forcing Jordie on Michael Jackson,
almost like trying to emotionally blackmail him.
So that's how the numbers got exchanged and they ended up staying in touch.
So, a friendship develops between
Michael Jackson and the Chandler family, excluding Evan Chandler.
During this period, Michael Jackson would have stay-overs at their house.
They would come over and sleepover at Michael Jackson’s house.
Where is Evan Chandler during this period of time?
Evan Chandler was pretty much an absent father.
He owed almost $70,000 in unpaid child support.
He had been rowing with June about how infrequently he was seeing his son.
She was trying to get Evan to take Jordan more often and he was refusing.
He had his own new family, like June did.
He'd remarried and had kids with another lady, and
they were struggling to get Evan to engage with Jordie.
It was not until he discovered that his son was now
friends with Michael Jackson that he suddenly became
interested in seeing him again.
My recollection was that he was not very interested in Jordie,
prior to the time that Jordie took up with Michael
and as soon as Jordie took up with Michael,
Evan became the most interested parent in the world.
They seemed to be getting on quite well
Evan even at one point asked him to build an extra wing onto the house
so he could come and stay more often
And then when that idea didn't work,
he said, "Well, I've got a better idea.
Why don't you just build me a new house?"
and then that didn't happen either,
June dropped the bombshell that she and Jordie were
thinking of going on tour with Michael,
and then Evan, who previously had been an absent father
and wasn't paying his child support, and wasn't really interested in seeing his son at all,
all of a sudden became enraged about the idea that Jordan
would be out of the country for a few months
and that was when the relationship really took a
dramatic turn towards the negative.
What happened was Evan had begun making strange comments and
threats to June and Dave and Jordan about Michael
that he was going to make allegations.
He was behaving so erratically,
that they feared he was going to do something crazy
So the next time they spoke to him on the phone,
they tape recorded him.
This man is going to be humiliated beyond belief.
He will not believe what is going to happen to him,
beyond- beyond his worst nightmares.
He will not sell one more record.
If I go through with this, I win big time. I will get everything I want.
They will be destroyed forever.
That's a fact, Dave. Michael's career will be over. - and does that help Jordie?
Michael's career will be over. - and does that help Jordie?
and does that help Jordie? - That's irrelevant to me.
He's talking about how he's furious that Michael has stop phoning him
and stopped taking his calls,
and how Michael has stolen his ex-wife and torn the family apart
and how he's plotting his revenge, and he says that,
"Everything is moving in accordance with a plan that's not just mine."
and this phone call occurred BEFORE Jordan Chandler made any allegations
against Michael Jackson, and in this phone call,
Evan Chandler alludes to a "nasty attorney".
This attorney I found, and I interviewed SEVERAL-
and I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find.
Once I make that phone call,
this guy's just 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.
It will be a- a massacre if I don't get what I want.
and that attorney turns out to be Barry Rothman.
My name is Geraldine Hughes.
I was the legal secretary in 1993 for Barry Rothman,
who was the attorney of Evan Chandler, the first accuser
that came against Michael on child molestation.
I was working for him, he hired me.
When I came in for an interview one day,
and he hired me for the job as his legal secretary.
I was the only legal secretary for him.
He was really an entertainment attorney
and he had a history of being a good negotiator
in the entertainment field, though.
Whenever Evan would call Barry Rothman's office,
Barry Rothman would tell us to put the call on hold
and he'd walk all the way back to his office,
shut the door, and that's how he took all of Evan's calls.
He was the only client he did that for.
Anybody else call, if he was at-away from his office,
He'd just pick up the phone and say, "Okay.. woo woo woo"
You know, say what he had to say and then he'd hang up.
But he didn't do that with Evan.
Evan was always behind closed doors.
Evan had already retained a lawyer.
Jordan Chandler was insisting that Michael had never touched him.
Anthony Pellicano, who is Michael's private investigator,
goes around to interview Jordan Chandler and questions him
for about an hour, I believe, and asks him all sorts of questions,
and very direct questions:
"Have you ever seen Michael Jackson naked?",
"Have you ever been naked in a bed with Michael Jackson?"
"Has he ever touched you?", et cetera, et cetera
and Jordan Chandler says "No" to everything.
At the end of the conversation, Jordan Chandler reiterates that
Michael has never done anything wrong to him,
and says that his dad is just trying to get money.
It started out a custody issue.
Evan Chandler wanted the custody of Jordie
because in order to coerce a child into saying something that's not true,
you need time with that child.
Evan Chandler goes to custody court and says,
"I want to have a week of custody with my son,"
and June Chandler agrees on the basis
that he'll be returned after 7 days.
- And he never gave him back. He kept him.
He never brought him back, and during that time that he had him,
he came into my office and he was behind closed doors with my attorney
the- the- Jordie Chandler was.
I actually opened up the door one day. I was leaving,
and I opened up the door and Jordie was in the back!
And he kind of looked a little startled when-
Because I looked and I saw him and I was like:
Nobody in the office knew that he was even there.
You know, we're like, "How did he even get here?"
and I opened up the door, so I had a few encounters
with Jordie Chandler coming into the office,
and to me, it just looked like a coaching session.
While Jordan was in Evan's custody,
Evan sedated him with a drug called sodium amytal.
He did this supposedly so that he could perform a dental procedure,
But it's a very dubious story that he's telling
because there's no reason to use sodium amytal for a dental procedure.
He gives him this drug, which has a reputation in the 1980s as a truth serum.
The problem is that sodium amytal is not a truth serum.
In just around 1993, the evidence was beginning to emerge that in fact
sodium amytal was the opposite of a truth serum.
It made people highly suggestible.
So, by today, by 2000s, Psychology Today and other journals
were saying that it was completely false
that sodium amytal had a reputation as a truth serum.
- So, I'm just gonna take a step back for everyone.
Evan Chandler makes a phone call to David Schwartz
talking about how he is going to make allegations against Michael Jackson.
Jordan Chandler subsequently denies all allegations.
Evan Chandler then gets custody of Jordan Chandler and never returns him.
It was only supposed to be for a week,
and during this period that Evan Chandler had Jordan Chandler,
there were numerous unethical methods
that we know of being used against Jordan,
notably the use of sodium amytal and the one on one coaching
between Jordan Chandler and Barry Rothman.
So by the end of Jordan's stay, he changes his story.
He went into Evan's custody saying that
he wasn't abused by Michael Jackson to now claiming that,
"Yes, in fact, I had been abused."
So Charles with this new shocking statement by Jordan Chandler,
what are Evan Chandler's next moves?
So after Jordan changes his story,
Evan, instead of going straight to the police-
as you'd expect a parent to do if their child has just said that they've been
that they'd been sexually abused by someone,
goes directly to Michael Jackson and his legal team
and starts demanding $20 million.
- But Evan had a desire to be a filmmaker.
He was trying to get the money so he can make a movie.
So when Evan meets Michael to confront him
and demand the money, there were witnesses in the room
who said that he threw his arms around Michael
and greeted him with a hug, like an old friend.
I was seated in our big conference room next to Michael
and the father came into the room and saw Michael
and went quickly across the room and hugged him and
said, "Michael, it's been so long since I've seen you."
which was just... flabbergasting!
because here's a- here's a father claiming
that this man had abused his son sexually
and rushes across the room to hug him?
Impossible!
Evan's lawyer gets in touch with Michael Jackson's camp and says,
“$20 million and nobody will ever hear about these allegations."
But Michael Jackson is adamant that he is NOT going to give Evan Chandler $20 million.
The counter offer which comes back from Michael Jackson's camp
is a deal for 3 scripts and they say, "You'll be paid $350,000 per script."
- He said, "I'll contribute that to your film project,
just to give you and your son a chance to bond,
to mend, because at that time, Evan was saying,
"He's stolen my son's affection."
He put that in the paperwork. He said,
"My son is being starstruck by this superstar.
He's stolen my friends affection".
and so Michael just simply said,
"This would be a great opportunity for you and Jordan to reconnect
because you'll be able to write them together."
Rothman comes back and says, "That's nowhere near what we're asking for.
That's less than $2 million, you know? We're not going for that."
Michael's camp then makes another offer which is for a
single script paid at $350,000-
a third of what they'd initially offered.
Barry Rothman is shocked by the low figure.
In response to that, Evan panics and starts trying
to go back to the million dollar deal, and
Anthony Pellicano comes back and says,
"That's never going to happen."
Let me ask you for the last time: he has rejected the deal, period?
For one project? Yes.
OK, so then there is no deal. - Right!
- Remember? I said take it or leave it- - Bingo! Bingo!
- OK. Then we don't have to have a discussion about this again.
- OK - Alright.
- That's where it's at.
- I've already told you that we think this is an extortion attempt from the beginning.
- Well you can say that! - I've already made those statements time and time again.
- You can say that, Anthony. I understand!
but it fell apart because you offered 3 and then recanted on it.
Meanwhile, the custody situation happens between Evan and June.
but what happened was June filed an ex parte motion
An ex parte motion means: show up in court the next day.
She was trying to get him back now,
and so we typed a little declaration, and they went to court.
The went to court on the ex parte, but see,
he had been negotiating with Michael for a whole month
for the $20 million to make the movie.
He goes to court on a hearing for the custody, a family law judge,
he said nothing to that judge about his "suspicion"
or "my child is- I think my child is...", you know being molested.
He didn't say anything. So the judge ordered him to return Jordie back instantly.
And in order to maintain custody,
Evan has to go to the psychiatrist and have Jordie disclose.
- I can promise you 3 days later
is when we got the breaking news,
so he never took him back.
He took him to the doctor that he had already queried about molestation.
He sort of acts out of haste
and goes and triggers the criminal proceedings
as a knee-jerk reaction to the custody situation
and then that means he loses control of the situation and the negotiations cease
because the police are now involved.
This NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.
Good evening.
Michael Jackson is in Bangkok Thailand tonight,
where he has now postponed 2 concerts,
claiming that he is ill. While back in Los Angeles,
there's a press frenzy over
investigations into child abuse by Jackson.
- ..remains the Children's Services report detailing
the charges by a thirteen-year-old boy.
- CBS News has had access to..
The media went into a frenzy
because after the Michael Jackson case kicked in,
basically their ratings went through the roof.
It was astronomical the difference that this story made
to the ratings of shows like
"Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair".
- I cannot think of a story that's bigger
I mean, this is the story- if not of the decade, well
certainly of the decade, but probably of the-
One of the great stories of the century!
This was an era with no internet
and no social media, and so there was a real thirst
for knowledge about Michael Jackson because he was
the biggest, most famous person in the world, but
people really knew basically nothing about him.
There was a need to keep the story going every day
They needed new Michael Jackson stories
because that was where the ratings were coming from,
so the impetus was there for journalists to seize on
anything- anything that came up,
anything that looked like a scoop or a scandal, or looked
like it might bag them ratings, they just ran with it.
We will fly stories.
We will take a shred of fact and go with it, like a
great footballer with a ball. We will spin down the field
with that and try and score a goal with it, and
maybe we will, maybe we won't, but we'll take a shred
of evidence and try and try to turn it into a story.
I will say that I am particularly upset
by the handling of this mass matter
by the incredible, terrible mass media
At every opportunity,
the media has dissected and manipulated
these allegations to reach their own conclusions.
I ask all of you to wait and hear the truth
before you label or condemn me.
Don't treat me like a criminal, as I am innocent.
- When you buy a story,
there's always the shadow of doubt that
are they telling you the truth
or are they telling you what you want to hear?
They started waving around
10,000
20,000
50,000
$100,000 to anybody that was prepared to say,
"I have met Michael Jackson
and I've got something bad to say about him".
- Yeah, a friend of mine told National Enquirer that
he knew some family that knew the Jacksons
and he called me on the phone, asked me to come to the hotel.
I said, "I'm here to help Michael," and they said,
"Oh, no, that ain't what we want with you-
We heard that your boys spent nights at the house.
We want to know if Michael tampered with them, or
just picked them up, or touched them in any kind of way.
If he did we got $200,000 for you".
I said, "huh?"- He said, "So what I'm gonna do-
I'm gonna draw a check up, a contract up.
show you we're fixing to give you $200,000".
- So then you go to Germany,
you get another 20,000.
You go to Italy, another 20,000.
Before you know it, you're up a hundred
a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars, and
that is enough for a family to come forward and talk.
It happened repeatedly
where people of dubious character were treated as
credible sources when anybody with just an iota of
investigative savvy would know that these are not
people you want to be staking your reputation on.
They were people who changed their stories
depending on how much money you offered them.
The first time I heard the story about, um, Jackson,
his hand was outside the kid's pants.
They were asking 100 grand.
As soon as their price went up to 500 grand,
the hand went inside the pants, so, come on.
But basically, LaToya you're drawing your own conclusion
that Michael abused young men, young boys
- No, I'm not drawing my own conclusion that
he abused young boys. That's totally-
That's totally wrong. I am not drawing my own conclusion.
LaToya Jackson at the time
was married to a man called Jack Gordon
who was involved with Genovese Mafia.
He was a very disturbed character.
He was very violent and abusive.
He pimped LaToya out like a prostitute.
He forced her to do semi pornographic magazine shoots- that kind of thing.
and if she disagreed with him or refused to do anything that he told her to,
then he would either beat her
or he threaten to have members of her family killed.
- This went on for many, many, many years. - He literally said I'm gonna kill you, your brother,
- Everybody? - Yes.
No, not everybody, just myself, Michael and Janet.
This is not some excuse which
has been dreamed up subsequently,
this was known and reported at the time.
- He grabbed a bedspread,
he put it over her head, started to strangle her with it.
At the same time, he grabbed her arm
and started to twist it so badly that she felt like it was gonna come out.
And so all of a sudden, LaToya,
who'd been previously speaking out in favor of Michael
suddenly u-turned started selling interviews
claiming that her brother in fact was guilty.
In early 1994, LaToya appeared on an Australian TV show
and the host of the show realized that there was something wrong with the situation.
He realized that all of the answers LaToya was giving
were being fed to her by somebody else who he
identified on the show as her husband, Jack Gordon.
Well, Miss Jackson carried on with
that nonsense for about another 25 minutes,
all the time being prompted by someone in the studio,
but off-camera, presumably her husband manager
Jack Gordon.
- People like you will let this go on
and it's very very wrong. - Who's talking to you in the background?
- So I... I... I refuse to sit here and listen to you - Who's...
and listen to you talk this way. I think it's wrong of you. Who's talking to you in the background?
- So I have nothing else to save you whatsoever.
And when he questioned her about it on the air,
she just looked like a deer in the headlights
and suddenly stood up and stormed off the show
and wouldn't answer any more questions.
I can't hear you but I definitely want you to hear
what I'm saying, because you do have a serious
problem, sir. Whatever it is, I don't know,
but you do need to go see a psychiatrist. Goodbye.
Her husband decided that
there was a lot of money to be made from
switching sides and saying that Michael was guilty
and indeed, there was.
I'm sorry, are you feeling OK?
Are you alright? Are you alright?
Do you need a handkerchief or something like that?
- After the allegation hit, they-
prior to that, they were on opposite ends
because June never did agree with the allegation
But after the allegation hit,
they were meeting in my attorney
David Schwartz, June Chandler, Evan Chandler,
and my attorney.
They were all meeting behind closed doors
in my attorney's office.
- I decided to drop the case ‘cause
I, at that time, as an attorney
did not like to be involved in cases that I didn't believe in.
And I heard Evan blurt out, he said,
'It's my ass that's in danger of going to prison right here!'
Inside the law office,
the only thing they were asking for was money.
"Where's his money? How much?"
They were sending discovery in
and the discovery was only trying to find his money.
That was crazy too. I'm like,
"Y'all just looking for money?
You're not looking for justice?
You're only looking for money?"
I mean, my mind EXPLODED
when I- I found out who he was and I-
I definitely told some people who were close to me
I didn't confront him though, because at that point in time, you know-
I knew that I believed Michael was innocent,
but the fact that matter is I didn't know 100%
and if there was even like- one shred of doubt,
I didn't want to risk re-traumatizing somebody who was potentially a victim.
And remember, at that point in time, Jordan Chandler was the only accuser
and the media certainly wasn't focused on it.
They were more focused on you know, Michael Jackson's new album release
and um, you know, it wasn't all flattering but you know,
it seemed like this- this was, you know, water under the bridge
and something that didn't need to be addressed.
He was a nice guy, I mean, I'm gonna be honest.
He was he was very nice, always very polite.
He would always carry a guitar around with him.
He made his own music.
He would describe it as "Pop/R&B like Michael Jackson".
I remember that because he said it many times, very clearly.
He would wear fedoras. Um..
Yeah, that was- that was Jordan.
What were your determinations when you examined him?
- He seemed to essentially be a healthy guy.
The lupus is an autoimmune disease and he only had skin involvement,
which had destroyed part of the skin of his nose and
his nasal surgeries and all were really reconstructive to try and look normal.
- Lupus is an autoimmune disease, as you've said,
where the immune system, one of our larger systems
that's designed to protect us against germs and viruses,
actually attacks our own body's cells and tissues.
Many patients with lupus have vitiligo, but he had a form of skin lupus
called discoid lupus which affects about 40% of the patients with lupus,
and you do get depigmentation.
Michael Jackson suffered from a skin disease called vitiligo.
He was accused throughout his career for decades by the media
of deliberately bleaching his skin from brown to white
because they said that he hated his race.
- Is your skin lighter because you don't like being black?
He insisted throughout his life that he in fact suffered from vitiligo.
- I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin.
It's something that I cannot help.
and then when he passed away,
his autopsy report confirmed that he did indeed suffer from vitiligo.
Vitiligo is a disease which attacks the pigment in the skin
and what it does is it turns your skin a very pale white color-
almost translucent, and it makes it very sensitive to the sun.
So it's a very debilitating condition.
- One thing you say to lupus patients:
Don't let the sun hit your skin.
- That's right, ultraviolet light. - So that umbrella, which he'd
carry out in the sun may have been just that? - That's exactly correct.
So what it does is it doesn't you know,
turn you from brown to white all in one go, of course.
It happens in tiny increments
and it happens at different speeds all over your body
so it can leave you looking almost like a
paint splatter or blood splatter.
It's very random.
It's very interesting. It affects the neck, the face,
the- the upper part of the wrists, and the groin.
So the allegation by Evan Chandler
was that his son could accurately describe discoloration
on Michael Jackson's genitals which had been caused by vitiligo.
They seek and obtain a warrant which allows them to
force Michael Jackson to submit to a naked photoshoot by the police.
- I have been forced to submit
to a dehumanizing and humiliating examination
by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and the
Los Angeles Police Department earlier this week.
They served a search warrant on me which allowed them to view and photograph my body,
including my penis, my buttocks, my lower torso, thighs,
and any other error that they wanted.
They were supposedly looking for any discoloration:
spotting, blotches, or other evidence of a skin color disorder,
called 'vitiligo', which I have previously spoken about.
The warrant also directed me to cooperate in any examination
of my body by their physician to determine the condition of my skin
including whether I have vitiligo or any other skin disorder.
The warrant further stated that I had no right to refuse the examination or photographs,
and if I failed to cooperate with them, they would introduce that refusal
at any trial as an indication of my guilt.
It was the most humiliating ordeal of my life-
One that no person should ever have to suffer,
and even after experiencing the indignity-
of this search,
the parties involved were still not satisfied,
and wanted to take even more pictures.
It was a nightmare,
a horrifying nightmare, but if this is what
I have to endure to prove my innocence,
my complete innocence,
so be it.
There's a book by Evan Chandler's brother, Ray,
where he quotes Evan as having a discussion with his lawyer, Larry Feldman
And they're talking about the vitiligo situation.
The DA's office has told the Chandler's that Michael has
a skin condition called vitiligo and that the skin condition
can constantly change the way that your body looks
because it's constantly attacking the pigment, and so,
the District Attorney has told the Chandler's that this is
great for them because if Jordan Chandler's description
matches, then it matches!
But if it doesn't match, then they can just say,
"Oh, well, that's because of the vitiligo".
So Larry Feldman says, "Either way, we win!"
- So after they searched Michael Jackson's body,
No arrest warrant was issued. Charles,
what were the initial reports about this body search?
In early 1994, law enforcement sources told
2 different media outlets: Reuters and USA Today
that there was no match.
Jordan Chandler's drawing of Michael Jackson's genitalia
have since been leaked, and when you really look at it
with words such as "my theory" and "be selective",
it's questionable whether these are truly Jordan's own descriptions
or instructions from someone else.
It's also important to note that Evan Chandler has
admittingly given Michael Jackson painkillers through
injections to his buttocks. So at the very least,
Evan saw Jackson's gluteus and that he had discoloration
on his lower body region.
The Smoking Gun obtains a document
which is called, they say, "The Linden Affidavit".
It's written by a Detective Linden who works for the
authorities that are investigating the Jordan Chandler case.
And she has taken from Jordan Chandler a description
of Michael Jackson's genitals, and
Jordan Chandler tells Linden that Michael Jackson is circumcised.
When they conduct the body search,
it turns out Michael Jackson is in fact not circumcised,
meaning his description has not matched.
What had happened was that Barry Rothman
was being sued by Michael Jackson for extortion,
and so he quit representing the Chandler's.
The Chandler's then proceeded to hire Gloria Allred,
who held a press conference claiming that the
Chandler's were ready for a criminal case.
- to make a charge against a celebrity...
Gloria Allred is shortly fired and Barry Rothman,
who's now working in the background, suggests
Larry Feldman as a replacement, an attorney who is
willing to push for a civil case.
Charles, what is the difference between a civil case and a criminal case?
A civil case is where you sue somebody, and that's for money.
Whereas a criminal case is brought by the state, the government,
and that's a case where if you're convicted, then you go to prison.
So they're two very separate processes.
What happens is the criminal case stalls because
they can't find any evidence to suggest that Michael's done anything wrong.
So they raid his house: they don't find anything incriminating.
They raid his family home: they don't find anything incriminating.
They raid his doctor's offices: they don't find anything incriminating.
Of course, you've got a boy at the center of the case
who at first said he wasn't molested then changed his
story and said that he was molested and only changed
his mind after being given sodium amytal.
So then they go off looking for other victims,
and they can't find any.
- In fact, if anybody wants to go back to 1993
when I was interviewed by the Santa Barbara Police Department,
I sat there and I gave them the names.
They're on record. They have all of this information.
But they were scanning Michael Jackson.
All they cared about was trying to find something on Michael Jackson.
- Who you said, by the way, did not abuse you. - who Michael was innocent!
and that was what the interview was about with the police in 1993.
I told them, "he is not that guy!" and they said,
"Well, maybe you just don't understand your friend."
And I said, "No, I know the difference between pedophiles
and somebody who's not a pedophile because I've been molested!
Here's the names! Go investigate!
And these detectives hammer away at Corey Feldman:
"What happened with you and Michael Jackson?" and over and over and over again,
Corey Feldman says, "Nothing happened, I have racked my brain!
I've thought about, 'well did something happen and I didn't realize it?' No! Nothing happened.”
and they don't want to hear it! It seems like that is not what they want to hear.
They hammer away at him over and over again for more than an hour.
What's really amazing is at one point he goes “You know,
I know what it’s like to be molested. I WAS molested."
He names this person that he accuses of molesting him,
and even says what his occupation is-
These detectives show very little interest in pursuing that angle
and bring it right back to Michael Jackson,
"Well, did you talk to Michael Jackson about that?"
So the criminal case is basically going nowhere
but meanwhile, the civil case is moving
through the court system at the usual speed.
So the judge, in October of 1993, orders depositions.
A deposition is where you're forced to state your case,
to give your evidence under oath.
It can be done in court or it can be done under oath
somewhere else and audiotaped or videotaped.
Now, he orders that Michael Jackson is to be deposed by January '94.
The problem with this is that if you have a civil case which comes before a criminal case,
and you're forced to give away your defense,
then what that does is gives the Prosecutor's a front-row seat for your defense,
They can then go away and tailor their criminal case to circumvent your defense case.
So for example, if you say I have an alibi in the civil case,
Then the prosecutors can go and tailor their criminal case
where they change all the dates and they could just change the case to get around it.
If you have a witness, they go and discredit the witness
or they put the charges on a day when the witness wasn't there
so they just take your defense out chunk by chunk,
and by the time you come into a Criminal Court, where your life is on the line,
your freedom, rather than your bank balance,
you have no defense.
You've wasted your defense trying to save some money,
and now you're going to prison.
That is the problem with a civil case proceeding a criminal case.
Now from October 1993 to January 94,
Michael's defense goes back to court 4 different times and argues to the judge,
"We need the civil case delayed so it doesn't precede the
criminal case because this is unconstitutional.
If you force our client to give away his defense,
then you're denying him his constitutional right to a fair trial".
- Michael Jackson lost 2 very important motions that he should have won.
One was a preference.
Preference has to do with either: he was too young to remember
and there's a memory issue, or he's too old.
What Larry Feldman keeps arguing is that
because the complainant is a child,
his memory is not fully developed,
and he would be at risk of losing his memory if his testimony was not heard quickly.
- Jordie Chandler was 14 at the time. He wasn't too young or too old.
The Jackson lawyers are going to court again and again and again
to try to get this deposition put back- to get the civil case put back
so the criminal case can precede it.
Meanwhile, the Chandler's are fighting hard to stop that from happening.
- Evan Chandler was asking the court to push the civil case before-
while the criminal case was going because normally,
the criminal case has to take precedence over the civil case.
He shouldn't have one on that one because constitutionally,
that went against Michael's constitutional right. He won on that one, too.
Michael's deposition is due on a particular date in January '94.
What happens is initially he's saved by the Los Angeles earthquake of '94,
which happens the day before he's supposed to be deposed.
That buys them an extra week, but within that week,
they're again not able to postpone the civil case deposition.
- When the judge is not ruling in your favor, that tells an attorney:
maybe we need to settle this because he's not ruling in our favor right now.
And so on the eve,
literally the night before he would have been
forced to give away his defense under oath,
The civil settlement is reached.
The civil case is settled.
- He was negotiating.
Johnnie Cochran came on board, he was negotiating with the insurance company.
At first, the insurance company said, no, they weren't gonna pay it,
and he went back and forth back and forth and he nego-
Johnnie Cochran negotiated. He was a great negotiator,
because he was a P.I. Attorney. He started out a P.I. Attorney.
and he convinced the insurance company to pay the settlement.
When Michael settled the case, the judge- um,
They made him drop his extortion claim,
so the real story hasn't been told.
The real story is that Michael Jackson was the victim of an elaborate
extortion scheme that launched the false allegation.
reporter: Superstar, Michael Jackson,
and the teenage boy who filed a civil molestation suit against him
have reached a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement.
Attorneys on both sides appeared today at a joint press conference
to announce a mutual resolution of the lawsuit,
but lawyers are not discussing the actual amount of the settlement.
Now, the civil settlement includes a specific clause
which says that it doesn't preclude anybody involved
from testifying in a criminal case, and then to reiterate that,
at the press conference announcing the settlement,
Larry Feldman specifically denies that this will have any impact
on the criminal case. - Has Michael Jackson bought your client's silence?
- I am not going to have anything to do with talking
about the terms of the settlement and
Nobody's bought anyone's silence.
A civil case is only about money if they-
you know, and I tell people this too:
we're in a state where they could have went after criminal-
him criminally and came back after the money: all they wanted.
A lot of people think because he settled the civil case, that that voided the criminal.
That's not true. It did not void the criminal.
The reason they never came after him criminally in '93
was because they couldn't find any corroborating evidence
to agree with Jordie Chandler's story.
As a matter of fact, they found out that the description
he gave of Michael's body was not accurate.
If that was accurate, that was corroborating.
As of the summer of 1994,
the prosecution is running a grand jury long after the settlement
and calls witnesses to the grand jury and questions them about
whether Michael Jackson could have had plastic surgery to his penis to avoid a match.
Now, why would they be doing that?
Why would they be calling witnesses and asking those questions
if in fact the photographs had matched?
See, people need to know they never indicted Michael in '93
'cause they couldn't come up with enough evidence to indict him.
And so, the way they spinning it, they're spinning it:
"Well, oh he said also that that voided the-"
No, it did not.
If that prosecutor, Tom Sneddon, could find
could have found anything to corroborate that boy's story,
he would have still gone- gone after him criminally, too.
Victor Gutierrez is a freelance reporter, born in Chile.
According to him, he first went to a NABLA meeting in 1986.
What is NAMBLA? NAMBLA stands for North American Men Boys Love Association,
So it's basically a pro-pedophile group.
-Tell us about you infiltrating this group. -Actually, the infiltration was fairly easy, um,
They had a website. I paid $35. I joined the group.
They sent me a letter, um, praising me
for my courageous step in joining the organization.
I began to get e-mails from them. I was subscribed to their magazine.
They started to send me their magazine.
But they wouldn't allow me to attend any of their secret underground meetings
until I'd been a member for 3 years and
had been sponsored by another "active duty" member.
Every conversation that I had was about where to go to have sex with little boys,
how they could attract little boys,
how they could groom little boys.
That was their agenda.
So at this meeting, he overhears conversations talking about how
it would be great if Michael Jackson was a pedophile
because if Michael Jackson is a pedophile,
that makes it easier for societies to accept pedophilia as a whole.
So after this NAMBLA conference, after this 1986 conference,
it becomes Victor Gutierrez's mission to prove that Michael Jackson is a pedophile.
He starts befriending Michael Jackson's maids, former employees,
and he even approaches Joy Robson, Wade Robson's mother.
Joy Robson subsequently told him to get lost and
Joy Robson reported him to Michael Jackson.
This is in 1992, before allegations of Michael Jackson even rose.
So during the '93 allegations,
Victor Gutierrez served as a source for many journalists,
including but are not limited to Diane Dimond and Maureen Orth.
He also coaches Michael Jackson's former employees,
such as his maids, Blanca Francia and Adrian McManus,
notable ones, to sell their stories to tabloids.
In 1996, Victor Gutierrez wrote a book titled
"Michael Jackson Was My Lover", a book that glorified pedophilia
through the relationship between Michael Jackson and Jordan Chandler.
The Chandler family has since dismissed
Victor Gutierrez's book as pure fiction. The Chandler's-
Raymond Chandler, released a book in 2004 titled,
"All That Glitters".
Within days of Jordan Chandler and his family
settling his 1993 lawsuit against Michael Jackson,
I received a call from Jordan's uncle.
He wanted to do a book in which he would describe in detail
the allegation of molestation against Michael Jackson,
and he said that Jordan's father had given him all the information he needed for the book,
and believed it was outside the bounds of the confidentiality agreement,
because he would be the author.
After careful examination between
'Michael Jackson Was my Lover' and 'All That Glitters': these two books-
we have found many instances of consistent storytelling between the two books,
especially from Evan's point of view.
At times, the stories are even word-for-word the same.
Truthfully speaking, the only differences between the two books are the
supposed sexual acts between Michael Jackson and Jordan Chandler.
Now when you look at some of these parallel stories even deeper,
Gutierrez's book, which preceded the Chandler's book by 7 years,
even sources some stories directly to Evan.
So how would it be possible for Gutierrez to tell these confirmable stories first?
'Michael Jackson Was my Lover' also featured many documents
of the Chandler family that could only have come from Evan.
This proves that Victor Gutierrez,
a man who has an agenda for pushing Michael Jackson as a pedophile,
a man who had coached people to lie against Michael Jackson,
was in fact connected to Evan Chandler,
the father of the first accuser.
Ever since the Michael Jackson child molestation scandal broke,
we've gotten a constant stream of calls and letters from people
making dubious claims about the singer.
Frankly, we ignore most of them,
but when I heard the facts of this story,
I just had to go to Canada and check it out myself.
The journalist, Diane Dimond, got a tip from her source
that a child had been molested by Michael Jackson.
This child lived in Toronto, so she flew to Toronto with authorities to interview the boy.
I'd like to make a confession about something that
happened between me and Michael Jackson.
And this child proceeded to tell wild stories with vivid details.
- He started just touching like our stomach and things,
like he'd rub our stomach and then he-he'd get lower and then,
that's when I started saying like, "What are you doing?"
He said, "It's okay, don't worry. Bodies are meant to be touched."
He showed me this place like a saddle shop,
where he said he-- he said he gets stuff for his animals there.
I don't know what he got but-
- They're gonna' think you're making it up. - Yeah I know, I know.
But I don't care about his money, he can keep it.
His eyes are big and they're- they're dark, like cavernous
-like the sockets go right in, you know?
We showed the boy several photographs,
some of them were of Neverland employees,
and he was able to identify each and every one of them.
Yeah, that's him.. that's him.
I found him fairly believable too.
During police interviews, the child broke down
and confirmed that he had been coached.
At the end, it turned out he was coached by Rodney Allen.
- About Neverland? About Hayvenhurst?
About Disneyland? About Michael Jackson's body-
Where did he get all that information? - He got it from me.
- This kid is an A-1 Number One liar. - Professional.
Rodney Allen is currently serving a life sentence
in a Canadian prison for pedophilia.
Paula, a Michael Jackson investigator, has confirmed
through letters to Rodney Allen that
Rodney Allen was in fact connected to Victor Gutierrez.
In 1999, there was a blog post floating around the internet
that was said to be written by Rodney Allen,
but no one took it seriously at the time because there was no evidence
as to who authored the post.
Paula sent this blog post to Rodney Allen
and Rodney Allen has since confirmed that he in fact did write this confession,
and in the confession, this is what he talked
about in regards to the Jordan Chandler case.
This obviously doesn't prove anything concrete, but
it's still interesting that Rodney Allen,
a man who was connected to Victor Gutierrez,
a man who has a history of coaching kids to lie against Michael Jackson
had that to say.
The King of Pop chocks up a big win!
A jury has awarded Michael Jackson a whopping $2.7 million
for a defamation lawsuit he filed against freelance writer, Victor Gutierrez.
Gutierrez claimed on a tabloid TV show that he'd seen a
video of Jackson having sex with a boy.
This guy made it up out of thin air maliciously to hurt Michael,
and he told anybody and- anybody and everybody who would listen.
When it came time to prove it in this court,
he couldn't prove it.
Years later, in the early 2000s,
Victor Gutierrez again started spreading rumors regarding sexual abuse.
This time around the involvement of politicians in Chile.
A boy claimed he participated in these sexual activities
and was able to describe stories with vivid details.
It was later proven in court that the boy had never met this politician.
While questioned, the boy could not even remember the politician's name
and had to be prompted by Victor Gutierrez off camera.
It was later discovered that Gutierrez had paid this child
around 10 to 20 thousand pesos.
There were no other witnesses, nor proof,
just the words of a boy who were connected to Victor Gutierrez,
the same man who was connected to Evan Chandler.
And we also weren't- and I've been very transparent.
We weren't best friends. We weren't very close.
I kept, you know, him at arm's length
because I knew who he was, and I didn't really know how to deal with that.
And he was very close with, um-
I remember one other person in the program
who also was sort of like a pop R&B guy.
I believe he did production, and he also was a big Michael Jackson fan.
So I mean, of- when I think about the people in the program that he-
I saw him with, the people that he did surround himself with
were people who were Michael Jackson fans, you know?
I was told that at a party, um, Jordan
you know, played all of Michael's music,
danced like him, did all of his moves, um,
and that his apartment was almost sort of
a shrine to Michael,
that there was a lot of different like fan memorabilia.
It doesn't surprise me that people are scared to come out.
because um, you know, I have some flexibility I work for myself.
If I were in a corporate job, I might be scared too
because we don't really know the-
we don't really know who the powers that be are
behind 'Leaving Neverland', and, you know,
to speak out at this point,
might be cause a conflict of interest for somebody
if they're working with a big corporation, you know?
It could have really harmed their career, so I'm
not surprised that people would be afraid to come out.
So after the settlement,
Michael is married to Lisa Marie Presley and
goes to work on an album called 'HIStory'.
At a warehouse in London,
staff listened to the long-awaited new songs today
as they wrapped them ready to go on sale tomorrow.
The album called 'HIStory' contains 15 old hits
and 15 new songs.
Much of the content of the 'HIStory' album
you could argue, of course, all art is subject to interpretation
but it seems to be quite clearly influenced by what has happened to him
during the Jordan Chandler legal situation.
And also, once married to Lisa Marie Presley
and about to release the album,
he appears on PrimeTime with Diane Sawyer
along with Lisa Marie Presley and does an interview,
and during that interview,
although he does not discuss any specifics of the Jordan Chandler case,
He does say that he's innocent
and that there's no evidence to connect him to any crime.
The police photographs, that they took of me?
There was nothing that matched me to those charges.
- There was nothing that concurred. - That's why I'm sitting here talking to you today.
- There was nothing. - There was not one iota of information
that was found that could connect me to these charges - So when we heard..
-Nothing!
Now, the combination of the album
and the Diane Sawyer interview sends Evan Chandler into a rage,
and he claims that Michael Jackson has breached the non-disclosure part
of the settlement agreement, and so he files a lawsuit
and the remedy that he's seeking is that he wants
$60 million in damages and he also wants the court's permission
to also breach the non-disclosure agreement
and to release his own album called 'EVANStory'.
So he basically went to court and tried to get a court order
allowing him to release a rebuttal album on top of seeking $60 million.
That case rumbled on and on for about 6 years
and eventually was tossed out of court,
and he didn't get anything he was asking for.
You know in- in just discussions, ah,
You know, we were college students, you know, we
would have our- our discussions about our parents and
venting and that sort of thing.
He said that he felt very used by his parents
and that he wasn't close to them.
He never mentioned siblings either
so I don't know what was going on there, but um,
He did say multiple times that he was not close
to his family and that he felt that he was used by them.
I'm sure most of you are aware
of the recent television special that claimed
to give an honest, candid, and revealing look into the
private life of one of the world's most successful
and controversial celebrities, Michael Jackson.
The revelations were explosive.
The ratings were enormous.
but what TV journalist Martin Bashir presented
was a twisted and edited construction of scandal
and innuendo, not a true representation
of the interviews that actually took place.
When 'Living with Michael Jackson' was released,
it reignited the discussion about whether or not
Michael Jackson was a child molester.
The film featured a close-up of Michael holding hands with Gavin Arvizo
who was a cancer victim, who then went on to be the accuser in the 2005 trial.
And because um, of that shot and, you know,
the ratings behind 'Living with Michael Jackson',
it was a huge topic of conversation in every area of my life
particularly in my program meetings.
Immediately after the Martin Bashir documentary aired,
we had a program meeting and there was a discussion about, you know,
whether or not Michael Jackson was a child molester. People were calling him "freak".
These were people who did not have any fondness for Michael Jackson and
I chimed in with my belief that I didn't believe
that Michael Jackson was a child molester
and that the documentary was, um, you know,
misleading and exploited him.
During that conversation,
Jordan Chandler chimed in and said that he too
believed that Michael Jackson wasn't capable
of the things he was being accused of.
And he said that voluntarily,
and he said it without my prompting,
and he wasn't asked.
He wasn't in the direct conversation no,
I mean I was arguing with a group of maybe
3 other people, um, and he- he was seated close to us
but he wasn't in on this discussion
and you know throughout the semester,
there were different occasions like that
where he would again sort of
reaffirm things that I said in defense of Michael Jackson
and I remember that very first time, um,
I remember catching his eye.
It was shocking that he would speak up!
And it really affirmed my belief that Michael was innocent and
you know given things that Jordan had said separately
having nothing to do with Michael Jackson
about his home life, you know,
It affirmed my belief that
he was a victim of his parents' greed
and that he was forced to say certain things
because I really have a hard time believing
that if he had been molested by Michael Jackson,
he would be going out of his way to say that
he didn't think he was capable of these things.
and I didn't address it with him. I mean I was
One, I was very young and Two, I didn't really know
how important it would have been to address it then.
These conversations all happened before Gavin Arvizo
made any allegations against Michael Jackson.
Certainly, when I made the documentary,
there was a small part of that which contained a
controversy concerning his relationship with other young people.
But the truth is that he was never convicted of any crime.
I never saw any wrongdoing myself.
and whilst his lifestyle may have been a bit unorthodox,
I don't believe it was criminal.
Wait! Wait, you know they- Bashir- Hey!
You know how Bashir zoomed in on- on
on him holding hands? Do that the same thing!
- It's cuz you know how a- - Because that's what a mother does it with her son.
-Like you know how a father does? -or a father does with his son, you know?
And they tried to make it out to seem- be something
"wrong" and "dirty"?
Her son with ill with cancer
and they were losing their house
and they were losing their car
because of the medical expenses.
She said, "You know what?
We didn't make enough money from the first story.
Will you run another story?"
The mother's phone call promoted the
reporter to carry out more research on the family.
She was stunned and shaken to learn that the family was insured,
and their medical expenses had been covered all along.
-It gives me goosebumps. It does-
It does! That a mother would use her son- to-
to use her son's illness- for their own gain.
Gavin came to Michael and said,
"Michael could we sleep in your room tonight?"
and Michael-
Michael looked at me and says, "I don't know, you know,
I think you better ask your mother."
"Oh, we already asked our mother!
She says, 'sure no problem'!"
Like, no, this is- something's odd, this is not right.
and then as I was about to go tell Gavin
that he cannot sleep in Michael's room,
Michael says, "Okay, I have a solution for this:
You have to sleep in the room with me."
The two children slept on the bed
and Michael and I slept on the floor.
Filed formal charges
of felony criminal complaint against Mr. Jackson.
The, uh, felony complaint involves 9 counts, uh,
7 counts of 288A in violation of California Penal Code,
commonly known as child molestation.
Thursday, jurors listened as the teen
contradicted his brother and sisters testimony
and couldn't recall key details
of the molestation allegations.
The defense pointed out that in an early police interview,
the young accuser said his grandmother had told him about a certain type of sexual act,
even though he had testified that Jackson had told him about it.
This young man,
in a moment of high emotion with this former Dean,
looks the Dean in the eye and says,
"No, Michael Jackson didn't molest me".
I was on the witness list for the trial in 2005
because I spent the entire day with Gavin Arvizo
at Neverland on February 19, 2003.
This was the very same day that Gavin and his mother,
Janet, accused Michael of inappropriate behavior.
The day that they accused Michael of wrongdoing
was a day that Gavin didn't even see Michael.
Instead? He was with us.
-In 2005 during the trial,
you were on the witness list.
-Yeah! We were on the witness list because when
we stayed at Neverland March 9th and 10th,
Gavin Arvizo and his brother and sister were with us
and the reason why it was so important- the dates
is because Michael was supposedly abusing him
until March 12th, and we were there March 9th and 10th
- Right, so when you were there. - and that was not happening.
I don't know where prosecutors go from here
I don't know whether they can prevail
and get the convictions that they want against Michael Jackson.
Their main witness, the accuser, the alleged victim in the case,
the one witness that the jury has to believe for prosecutors to win
just wasn't that believable, and now, prosecutors are stuck.
The most dramatic part of their case,
the highest point of their case has already passed and
they really haven't sold the jury and
it's not going to get any better for them from here.
-The '93 case, if they'd been able to try the '93 case,
I think Michael Jackson would be in a lot more trouble than he is here.
-We know that he molested other children.
-Oh yeah, He only paid them $25 million out of the goodness of his heart!
A pivotal day in the Michael Jackson trial:
the judge in this case is set to make a ruling today
if prosecutors can bring up previous child molestation
allegations against Michael Jackson.
One court observer calls these allegations the prosecution's "nuclear bomb".
It is official. The ruling that could make or break the case
against Michael Jackson has been handed down.
Jurors will hear about prior allegations of abuse by Michael Jackson.
The trial here will have mini-trial
after mini-trial as to other offenses.
It'll be significantly longer but it's significantly different
than what we had last week
or in the beginning of this trial up until last Friday.
This is now a trial about pattern evidence,
about propensity,
and once a pedophile, always a pedophile.
Alright, Ron?
I told you this was going to be admitted
and you kept telling me it's not going to be.
-Well Dan, I was still waiting for um
some accuser to want to testify in this case
and still, we're not getting any.
I think the prosecution-
You're getting one of them!
Well let me respond to that-
that kid was interviewed by Lauren Weiss,
who was a District Attorney in Los Angeles,
now a Superior Court Judge,
and she didn't think a crime had been committed,
and neither did the Santa Barbara Sherrifs
when they interviewed him, and, and
and nobody filed any charges at that time and
I think that it's going to be very suspect-
15 years after the fact coming into court.
He seemed like a sweet kid at first
but then after listening to some of his statements,
he contradicted himself.
The prosecutor stated before he testified that this would be the first time
that he had told the "story".
His credibility was like- it was horrible.
...who testified
who said that Michael Jackson had been
playing with him and had gone too far and touched his
testicles, and he needed 5 years of therapy after it, and
during the first therapy session, the DA was present,
and he also admitted that he wanted money from him,
and his mother wanted money from Jackson, and
his mother went to a tabloid and sold a story as well
So you put all of that together,
and I submit that it helped us.
I, at that point, was
transferring out of the music business program
and into the school of individualized study
So I no longer had classes with Jordan,
and I I believe I wrote him an email
I'm not 100% sure that I sent it.
But if I did send it, I didn't get a response.
I was approached initially very shortly after the Neverland raid
by people who worked for the Jackson family
who knew of me because of message boards and
I was asked if I would give a statement, and I did,
and I subsequently ended up on the witness list, yes.
I mean there were certain members
of the Jackson entourage, I should say,
who wanted me to do a little bit of a media tour, which
I didn't feel comfortable doing, you know?
During that time, I was approached by Stacy Brown,
who is known by Jackson fans as somebody who
used to be very supportive of Michael Jackson
and was very good friends with Rebbie Jackson
who then flipped and became an
anti-Michael Jackson force in the tabloids,
but during our conversations when he would call me,
he was a very effusive in his praise of Michael and
he would urge me to sort of, I would say,
plump up my Jordan Chandler story,
which I never feel comfortable doing.
I only would say, you know exactly what I knew for a fact
But he'd even encouraged me to say that I was Jordan's
girlfriend or that Jordan had a crush on me or something like that,
and that was absolutely not true.
In retrospect, knowing how he turned on Michael, I
I feel like he did it as like a pre-emptive way to discredit me,
you know, because if I were to lie about that,
it would discredit my entire story.
But I of course was never willing to do that,
and I take this very seriously.
I firmly believe in due process and you know,
it certainly wouldn't have won me any favors
industrywide to testify in his trial and that's something
that perhaps I was a little naive about as a kid,
but now as somebody who's worked in the industry,
I understand how things work.
I don't think I understood the enormity at that time.
All I knew was that this was somebody whose
life and livelihood was on the line
and I had information that could potentially help him.
So I felt it was my obligation in my duty.
His name wasn't widely known and from my discussions in the program,
I don't think that there was really anybody else
other than a very few people who knew who he was, um,
that they don't even know is relevant.
No, this doesn't benefit my career at all.
This doesn't give me access to anything. I'm very much
somebody who likes to be in the background
That's why I do PR and publicity.
I want my clients to be in the spotlight, but I, myself,
you know, I kind of- would prefer to hide
but I'm speaking out because you asked me to
and because all of this nonsense is being rehashed and
relitigated in the media, and it's ridiculous, you know?
I understand that people would be skeptical of my story
because I am a fan and I don't hide that I'm a fan but
the fact of the matter is
you know if I had even the slightest doubt
that Michael Jackson was innocent,
I wouldn't be speaking out. I heard directly
from Jordan Chandler that he didn't believe
that Michael Jackson was capable of the things
he was being accused of.
And that's very powerful.
You know, every allegation since is built
upon the original 1993 allegation
and I believe that if that one is false,
which I do believe it is false,
all the rest crumble.