sorry for starting like the billionth MJ thread this week (2 of which are of my own creation in the last 10 minutes), but it's all reminded me of something i've meant to post here several times. it's quite long, but well worth a look.

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.

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 marriage was 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 a new 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.

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
overhear 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
administered sodium 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."
[This message was edited Fri Feb 7 12:46:46 PST 2003 by AaronUnlimited]

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.

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 defense against 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.

I Knew about this long ago.Steve Harvey the COmedian always Shuts uo FOlks who wanna point the Finger on MJ.He brings up this October 94 GQ&it shuts alot of folks up quickly.it was very much on point.

mistermaxxx said:

yeah, when i was searching for the article, i noticed it's on his website. full-page scans of the magazine pages, even.

AaronUnlimited said:

He wanted folks to see how things can really go down.people making you Guilty before you have a chance to tell your story.Right On To you for Bringing it in here.

bump

I've seen this article before.
Now THIS is what the papers should've printed.
But they don't like to tell the truth, do they!

Wankers.

I bought this when it came out in the UK (kenneth Brannagh on the cover).It's well thumbed, cause i'm always lending it to people.It's changed a few minds that's for sure.

blackmailing Bastards those Chandlers!

bump.


read it god dammit

JACKSON : A PROTECTOR OF CHILDREN!!!

SPOT ON I SAY!!!

Cloudbuster said:

they Sure don't.they wanna just be Half-Hearted with the Guy.

LOL...isn't the memorization of this article necessary to get your MJ fan card?

I think I can quote the thing at this point..

"Well, line 43, page 68 clearly states..."
[This message was edited Fri Feb 7 17:35:36 PST 2003 by Pepina]

AaronUnlimited said:

cool story about Wade Robson...he won a Mj look-a-like contest in brisbane...when Mjtoured here in 1987 i think.
Met Michael,& they r friends.
he has choreographed alot of britney's videos & also NSYNC's tour routines.
really talented kid.

give it up 4 the AUSSIE :wOOt:

oh,...i just found "Xscape' & downloaded it...

LOVE IT!...the beat just got me moving in my seat,the message is great,the vocals r killer.

but who is that voice of the little girl?

Joshy84au said:

Wade co-Wrote some Songs with Justin Timberlake.

mistermaxxx said:

oh yeha how could i 4get.
"POP"...the title track,& also the amazing "Gone" on the "Celebrity" album.Was surprised not 2 c him on the Justified album tho.

mistermaxxx said:

yeah Steve is a great guy all up,& a funny funny FUNNAY man.
i am listening now,2 an interview Steve did with Mike on his morning radio show around the time INVINCIBLE was released.
great interview,honest,...hehe & a great bit where Steve makes the comment "im gon' tell USHER & Sisqo 2 put they shirts back on!"...hehe,& he's singing a Mj song,i 4get which song,& just CRACKS MJ UP!...he laughs like u have never heard MJ laugh b4.
haha,classic!

which reminds me!...i NEED 2 get Kings Of Comedy on DVD

mistermaxxx said:

in this i/view with MJ,steve mentions actually how Katherine Jackson calld up & thanked Steve 4 bringing up the GQ article & that ppl finally got the idea of the real deal.

Still curious as to why he's not allowed to discuss the details of the settlement, tho'.

Cloudbuster said:

S.O.P.


they can't slander him, he can't slander them.

Whew! I had always heard about this story, but never read it. Glad you posted it.

After watching the 20/20 interview, I came away with a much more sympathetic view of Michael. He must be one of the loneliest people alive on the planet.

Looking at him interact with all those children that he hosts at his ranch... I was just like daym leave the man be. Let him do what few or no other people are doing--bring joy into the life of children.

We live in such a vile world it is hard to believe that someone could retain their childhood innocence all through adulthood.

I only fault MJ's handlers who--instead of protecting him by preventing him from putting himself in compromising situations--let him do whatever he wants (as any spoiled child) as long as they're getting paid.

Aaron ... thanks for posting this article. It may be long but it really confirms my own beliefs, that MJ isn't a child molester. I didn't know the article existed, but am glad you found it.

Kiren
xxx

AaronUnlimited said:

... I've never heard of this publication though ... has anyone else?

I think this whole story is so sad...


"Civilized society"... yeah, right.

NuPwrSoul said:

Hey man,I agree with everything you wrote!

I agree with you, people should just leave MJ alone.Can you think of any other celebrity who is more scrutinized,analyzed and picked on by the media more than MJ is? It's unfair and absurd.My feeling is,if Michael is committing ANY crimes,then prove it and lock him up.Otherwise,let the man be.You know...put up or shut up!

People always say that MJ is weird,and they're right.But how can we judge him when WE haven't lived the life that he has lived? Most of us have had "normal" childhoods.

Like I said before,MJ should develop a "fuck you" attitude concerning the media and how he is portrayed.He should just continue to make music for his fans,and say to hell with everyone else.But more importantly,he should just live life, be happy and not worry about trying to "explain" himself.People are gonna think what they want anyway.In this lifetime,we're never gonna understand him,or figure him out,so maybe we should stop trying.




....
[This message was edited Sun Feb 9 11:26:16 PST 2003 by DavidEye]

DavidEye said:

Heehee, imagine MJ pullin what Whitney did with Wendy Williams... Bitch don't let me catch you outside... I have to be defense because y'all talk about me all the fuckin time... I'd go buy his whole catalogue all over again just out of respect.

NuPwrSoul said:

I would LOVE to hear Michael curse,for once!

He needs to get ruthless,and I think more people would respect him even more.I could just see Charles Barkley saying "Yeeehhh Michael,that's my boy!!"

Thriller, Bad and the Greatest Hits are all back on the UK album chart.

Should've been Invincible though.

Raspberry said:

I'm not sure. The Globe might be an American tabloid. Perhaps it's based in Britain.

bump!