Jackson strikes a deep, primal chord in the human psyche, fascinating us, perhaps, because he so easily & eerily represents us -M. E. Dyson

From '"The Unbearable Lightness of Being Michael": The Religious Witness of Michael Jackson', David Dark.

Laos. 'Michael Jackson had transcended his American roots to become part of the entire world’s heritage.

Comoros.

Let's face it. Who wants mortality? Everybody wants immortality. You want what you create to live. -Michael Jackson

Jackson was endlessly studying his idols. #MichaelJackson

He was well aware that the only way to make that happened was to out-work, out-study, and out-think anyone he perceived as a competitor.

He was very professional, he knew what he wanted. And he was a very, very talented guy to work with. #MichaelJackson

Michael Jackson - Burn This Disco Out (Alternative Multitrack Mix)

Michael Jackson - I Can't Help It (Original Demo)

Michael Jackson - Buttercup (Original Extended Version)

His vocal talent man!!!!!!!!!!

Is there going to be any discussion in this thread or just articles...LOL

It wasy funny and sad looking at all those current stars who are said to be "The next" Michael Jackson....because they pale in comparison.

DonRants said:

I L.O.V.E. this feed so much!!!! I started to look at his music in a much different light than I was before!!

MotownSubdivision said:

DonRants said:

Is there going to be any discussion in this thread or just articles...LOL

It wasy funny and sad looking at all those current stars who are said to be "The next" Michael Jackson....because they pale in comparison.

That should go without saying, honestly. None of these "new [insert name of legend]s" even begin to stack up to the names they're so wrongly compared too.

When Michael would sing, sometimes he would hit these notes where I would jump out of my seat like, Oh, my God!

With Michael, I relearned everything. The other producers and I were [like] students facing a teacher. He taught me a lot. #MichaelJackson

I thought it was amazing that he was asking me if it was okay. If this was JLo,or even L. Lohan, they’d be given me orders. But not Michael.

The military jacket is also a symbol of status, a status that Jackson enforced through his clothing, declaring himself a black king.

Not only does Jackson have a voice like no other; he also uses it to express himself like an instrument of nature itself. #MichaelJackson

Jackson also exhibits his ability to stand in the shoes of those who oppress him & to see the world from their perspective. #MichaelJackson

Jackson's music did not sound like anyone else's because Jackson didn't make music like anyone else did. #MichaelJackson

Jackson's prediction was correct: False accusation, misrepresentation, not even the grave, could stop his star from shining. #MichaelJackson

This is Michael Jackson 40 yrs ago, and every single thing he dreamed, he lived. Who can say that? How many ppl on this planet can say that?

Free Downloads on Michael Jackson's Artistry

Michael was the consummate performer. Every time he stepped on stage magic unfolded. Here for the first time is an in-depth exploration of Michael's 20 Greatest Performances.

Available now for immediate download. Simply click the image to the left to begin download in a new window.

Click link http://www.mj101series.com/performances

HIS20RY - exploring the sounds of HIStory.

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the groundbreaking HIStory album this special edition supplement gives a track by track review of Michael's most personal and powerful album.

Download your free copy by clicking the cover image to the left.
Read. Share. Enjoy.

click link http://www.mj101series.com/history

Off The Wall was a landmark album in the career of Michael Jackson as he transitioned from child star to bona fide adult superstar. Explore the songs in a track by track review and rediscover what makes this album such a classic.

Download your free copy by clicking the cover image to the left.
Read. Share. Enjoy.

Click link http://www.mj101series.com/otw

Exploring Michael Jackson's
20 Greatest Short Films.

In his career Michael Jackson not only changed the musical landscape, he also reframed the visual landscape. MJ101 - The Short Films Collection is an in-depth review of Michael's 20 Greatest Short Films - an exploration through the artistic growth of the works that changed music video forever.

Click link http://www.mj101series.com/mj-101-tsf

For Michael Jackson, a lot was riding on the release of Dangerous. His first solo effort without the guidance of long time producer Quincy Jones, critics and music lovers alike wondered if he could match the ground breaking success of his previous efforts. What Michael delivered not only proved he still had what it took to create timeless music, but also presented masterful works from an artist self assured of his musical path. Here, 25 years after its initial release, is an in depth track by track review that celebrates the genius of Dangerous and the artist behind it.

Download your free copy by clicking the cover image to the left.
Read. Share. Enjoy.

Click link http://www.mj101series.com/otw-1

Michael Jackson gave the world over 4 decades of hits from his dazzling beginnings as wunderkind lead singer of The Jackson 5 through to the global dominance of his illustrious solo career. As singer, songwriter and producer Michael shaped and shifted modern music like no other.

Here presented for the first time is an in-depth review of Michael's 101 Greatest Songs - an exploration through the artistic growth of the world's greatest entertainer.

click link http://www.mj101series.com/mj-101

[Edited 3/3/17 23:30pm]

How Michael Jackson rebranded himself for his first solo album

t was 1979 and Michael Jackson was at a crossroads. The dynamic lead singer for The Jacksons was only 21 years old, yet he was already a Motown-seasoned star with 10 years of professional recording/performing experience under his belt. But Jackson wanted more than just stardom. He thirsted for superstardom, and on his own terms at that. Toward his goal of shedding his teenybopper image, Jackson teamed with legendary producer Quincy Jones to record a make-or-break solo album entitled Off the Wall. The LP would feature three original compositions that Jackson hoped would earn him entry into the pantheon of trailblazing R&B singer/songwriters, including James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone. Having charted a fresh musical direction for himself, only one thing remained unresolved — he needed an image that would signal his newfound maturity to the world.

Now celebrated as one of the greatest albums of all time, Off the Wallhas sold more than 8 million copies in the United States alone. The LP made Jackson the first solo artist to have four singles from the same album peak on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough nabbed the singer his first Grammy Award for best male R&B vocal performance. The black-and-white style featured on the cover of Off the Wall helped fuel Jackson’s quantum leap to superstardom. The singer employed the style for his breakthrough music videos, including Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough and Billie Jean, as well as for his definitive Motown 25television performance. In all, Jackson would tap the style for the entirety of his solo career, until his death in June 2009.

What follows is an oral history of how Jackson joined with branding specialist/creative director Mike Salisbury and photographer Stephen Harvey to conceive and create the album cover for Off the Wall. The tuxedoed image they devised gave Jackson an iconic look that would subliminally link the singer to swing-era legends such as Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, while also helping Jackson become a record-breaking artist justified in declaring himself “The King of Pop.”

Mike Salisbury: Up to that point [1979], I had branded Rolling Stone, and I’d been creative director at three or four advertising agencies, as well as at Warner Bros. Records. But I had never branded a person. That changed after I saw Michael in The Wiz. I was impressed by his persona. He was a star! He outshone everyone in the movie, despite the fact that he was holding back. So I contacted his agent and said, ‘Michael Jackson is going to be the biggest music star ever, and I want to help!’ So his agent invited me over to his office.

Stephen Harvey: I was an independent contractor at the time. I had done quite a few album covers for artists like Earth, Wind & Fire, Dazz Band …

MS: Michael’s agent had an album cover mock-up for Off the Wall, and it was horrible. It was him sitting on a little log by a campfire with children’s clothes on. It looked like an ad for Sears’ children’s department. So I say to the agent, ‘Let me get back to you,’ and I got a fashion illustrator to do a drawing of my concept for Michael. I go back to the agent, point to the fashion drawing and say, ‘See! I put him in a tuxedo! It’ll be his brand mark — black and white!’ The agent looks at the drawings, and I could tell he didn’t like them. Then, this little voice squeaks up from out of nowhere: ‘I like it.’ It was Michael! The whole time, he was behind these big velvet drapes, listening. He thought [the drawing] was fine. He only requested one change. He wanted white socks.

SH: [Salisbury] called me up and said he had two covers I could choose from. One was a Randy Newman album, and the other was Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. I picked Randy Newman, because I was really into his historical take on L.A. But then later he calls me back and says, ‘Randy wants a friend of his to shoot his album, so I’m gonna give you Michael Jackson … ‘

MS: We agreed that Michael would wear loafers, like Gene Kelly wore in An American in Paris, with the white socks … I eventually found a tuxedo that fit him, a woman’s tux. My wife got it at the Yves St. Laurent store in Beverly Hills. I didn’t know if it would fit, but my wife knew. She knew all that stuff.

SH: The day of the shoot, Michael drives up in a Rolls-Royce. He was by himself, no entourage or anything. He was so small behind the steering wheel, I could barely see him.

MS: It was Michael’s idea to shoot at Griffith Observatory, because that’s where they shot the knife fight in Rebel Without a Cause. We were under a time constraint because we had no permit to shoot there, and rangers patrolled the place. The men’s room was locked, but the women’s restroom was open, so Michael runs in and puts on the tux.

SH: Michael comes out with the makeup artist and the stylist, and we start shooting. The sun’s going down, and it’s beautiful. We stand him against this wh... half-wall, and I light him so that the sunset is really dark and rich in the background.

MS: It was lifeless. Michael just stood there. There was none of the entertainer, with all the energy and the performance bravado. We didn’t want to give him a lot of direction, because we were afraid of how he might respond.

SH: A policeman comes up and says, ‘Excuse me, where’s your permit?’ I call my stylist over and tell her to get the permit out of the van. So she’s crawling around the van on her hands and knees, looking for this permit that’s not there. The cop goes, ‘You don’t have a permit, you gotta get out of here!’

MS: We went to Michael’s place, and there’s this statue replica of Donatello’s David in the foyer, and immediately I go, ‘That’s what we need — attitude and style!’ So I say to Michael, ‘Look, we gotta redo this shoot’ and he was very receptive. We go to Steve’s studio, and Michael gets outfitted again. We put him up against a backdrop, and again, it didn’t work. He just wouldn’t animate. So I run out of the studio, down the alley, and I see this brick wall with a loading dock.

SH: It was Crossley’s Flowers in Los Angeles, a few doors down from my studio on Beverly Boulevard. A lot of people think that cover was shot at the Farmers Market on Fairfax, but that’s not it.

MS: I grabbed Michael and got him up on that dock, because I thought it looked like a Broadway theater back door. Very theatrical.

SH: The camera was a Hasselblad hand-crank. It didn’t have a motor drive, so every time that I shot, I had to stop and crank to the next exposure. It was crazy.

MS: I told Michael, ‘Roll up your pants, and put your hands in your pockets! Now pull up your pants, like Gene Kelly does! Then we can see the socks!’

SH: It was two rolls of film, 12 exposures on each. I used a portable strobe on Michael, a Norman 200B. I still couldn’t see very well. This was before autofocus, so somebody was holding a flashlight [on me], so I could focus on him.

MS: Then I said, ‘Give me a gesture, like that David in the foyer back at your home. Now smile!’ The whole thing took maybe five minutes.

SH: So we get film back, and the first thing I notice is that I cut off the top of his afro. And I’m going, ‘Oh, my gosh! I can’t give this to [Salisbury]. So I had my stylist take the film up to Mike for me. She later told me that he asked, ‘How come you cut off the top of his head?’ And my stylist replied, ‘Oh, that’s just one of Stephen’s techniques. When you do that, you go directly to his eyes!’ And that’s the shot that ended up being the cover!

MS: I was presenting Michael as a major person, as you would see Frank Sinatra in a tuxedo in Vegas. He was this kid just out from under his father, so the tux was a metaphor for maturity.

SH: People still bring that cover up in conversation. I’m so glad I got that shoot instead of Randy Newman. It was a stroke of luck.

MS: A guy that taught at Harvard interviewed me once, and he said [Off the Wall] is the No. 1 thing I did in my career. I guess I’ll take his word for it.

SH: Even if I hadn’t have shot it, Off the Wall would still be my favorite Michael Jackson album cover. That cover — it’s his personality! It’s his element, his moves. I mean, that’s him! That’s Michael Jackson!

https://theundefeated.com/features/michael-jackson-off-the-wall-album-cover/

Engineer Tom Perry on the making of the Jacksons’ 1980 album Triumph

By the end of the 1970s, the Jacksons experienced a lineup substitution, two label moves from Motown Records to CBS Records to Epic Records, and a recognizable name change. After their switch from Motown Records to CBS Records in 1975, the brothers began exploring the depths of their musical creativity and were given the opportunity to showcase their songwriting abilities on their self-titled gold selling debut, The Jacksons, in 1976. Under the tutelage of the legendary production duo, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, they worked diligently to find their trademark groove and this experience served them well, as they entered the next phase of their respective careers. Two years later, the quintet regained the success that had been eluding them since their Motown days with the release of their multiplatinum selling album, Destiny. Itching to become a solo artist, Michael Jackson tested the waters by branching out on his own and recorded his second solo album that would validate his decision. Off theWall placed him in esteemed company, and it set the stage for the collective to capitalize on this momentum. They returned to the studio to craft their next album. On September 26, 1980, Triumph was released by Epic Records. It became they’re second consecutive smash album. The record would spawn five singles, including the hits: “Heartbreak Hotel” (now known as “This Place Hotel”), “Can You Feel It,” “Lovely One,” “Walk Right Now,” and “Time Waits for No One.” In observance of Black Music Month and Michael Jackson’s legacy, we spoke with legendary engineer Tom Perry about his role in constructing this classic album.

How did you begin working with the group on this project?

Tom Perry: One day, I received a call from out of the blue from Latoya. She asked, “Are you Tom Perry?” I said, “Yes. I am.” She said, “Hold on forMichael Jackson.” I responded, “Okay.” [laughs] This little voice came through the phone and it was Michael. I believe he heard some of my work with Earth, Wind & Fire; Boz Scaggs; and other R&B acts I had worked with. He was producing some demos for his sister Janet. That was the first stuff I worked on with him. This was in 1977 and 1978, a couple years before I started working on Triumph. I went down there, and Janet was working on her TV show at the time. She was fifteen or sixteen. So we cut some tracks that Michael produced, and I don’t know what became of those tracks. He called me again, and we cut some stuff with Latoya. Another time he called me, and we began working on some songs that he was demoing. One of them was “Billie Jean.” I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but “Billie Jean” was the last thing I worked on with Michael. We spent about three months on that single because we kept redoing the strings and horns on the demo. At some point, it was taken over by Quincy Jones. So we were doing these various projects. He produced a song on Diana Ross’s album called “Muscles” and that ended up being number one on the charts. I was working with Michael on music that he was producing and music he was demoing. So we had quite a relationship going. We had a close friendship. I used to pick him up and take him home every day. In those days, he didn’t like to drive. He had a Rolls Royce, but he didn’t drive it. Then, the brothers’ album came up. I was working with Michael on these various projects, and I guess his brothers were okay with me working on their next album. This is how I started working on Triumph.

At this time in 1980, Michael just released his multiplatinum smash, Off the Wall, a year prior. Since you already had a relationship with him, what was the brothers’ focus going into the making of this record?

As I can best recall, it wasn’t easy for his brothers to get Michael involved. I’m not sure why, but I believe part of the reason why Michael agreed to do it is because, as a brother and family member, it would be a way for his brothers to do a tour and it might boost their careers. I think that was part of the motivation. I’m guessing Michael got some pressure from his mom and dad to do it. He and his brothers were getting along well during that time. When I say Michael was hesitant, I don’t think it was because of any animosity. I just think Michael was doing his own thing, and he was fine with that. Michael put one hundred percent into everything he did. He wanted the album to be excellent. I didn’t feel that he was reluctant or hesitant in doing the work on the project. His drive, determination, and desire to have it become a great album was there. He wasn’t the type of guy that would’ve taken it on, if he wasn’t going to give it everything he had. He always gave everything he had.

For this album, you guys recorded in a few different studios. Were you there at every studio session?

Yes. I was the only engineer on this project from start to finish. We did ninety-five percent of that work in Hollywood Sound Studios, but we didn’t start at Hollywood Sound, though. As I recall, I did a lot of work at Hollywood Sound. I’d worked at Hollywood Sound since 1967 when I started out as a staff mixer there. There were two studios in Hollywood Sound: Studio A and Studio B. I was equally comfortable in both, but mostly in Studio B. I worked there and George Massenburg worked there. A lot of the hot engineers were working there at the time. It was kind of a small studio, and it wasn’t as well-known as Capitol Studios, Westlake Audio, or Record Plant Studios. I had never worked with the Jacksonbrothers, and I think they were wanting to go with a studio that had a bigger reputation. So we started out doing a couple tracks at different studios. Any engineer will say they can work anywhere, even in a garage, but an engineer builds a relationship with a studio, and they begin to learn every nuance in the studio. Engineers know exactly what they have there, that they’ve had success there, and records that sounded good, so they have a formula. An engineer will know if a record sounds good or not. All engineers have studios where they feel most comfortable. So we cut a couple tracks, and I didn’t feel like those first couple sessions were going that well. It’s hard to know what I had, when I was going in trying to learn the studio.

The thing is, I was working on a project as big as the Jacksons, and from an engineering standpoint, I wanted to go where I was comfortable because I had a lot on my plate, and what I didn’t want to do is to have to learn a room. I spent thirteen years working at Hollywood Sound and that gave me an advantage. So one day I sat down with Michael, and I said to him, “Look, Mike. We should go to Hollywood Sound. You know the room works because that’s my home base. Let’s go there.” So we did. We went to Hollywood Sound after trying out three different studios. The tracks started coming together and the brothers saw the difference. We got locked in there. We did overdubs at Sound City. I remember doing strings and horns at Sound City because they had a big room over there. It was a good room for that kind of stuff. We tried to mix the record at Olympic Studios in West L.A. because they had just put in one of the early Neve automated consoles. We went out there to do some automation mixing, but in the end, we mixed the album at Hollywood Sound. They didn’t have automation there at that time. We were synching two twenty-four-tracks together at that point with time code. We had forty-eight tracks and that was a lot of mixing to corral without automation.

Take me into the studio atmosphere of Hollywood Sound Studios when you were recording there with the group.

Well, I had a standard set up for doing tracks. We cut drums, bass, two guitars, piano, and keyboards. The studio wasn’t that big, so we didn’t do any live horns or strings. There was a vocal booth and Michael would sing in there when the tracks were going down. We didn’t have more than four or five musicians playing at the same time. We would complete one song per day. Once we got the track and if there was any time left in the day, we would start to do some guitar, keyboard, and synth overdubs. Then, we would go on to the next song. Generally, we would work on one song per day working on rhythm tracks and we wouldn’t get into recording any serious vocals, background vocals, strings, or horns until later. Back then, we didn’t have any Pro Tools or sampling. We’d work on getting all thebasic instruments down such as percussion, guitar overdubs and solos, and synthesized added parts. When the brothers were satisfied with how everything sounded, then we would get into doing string and horn sweetening. Lastly, we would cut lead and background vocals. This album was a six month project.

Typically, we spent twelve or more hours in the studio. We didn’t work seven days a week, but as I recall, we had some weekends off during that six month period. There were a couple times when the brothers took days off to finish up writing lyrics. The brothers would arrive at the studio around noon, depending on what the task was. If we were cutting thetracks, it would be pretty hard to get all the brothers there at twelve o’clock. They would wander in, depending on whose song it was. Generally, Michael would be the earliest to arrive. They weren’t known for being on time, and they weren’t concerned about the budget. The session players, my assistant, and I would be there. Sometimes, we didn’t get rolling until two or three o’clock. Technically, we would start at twelve. On an early day, we might end the session at ten or eleven at night. Depending on how involved they were, Michael tended to work later, and the session could last until two or three o’clock in the morning, then we’d go back in at noon and start the process all over again. So there were a few fifteen to sixteen hour days in the studio. Also, it would depend ifMichael was doing a vocal. If he wanted to finish his thoughts, he tended to not pay attention to what time it was. He wanted to get down his thoughts and ideas while they were in his head and make sure he finished what he wanted to finish by the end of that day. There were a couple times where we would be working on a song that Jackie had taken over producing. During one session, everyone went home early and it was around seven o’clock in the evening. Jackie was the only one left and he said, “Well, I guess we’re folding up.” My assistant and I looked at each other like, “Are you kidding me? It’s seven o’clock.” [laughs] As it turned out, there was a Los Angeles Lakers game that night. He was a huge Laker fan, and he had those courtside seats.

Can you describe the collaboration and creativity that existed between the brothers in the studio?

Well, we didn’t stop working on music until Michael was happy with it. I keep saying Michael because he was the driver and creative force behind the brothers. He drove the sessions. The brothers had great input: Tito, Jackie, Marlon, and Randy. There was respect between them. Michael had respect for his older brothers. He would give them their say and some input. Quite often, Michael would double the harmony parts that his brothers sang to enrich the sound and give it more polish. So Michael was the driving force. I worked on independent projects with Tito and Marlon and I loved those guys. Marlon was a sweetheart and Tito was a great guy. I have all the respect in the world for the brothers. I didn’t work on anything with Randy. I think he was eighteen when we recorded this album. I did a few things with Jermaine as well but not on this album. They all had a hand in making this album, but the driving force behind it was Michael. Michael was a brilliant guy when it came to making music.

As an engineer, what was your approach to the recording process during the making of this album?

Basically, we had twenty-four tracks. This was in the early days where we were able to sync two twenty-four-tracks by using time code. The two machines would lock in and run in sync, so that it could give us additional tracks. Dolby noise reduction was available in those days and there were a lot of engineers that liked Dolby, but I didn’t because I felt that Dolby colored the tape, and I didn’t feel that the frequency response was as broad with Dolby. The fact that Dolby was processing the tape I believe there were limitations in the frequency response. Engineers, like myself that didn’t use noise reduction, would run two inch tape at 30 IPS which meant thirty inches per second. It was a faster speed. If you ran a faster speed, you tended to get less tape hiss. So that’s how we countered Dolby noise reduction. Dolby noise reduction would get rid of tape hiss, but I felt it dulled up the high end and made things a little muddy. But that’s just me. So I ran the machines at 30 IPS non-Dolby. We had a good console and outboard equipment by then. I’d been engineering for years, and I was pretty confident that I could get a good sounding album. I was an old school engineer and my background included experimenting with microphones, the placement of microphones, and making sure things weren’t over processed. What I mean by over processed is, when more outboard equalization is used or more compression or more sound enhancing of any type that is put on a sound, you have to send a signal through a compressor, filter, and various reverb. Every time you run signal through another processing system, you’re deteriorating the signal.

I started engineering records before there was a lot of electronic help. When I first started recording, I had a board with eight inputs. Four had high end EQ and four had low end EQ, and you couldn’t select the frequency. It was just bass and treble. If I wanted to color the sound and make the drums sound different, I had to learn how to tune the drums, muffle or tape the drums or use a different microphone or find a different spot in the room, if I wanted drums live. Sometimes, we’d find hardwood crates to set the drums on to get more reflection, or if I wanted a dead sound, we set the drums on carpet and place a blanket over the kick drum. So I had this elaborate background in engineering along with knowledge of modern electronics of the day. This allowed us to spread the tracks out wider. We could use eight or ten tracks for the drums. We could put the kick drum on one track and a snare drum on another track, a hi-hat on another track, so we could spread the drums out on eight tracks. Spreading out the tracks gave us the flexibility to record the drums in stereo, keyboards, left and right piano, left and right synthesizer, and in some cases, stereo guitar. All of that helped me get the best sounds I could on individual instruments. It gave me flexibility in the mixing process as well because everything was on a separate track. So I could go in and equalize the toms without changing the sound of the kick drum, snare or cymbals because they were on separate tracks. That was my approach in trying to get everything to sound as good as it could.

It was in my DNA as an engineer, but it was also what Michael wanted.Michael always wanted whatever he was working on, whether it was songs, sounds, or players, to be the best. Between Michael knowing what he wanted and not accepting sounds that weren’t first class and me having those same desires and background in engineering, made a huge difference. Also, the fact that the budget wasn’t an issue, so we could spend the time getting everything right, plus having the best musicians made this a special project. Michael Jackson was a genius producer. He was a phenomenally talented human being. He wasn’t a schooled musician, but everything was in his head. He would have to try and convey his ideas to me, the arranger, and musicians. He wouldn’t stop until the music sounded the way it did in his head and that is not always easy. He didn’t know engineering, so I was trying to interpret what he was hearing and make it a reality through the equipment and my ability to give him what he wanted. When it was going well, I would try to give him what he wanted, and we ended up with something he liked better. [laughs] That’s when the creative process was really working. Everyone worked well together.

What was the name of the console you used during the recording process?

The console we used was an API hybrid board. It had API equalizers and George Massenburg preamps. We brought in a side board because it didn’t have enough inputs to mix forty-eight tracks.

Who was responsible for bringing some of the greatest musicians ever to play on these records?

It was Michael. I think the brothers used these guys on some of their other records. These guys were some legendary players like Greg Phillinganes, Michael Sembello, Nathan Watts, Thomas Washington, and Paulinho da Costa. I believe they were used on their previous albums. Some were from Michael’s Off the Wall album. Quincy Jones used these guys, obviously. It was a great experience watching these guys work.

Let’s go in-depth on a couple songs that were released as singles from the album?

“Can You Feel It” wasn’t one of my favorite songs, but it became a big hit. I know the video received a lot of play on MTV when it was just starting out as a network. Michael was the driving force behind this song. We spent a lot of time on this song. We brought in two different choirs to sing. During the mixing process of this song, I wish I would’ve put a little bit more low end in the drums. I thought it was too sharp sounding overall. I think we worked the longest on this song and “Heartbreak Hotel” [“This Place Hotel”]. If I had to do it again, I would’ve put more warmth in that mix. Typically, it would take four or five days to complete the final mix of the songs. Sometimes you work on something so long that you lose any kind of perspective and you don’t know what to do next. I think “Can You Feel It” was a little overworked. It ended up being a classic song, though.

I thought “Heartbreak Hotel” [“This Place Hotel”] was a phenomenal song. It should’ve been a bigger hit than it was. It may have been a little bit ahead of its time. I thought the song was really creative and interesting. It was a great, great record. It was a composition written by Michael. It had the same title as the Elvis Presley hit from the 1950s. The song had a great groove. The lead vocals and harmonies from Michael were spectacular. He did all the harmonies. He sung every part including the backgrounds and his brothers voices were used as depth on the record. I’m still amazed by his vocals on it from his low to high harmonies. We would double each harmony. We had enough tracks to do that. If he sung a third, fifth, or seventh, we’d double or triple them to make them sound fuller. In my opinion, this was the stand out track from the album. It’s one of the better mixes on the album. The horn arrangement by Jerry Hey was just outstanding work. Latoya screaming on the record was one of the ideasMichael pulled out of his hat. He heard it in his head, and he called her to come down to the studio to record it. He’d hear something in his head and just make it happen. I couldn’t have made it through without my assistant engineer Ross Palone. On every song, we gave them everything we had.

One of the interesting anecdotes from that project was that Michael loved babies. My son was a baby when we were doing the session for this song. My wife would come to the studio sometimes and bring my son Andrew. As soon as my wife came through the door, he would just rip the baby away from her arms, play with him, and walk around the studio. There would be two other studio sessions going on and he would go in them and say, “Tom’s son is here. Isn’t he cute?” He really loved kids.

As you look back on the impact the album has made on popular culture, what are your feelings about the significance of the album and your role in shaping its sound?

Well, that’s an interesting question because I’ve been involved with a couple of albums that are held in the same regard. At the time, you’re doing it as a profession. I’ve always had a proprietary interest in my recordings. I’ve always felt like, whether I just engineered or produced, I felt that those records were my records. I think when you have a proprietary interest, you never feel like you’re there for hire. We were creating music that would have some kind of impact. If that album is thought of as a landmark album or a significant album, it’s probably because people have to come to recognize it as such. Sometimes, you have an inkling that you’re on to something, and that feeling was there when we made “Heartbreak Hotel” [“This Place Hotel”]. Generally, you’re just trying to do your best and please your clients. We left it all on the console. There was a great sense of camaraderie between us within the walls of the studio. It was a great experience. Being a part of this album was one of the highlights of my career.

http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/the-jacksons-triumph-engineer-tom-perry/

When I listen to the OTW album, I hear all of the youthfulness and inspiration.

I always felt the album was meant for artists. Well, every kind of artist there is. You play it and it's pure inspiration

OTW is just good music through and through. His best album purely in terms of musicality

Thriller: Pop excellence. Positively formulaic. Innovative. Edgy.

Bad: Theatre. Track listing is basically a musical Broadway production. Brilliant songwriting.

Dangerous: If Bad was theatrical, Dangerous was Michael stepping into the position of performance artist. Artistically free.

HIStory: Avant Garde. I feel like this album is him as a whole.
HIStory had the best engineering and composition.

HIStory album

“From a biographical standpoint, it seems to symbolize Jackson’s victory over his trials and adversaries. It is theappropriate musical companion to the album cover, in the form of a statue. The obstacles he has endured, he seems to be saying, have only made him stronger and more powerful. His response, however, isn’t for recrimination, hate or violence, but ‘harmony all around the world.’ It is classic utopian MichaelJackson, in which all the injustices and tragedies of life are redeemed and healed by the power of music.”

MAN IN THE MUSIC
Joseph Vogel

Invincible: I love this album because it was middle aged MJ sounding young without it coming across as a midlife crisis.

[Edited 3/4/17 10:31am]

[Edited 3/4/17 10:32am]

Hello World : The Motown Solo Collection really shows off Michael Jackson's amazing vocal ability

some great reviews of the album


By Vanessa on July 20,
First off, I can't say enough about the quality of this music. MichaelJackson was a very gifted individual and all of his music - including everything on this set - is soulful, catchy, and beautiful. It already has and will continue to stand the test of time.


By Kyle on July 24, 2009

So often, Michael Jackson's early career is glossed over in a few sentences, acknowledging some big hits with the Jackson 5; maybe, maybe not mentioning his solo albums before "Off The Wall." As great as his music would become, I've found myself so full of astonishment and joy simply trying to wrap my mind around how incredible this kid was. I try to imagine kids I know doing what Michael did, and just shake my head at what a talent he was

Surely, a ton of credit belongs to the writers, arrangers, and producers of these songs. But it's Michael, not only as a singer but as an interpreter, that steals your heart here. When I was just a kid myself, listening to these songs convinced me that I could feel emotions beyond what I knew at the time. In terms of vocal prowess, range, and dramatics, thefirst three songs on disc 1 knock me out.


The music is beautiful. Timeless, beautiful songs of a caliber that you may not experience from such a young soul ever again. Some of these songs are familiar, a lot of them aren't. Some tracks like "Ain't No Sunshine," that were released in the UK, I'd never heard. Michael's interpretaion of this song is done beautifully with lots of soul. It's interesting to hear him perform remakes and do them as skillfully, if not better, than the original artist. There are a lot of songs like that; "People Make the World Go Round," is another example.

I marvel at his ability to sing complex songs like "Maria" and just come off sounding so real, pure and heartfelt. To say that this kid was a "natural" is such a huge understatement. There is a lot of music packed in this set; I've heard so much that I am dizzy and can't keep the songs straight. So many standout songs. Music like this is not being made today. That's the bottom line. If you want to hear angelic, soulful, (because Michael is singing from his soul, he isn't just taking direction) pure singing then this is the collection for you. If you want to listen to songs that speak to you, that stay with you, then you have to add this because your MJ collection won't be complete without its beginning.


ByMatthew G. Sherwin
HALL OF FAME [TOP 500 REVIEWER[

Michael Jackson's incredible singing never ceases to amaze me; and this three CD set certainly is a must-have for his fans! The music we get here is fantastic; Michael hits every note just right and even from a very young age we can easily tell that Michael was delving deep in order to convey all the nuances to every lyric of every song he performed. Thequality of the sound is excellent and I like the artwork, too. We get so much in the way of essays and original album artwork; this really gives the KING OF POP what he deserves

ByDavid A. Iacone
This well put together boxed-set of Michael's earliest solo recordings showcases the indisputable vocal genius of the world's greatest entertainer. As it's been said countless times before, Michael's investment in singing a lyric always bared the mark of a time-worn storyteller recalling years filled with all ranges of emotions - mostly loneliness - but the "saloon singer" in this case was a child barely approaching his teens. Few artists before young Michael could truly convince us that they've lived a lyric, his most prominent predecessor, perhaps, was the Frank Sinatra of the 1950s and 60s, but Sinatra was well into his late-30s when he began to perfect his craft - Michael was 10! This boxed-set holds all of the proof..

How White Privilege Misled Me About Michael Jackson’s HIStory

by AricClark






The first music I owned was a cassette tape of MichaelJackson’s Bad. I had an alarm clock which would play a tape when it went off, so for perhaps 3 years of my adolescence I awoke every morning to “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man In The Mirror”, and “Smooth Criminal”. That last was my favorite track. I vividly remember the album as the first time slang was explained to me. “Bad” actually meant “cool”. Words could be used to mean the opposite of what they said. It blew my mind. I wore that tape out.Six years later I was 14 and MichaelJackson released HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book I. By then his reputation had taken a bit of a beating in the press, and I was oh so mature. I hadn’t listened to Bad in months, at least. In my house the narrative around this album was that Jackson was unstable, an artist in decline, and you could tell by this record. In particular, my Mom said the flaw with his new music was that Jackson was angry. This was not a time where words meant the opposite of what they said. Angry, to my 14 year-old mind meant unhealthy, irrational… crazy.
Over the next decade that narrative seemed confirmed. Michael Jackson’s behavior grew ever more eccentric and the press grew ever more gleeful in dismantling his reputation. I never gave HIStory a close listen.
Only within the last month, spurred by friends posting videos of “They Don’t Really Care About Us” in the context of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, have I begun to realize how I was misled. This song has taken on new resonance. I suddenly understand what it is about, and that has caused me to look back at the whole story I was told and accepted without thinking. Here is what I’ve learned:
“Anger” is a racist code word when used to describe people of color. Ever since white people started enslaving black people, fear of black anger has had a grip on white hearts. We can see it at work today when Grand Juries refuse to indict cops for shooting unarmed black teenagers, and blithely accept the idea that an armed and trained police officer ought to fear for his life when facing that teenager from 100′ away. Calling MichaelJackson angry was a way to marginalize him, by evoking the specter of a raging black man.
Here is a helpful comparison, which makes the point about the racist implications of calling Michael Jackson “angry”. The same year HIStory came out a singer named Alanis Morissette released her album Jagged Little Pill. I loved the song “You Oughta Know” from that album and remember clearly thinking that her anger was a creative asset. The song was so good because it was a breakup song that was angry, not whiny. Why would Alanis Morissette’s music be served well by anger, but not Michael Jackson’s?
You know what, though? Michael Jackson WAS angry, and it sadly didn’t occur to me to listen to his own descriptions of what he was angry about. It didn’t start with HIStory. Anger lurked behind a lot of his songs: “Beat It”, “Billie Jean”, the whole Bad album I loved so much, and Dangerous from the early nineties which included “Scream”, and “Black or White”. Sure, some of the anger seemed to come from the burden of fame, but he was also quite clear about the systemic injustice and racism which affected him. To read a song like “Black or White” as primarily the product of mental instability born of celebrity requires being deliberately obtuse. We also have to assume we know the cause of his anger better than he does.
So when the media sold the narrative that Michael Jackson was falling apart, even if there was truth there, there was also a sinister purpose. The purpose was to distract from his legitimate anger, his serious social commentary, by homing in on his personal failings. The cult of celebrity is all about serving as a distraction from things that matter. When Michael Jacksontried to talk about things that mattered we responded by veering even harder in the other direction. We drilled in on his cosmetic surgery, his Neverland Ranch, his pop-star lifestyle – anything to distract ourselves from a black man expressing discontent with the state of the world.
I’m sorry that I was fooled, and missed the opportunity to be sensitized to the subject of race much earlier in my life by an artist I loved so much I literally woke up singing his music every day for years. Tonight I watched Spike Lee’s video for “They Don’t Really Care About Us” over and over while my family stared in confusion over where the Christmas music had gone. I stared equally befuddled as I watched the choreography and lyrics evoke everything from mass incarceration, to police brutality, to income inequality. How had I missed this? White privilege, that’s how.

http://twofriarsandafool....s-history/

Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of MichaelJackson

joseph Vogel has brilliantly cracked the DNA, the code of the work, the artistry of Michael Joseph Jackson. This is the book I have been long awaiting -- a pointed, intelligent dissection of an epic body of work." -Spike Lee

Over his four decades in the public spotlight, Michael Jacksondazzled audiences, broke down barriers, and transformed popular music. Yet his brilliance as an artist has often been overshadowed by the tabloid frenzy that surrounded his unusual life. Now author Joseph Vogel returns to to the albums, songs and videos that made the King of Pop a cultural force in the first place. From Off the Wall and Thriller, to Bad, Dangerous, HIStory and beyond, Vogel takes us deep inside Jackson's vast musical catalog. Each song is carefully considered, from well-known classics like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" to lesser-known standouts like "Stranger in Moscow" and "Who Is It."

Meticulously researched and documented, Man in the Musicdraws on hundreds of sources, including news archives, reviews, Jackson's own words, and interviews with key collaborators. With each chapter, Vogel takes the reader back in time, placing the music in its social and historical context, discussing its relation to Jackson's personal life, and revealing never-before-heard stories from the studio. Featuring a foreword by Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis and a wealth of color photos, this unique book provides the first comprehensive assessment of the "man in the music."


Editorial Reviews

Review

"A thoroughly enjoyable analysis of the music and life of the most popular musician of an era." -Library Journal

"Immerses readers in a chronological exploration of MichaelJackson's remarkable solo career. Chapter by chapter and literally song by song, [Vogel] discusses Jackson's albums, videos, dances, cinematic influences, musical heroes, idiosyncrasies, and artistic transformations...Re aders will enjoy." -Publishers Weekly

"Man in the Music is a sensitive, perceptive, comprehensive and compelling exploration of the creative genius of MichaelJackson. The author provides a special insight into the imagination and magic of perhaps the greatest musical artist of our time. All who love Michael Jackson will appreciate this original work." —Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr.

"The most thorough and accurate portrayal of Michael's musical life I've ever seen." -Brad Buxer, Music Director for Dangerous and HIStory World Tours

"Man in the Music is thankfully all about just that — the music. Vogel takes the reader album-by-album, song-by-song and examines in exhaustive detail how Jackson produced a lifetime’s worth of music that became a soundtrack to the lives of millions…. Each song Jackson recorded during his solo career is examined with a critical eye. It’s a fascinating read and really a must-have for any Jackson fan." -Mike Householder, Associated Press

Earth Song: Inside Michael Jackson's Magnum Opus

FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED! Released in 1995, MichaelJackson s "Earth Song" was in many ways anachronistic. In both theme and sound, it was like nothing else on the radio. It defied the cynicism and apathy of Generation X. It challenged the aesthetic expectations for a pop song or even a protest song, fusing blues, opera, rock and gospel. It demanded conscience in an era of corporate greed, genocide and environmental indifference. A massive hit around the world (reaching #1 in over fifteen countries), it wasn t even offered as a single in the United States. Yet nearly eighteen years later, this six-and-a-half minute lamentation stands as one of Jackson s greatest artistic achievements. In this groundbreaking monograph, author Joseph Vogel -- who filmmaker Spike Lee praised as having "brilliantly cracked the DNA" of Jackson's work -- details the song s evolution from its inception in Vienna in 1988, to never-before-heard stories from the recording studio, to its controversial release and reception, to Jackson s final live performance in Munich in 1999. Based on original research, including interviews with the song s key participants, Earth Song: Inside Michael Jackson s Magnum Opus offers a fascinating reassessment of this timeless work of art.

Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics

Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics is an innovative study of the cultural impact of Michael Jackson. Jackson had millions of ardent fans around the world, but from the early days of his adult career many in the media mocked and reviled him. How did such divergent attitudes come about? This book examines the origins and psychological underpinnings of the media's hostility by closely analyzing some of the most harshly critical writings about Jackson. While racism and discomfort with Jackson's "otherness" have previously been recognized as the elements that fueled media criticisms, Susan Woodward reveals another important factor: the perception that Jackson was extraordinarily powerful, in ways that went beyond celebrity and wealth. Through research and careful analysis, Woodward explores the ways in which Jackson's power was seen, the largely unconscious response to his power, the functions of the media's criticisms and the origins of the perceptions of Jackson's power.Reviews

Michael Jackson's Dangerous (33 1/3)

Dangerous is Michael Jackson's coming of age album. Granted, that's a bold claim to make given that many think his best work lay behind him by the time this record was made. It offers Jackson on a threshold, at long last embracing adulthood-politically questioning, sexually charged-yet unable to convince a skeptical public who had, by this time, been wholly indoctrinated by a vicious media. Even though the record sold well, few understood or were willing to accept the depth and breadth of Jackson's vision; and then before it could be fully grasped, it was eclipsed by a shifting pop music landscape and personal scandal-the latter perhaps linked to his assertive new politics. This book tries to cut through the din of dominant narratives about Jackson, taking up the mature, nuanced artistic statement he offered on Dangerous in all its complexity. It is read here as a concept album, one that offers a compelling narrative arc of postmodern angst, love, lust, seduction, betrayal, damnation, and above all else racial politics, in ways heretofore unseen in his music. This record offered a Michael Jackson that was mystifying for a world that had accepted him as a child and as childlike and, hence, as safe; this Michael Jackson was, indeed, dangerous.

Michael Jackson: The Maestro

Michael Jackson was no ordinary performer. From the moment he first moved to the rhythm of the Jackson family's old creaky washing machine he was destined to do big things. No one back then however, could have possibly predicted what would happen over the next five decades when the name of Michael Jackson would be one of the most recognisable in the history of popular music the world over. Not only would he have four consecutive number one records with his brothers the Jackson5, but he would go on to have the biggest album of all time with Thriller and be recognised as the number one charity donor. From the author of the best selling book Michael Jackson For The Record, Chris Cadman brings you Michael Jackson's remarkable 'Life & Times' through his music, his performances, his interviews his achievements and his charity endeavours. Read about the significant people in his life and the many film offers that came his way that sadly never came to fruition. Plus discover his never ending devotion to children's charities and the less unfortunate around the world. This is Michael Jackson The Maestro - The Definitive A - Z, Volume 1: A-J.


Reviews

There is nothing out there in the Market like this compilation regardingMichael Jackson. This book “First Volume Edition” compiles all the information like a Dictionary from A to J. There is a lot of information regarding not just the released songs but songs that remain unreleased and still remain in the vault. There are also a lot of projects that Michaelworked on unknown to the general public besides other visionary business ventures that in the last years took flight like he himself envision. Furthermore, it also contains interviews and his most daring speeches where he open up to the public like he never did before in Carnegie Hall in New York and Oxford University in London back in 2001, even more then he did in the Oprah Winfrey Show back in 1993. This book sources which are many by the way, has a lot of information from that actual people that work with Michael Jackson thru out his entire career. For the first time we get to read how this man work behind the scene, reconfirming what was seen in films for his TOURS, Albums and Special Presentations. This is an INSIDE LOOK of his artistry like a huge puzzle but each piece has a description for it. We often think we know him but you will be surprise by going thru this book that we actually didn’t know how much he care about his craft and also how much he care about his environment, youth, humanity as a whole just like his artistic expression. Towards the end of the book there is a list of links to other websites which contains footage, photos and other interesting galleries for further exploration. I personally was not looking for photos since I do have already books and magazines full of them. I was very interested about all this great compilation of information because I really wanted to know the lengths he will go to develop and invest himself as an artist. Best, G

For any fan of music superstar Michael Jackson 'The Maestro' gives you everything you need to know detailing his releases, short films, concerts, art and major moments of his life. Written via alphabetic entries it allows the reader to hone in on tracks or moments of interest and get clear and informative details. Based on fact rather than tabloid fodder, The Maestro presents a clearer picture of Jackson as artist and innovator. It will no doubt be the go to book for fans new and old, as well as other authors looking to fact check their own observations.

This book is like a Michael Jackson 'bible' that tells you all about not only his music (released and unreleased), but also about his short films, interviews, philanthropy, etc. It is laid out in an easy to read format, not unlike an encyclopedia, so it is very easy to look up information. This book is huge; filled with stories I've never heard, and songs that are still in the vault. It totally focuses on Michael's career, and has none of the tabloid trash that fills so many other books about Michael. It's a book I'm proud to have on my coffee table, and encourage everyone who loves Michael's music to own this book!

Academic Book Review of ‘Keep Moving: The Michael Jackson Chronicles’ by Armond White
By Nada Basheer

Keep Moving: The Michael Jackson Chronicles is a series of 21 essays that chronicles the career of Michael Jackson written by the controversial critic Armond White, in which he reveals the deep meanings of Jackson’s art and examines his impact as a force in the music industry and as a cultural phenomenon and influencer.

It’s a conventional wisdom among the media and music critics that Michael Jackson reached his artistic peak with Off the Wall and Thriller, and every other work he released afterward was condemned as a decline. However, in the wake of Jackson’s death, the public, and the critics are reconsidering such conventional thinking by going back to revalue his albums–particularly his later work. In the recent years, many books were published by academics that focus on Jackson’s artistry and reassess his later work like: Susan Fast’s Dangerous, Joseph Vogel’s Earth Song, and Armond White’s The Michael Jackson Chronicles to name a few.

In his “Moving Forward: An Introduction,” White asserts that post-Thriller ‘the mainstream media attempted to topple Jackson’s showbiz eminence which it had helped build- a circular process satisfying animal bloodlust and political resentment. It was a power struggle.’

White’s first written mention of Michael Jackson is in his ‘Janet, The Last Black Jackson’ article, written in 1986, in which he unimpressively surveys the Thriller era through the lens of Janet Jackson’s Control album. White critically discusses the Bad short film and album in ‘Understanding Michael Jackson’. Although his views on Jackson’s Thriller and Bad are unfavorable (he clarifies in the introduction by stating that he was not ready for the ‘subtle revolution’ then), however, White kept moving (and evolving) from a mere skeptic of Michael Jackson’s message into a believer. Through every essay, White experiences a growing recognition of Jackson’s real significance, and that’s the most gripping element of the whole book.

His 1991 article, ‘The Gloved One Is Not A Chump’ marked a turning point in White’s relationship with Jackson. While the critics were mercilessly attacking the Panther coda (the last segment of Jackson’s Black or White short film), White was the first commentator to see its significance. In ‘The Gloved One Is Not A Chump,’ he intelligently interprets the Black or White short film and discusses the vicious reception of its premiere. ‘His solo dance forced the American public to look at the underside of its benighted racial fantasies and to recognize the unruly feelings inside its most popular entertainer,’ he observes. ‘No other African-American artist has dared such a thing, and no comparably popular white artist has even tried.’

In ‘Michael Takes A Bow For Jam,’ White explores the short films In The Closet and Jam. ‘His Dangerous videos are all similarly, richly meaningful; they increase the significance of the album’s music and text. This way, Jackson is creating, video by video, an ultimate hybrid art achievement as important as anything being done in this era,’ he recognizes.

White shrewdly examines black issues as Jackson became more vocal and direct about race problems as his career progressed. In his ‘Screaming To Be Heard, Book I,’ White states that in American media ‘no one hears a Black man Scream.’ He attentively analyzes Jackson’s HIStory album before declaring that it is ‘full of the steeliest, deepest remorse perceptible to anyone who has ever hurt. Only the deaf will reject it, only the heartless will deny it.’ And in ‘Screaming To Be Heard, Book II,’ he articulates that with HIStory album Jackson ‘makes the discomfort of American living, the whole serious question of our nation’s lost humanism, a matter of mainstream consciousness.’ White rebuts other journalists negative criticism of the album by describing them as a ‘hostile, repressive forces’ that intend to repress black self-representation. He concludes, ‘when Jackson’s stupid attackers subside, the beauty and complexity of HIStory -a bold work by today’s most interesting pop figure- will survive.’

In ‘Earth Song Moves Video Mountains’ White appraises Jackson’s Earth Song by placing it ‘among the most magnificent combinations of music and imagery in the centenary of motion pictures.’

White scrutinizes the Blood On The Dance Floor album in ‘Hear, My Dears’. ‘Thriller was a joke, but the sweet boy inside the Halloween mask has stopped playing,’ he asserts.

In his article ‘In MJ’s Shadow,’ White reminisces the legacy of Michael Jackson by asserting that Jackson ‘aimed for cultural domination, achieved it, then moonwalked across our consciousness–strutting and gliding as if the crown was no heavier than a bon vivant’s fedora.’ He argues, ‘if Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, P.J. Harvey and Eminem are pop’s “geniuses”, what word can adequately describe the world-changing creativity, astounding craft and miraculous precision of Jackson’s output?’ He acknowledges Jackson’s social role and the stereotypes he defied in his way to cultural achievement. White is in alliance with Jackson’s admirers and doesn’t hesitate to condemn his critics. ‘As the soulless media returns to its routine of hateful recrimination, this cultural fact remains: We all live, dance and cry in Michael Jackson’s shadow,’ he writes.

Finally, in ‘Twenty-First Century Renaissance,’ White describes Jackson’s death as a ‘cultural disaster’. He writes about the ‘media elite’ who return to their accusations about Jackson’s personal life and their deliberate disregard of his art. “These music non-lovers reveal their own inhumanity by their indecency,” White notes .

What’s missing in this outstanding collection is White’s unwritten essays on the two films Moonwalker and Ghosts, and Jackson’s final studio album, Invincible. These are among Jackson’s crucial works, and one can only hope that White will consider writing thoroughly about them in the future.

In conclusion, Armond White’s book is a vital read for students of Music Criticism or African-American studies, or for those who are interested in reading a scholarly work about Jackson’s personality and artistry. The Michael Jackson Chronicles is best accompanied with Man in the Music by Joseph Vogel.

Where to buy: Keep Moving: The Michael ...Chronicles by Armond White: http://resistanceworks.blogspot.co.uk

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/academic-book-review-of-keep-moving-the-michael-jackson-chronicles-by-armond-white/

The Incredible Way Michael Jackson Wrote Music

If you’ve ever heard the below early demo of ‘Beat It’, you’ll know Michael Jackson’s extraordinary process of writing songs – by building each element of a track with his voice. Every note of every chord, harmony, melody, bass and even the rhythm through beat-boxing. The full harmonies will blow your mind:

Jackson couldn’t read or write music at all. Contrary to received wisdom, he could play instruments a bit – he’s credited as playing keyboard, synthesizer, guitar, drums and percussion on ‘HIStory’ – but none proficiently. He didn’t have any formal composition training, though one could say he was trained harder than any other performer by his father.

But just as Mozart could hear whole symphonies in his head, Jackson fully realised his songs before they were put down on paper. “The lyrics, the strings, the chords, everything comes at the moment like a gift that is put right into your head and that’s how I hear it,” said Jackson during the ‘Dangerous’ court case of 1994.

A top team of engineers and producers would work on the tracks that he brought into the studio but even they were wowed by his genius. Rob Hoffman, sound engine...he process (h/t Rhythm Of The Tide):

“One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. “’Here’s the first chord, first note, second note, third note. Here’s the second chord first note, second note, third note’, etc etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57,” says Hoffman.

“He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. He would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills.”

One of the most interesting and revealing interviews about the way Jackson crafted his work is the audio from the ‘Dangerous’ court case. Songwriter Crystal Cartier took him to court for plagiarism and during the trial Jackson was asked to describe his song-writing process. “I’ll just sing the bass part into the tape recorder,” he said between snips of sung melody, totally pitch perfect. “I’ll take that bass lick and put the chords of the melody over the bass lick and that’s what inspires the melody,” he explained, before beat-boxing in court.

On Billie Jean he says: “Listen, you’re hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that’s what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.” At this point he had written a couple of hundred songs and said he’d usually be working on five songs at any one time. It’s well worth listening to the 10 minutes of the trial in the video above if you want to know more.

Here’s another example of Jackson’s ability to beatbox to show how he created ‘Tabloid Junkie’. It’s from an interview with Diane Sawyer in 1995 (h/t MJ World) and you won’t believe the sound’s made by man not machine:

Of course, you don’t need to be formally trained in music to be a successful artist. Paul McCartney has sold over 100 million records without learning how to notate. There are loads of ways musicians have found inventive methods to write songs without being able to actually pen down the chords – or if they just fancied going off the traditional path. You’ve got John Lennon assembling 10 people with pencils used to loop different sonic elements for ‘Revolution 9’. Then there’s Radiohead ‘Idioteque’ with a backbone made from a snippet of a recording Jonny Greenwood gave Thom Yorke (Greenwood’s the only trained musician in the group). “There was this section of about 40 seconds long in the middle of it that was absolute genius, and I just cut that up and that was it,” explained Yorke. Other examples include OMD who created their own notation system early on and Jason Pierce, Spiritualized’s lead singer, who wrote all the orchestral parts for ‘Let It Come Down’ by singing them into a portable tape recorder. Ian McCulloch wrote ‘Th...ng Moon’ by inverting the chords to David Bowie ‘Space Oddity’ and Goldie basically draws his tracks, using weird diagrams and squares and squiggles to write – watch this episode of Producers House, it’s amazing.

Jackson created some of the greatest pop anthems of all time. As anyone who’s tried to write a song will know, it’s pretty damn hard, even if you have some grasp of chords. That he managed so amazingly without only adds to the sense that what MJ had was a special, special gift.

Read more at http://www.nme.com/blogs/...iqR3D2r.99

What a great and informative thread ! Thank you Happyperson.

Very interesting read , especially the political direction.

And thanks for using the big font and enlarging the articles....makes it so much more enjoyable to read compared to using a tiny font.

I have bookmarked this thread for future use because it contains so much valuable info, and I am not even that much of a fan but I like many of his songs and have witnessed this man´s career from his heyday to the bitter end.

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One thing that´s missing though is the more scandalous part of his career, the accusations and eccentricities. I know that that is not the direction you wanted to go into but still, I feel that part is missing here and I think it is important that the really hardcore fans of MJ who know more about the details shed some light onto that aspect of his career because his image will forever be tarnished by those child molesting accusations. I´m not saying you should focus on the WHAT happened but on the circumstances, or some sort of defense (if possible) or maybe explanations, or even theories.

I think it would be interesting for casual listeners like me to get some insiders´ perspective about the darker days of his career, and whether there was any truth to MJ´s feelings of him being framed by the industry. I mean, how could such an obviously intelligent and grown man like him get involved in such scandals and negativity if there wasn´t some truth to the accusations? Why would he still hang out with children and invite them to Neverland after he barely extinguished the flames of the first series of accusations in the early 90s?

Please don´t get me wrong, I´m not suggesting to take the focus away from the political aspects of your thread but I think it would be very important to at least analyze that part of his career with all the political aspects mentioned by you earlier on in the thread.

Then again, I must admit that I haven´t finished reading the small font new posts later on in the thread so maybe you DID cover that topic....I will take a second look now.

.

But, again, thanks a lot for this great and very informative thread. Good to have all those interesting artcles on one page. And good to see so much focus on the music and the politics, and not so much on the scandals and sensationalist stuff.

Don´t get me wrong, I´m not here to diss the man, but I don´t really know much about the child molesting accusations other than what I know from the tabloids and I think it would be great to read some opinions by the dedicated fans. As I said above, I wasn´t really much of a fan and know very little about that part of his career, and I think it would be cool if those who know more (and those who defend the man) could share their views with us.

KoolEaze said:

What a great and informative thread ! Thank you Happyperson.

Very interesting read , especially the political direction.

And thanks for using the big font and enlarging the articles....makes it so much more enjoyable to read compared to using a tiny font.

I have bookmarked this thread for future use because it contains so much valuable info, and I am not even that much of a fan but I like many of his songs and have witnessed this man´s career from his heyday to the bitter end.

.

One thing that´s missing though is the more scandalous part of his career, the accusations and eccentricities. I know that that is not the direction you wanted to go into but still, I feel that part is missing here and I think it is important that the really hardcore fans of MJ who know more about the details shed some light onto that aspect of his career because his image will forever be tarnished by those child molesting accusations. I´m not saying you should focus on the WHAT happened but on the circumstances, or some sort of defense (if possible) or maybe explanations, or even theories.

I think it would be interesting for casual listeners like me to get some insiders´ perspective about the darker days of his career, and whether there was any truth to MJ´s feelings of him being framed by the industry. I mean, how could such an obviously intelligent and grown man like him get involved in such scandals and negativity if there wasn´t some truth to the accusations? Why would he still hang out with children and invite them to Neverland after he barely extinguished the flames of the first series of accusations in the early 90s?

Please don´t get me wrong, I´m not suggesting to take the focus away from the political aspects of your thread but I think it would be very important to at least analyze that part of his career with all the political aspects mentioned by you earlier on in the thread.

Then again, I must admit that I haven´t finished reading the small font new posts later on in the thread so maybe you DID cover that topic....I will take a second look now.

.

But, again, thanks a lot for this great and very informative thread. Good to have all those interesting artcles on one page. And good to see so much focus on the music and the politics, and not so much on the scandals and sensationalist stuff.

Don´t get me wrong, I´m not here to diss the man, but I don´t really know much about the child molesting accusations other than what I know from the tabloids and I think it would be great to read some opinions by the dedicated fans. As I said above, I wasn´t really much of a fan and know very little about that part of his career, and I think it would be cool if those who know more (and those who defend the man) could share their views with us.

Hey, KoolEaze I'm glad you found this thread informative. The court documents and research surrounding all the allegations that were made against Michael Jackson are available to the public but the media never report on it and doesn't want the general public being aware that facts are out there because it doesn't fit the narrative they want Michael Jackson to be portrayed as. I can make a post about since his HIStory album was heavily inspired by the first allegations in 1993 and is still relevant today regarding him being a target by those with an agenda.

[Edited 3/5/17 11:30am]

HIStory vs EVANstory: The 1993 allegations Part 1

June & Evan Chandler (Accuser's parents)

Jordan Chandler (Accuser)

Who lured who?

In May 1992, Michael Jackson was driving in Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, when his jeep broke down. He was spotted by Mel Green’s wife – Green was an employer at Rent-A-Wreck. She called her husband, who rushed to the scene in order to meet the world’s most famous celebrity and bring him to his employer’s shop. When Mel Green verified that it was really Michael Jackson, he called David Schwartz, the owner of Rent-A-Wreck, who immediately called his wife June Chandler (she never took Schwartz’s last name, she was always June Chandler) and told her to bring her son Jordan Chandler because he had a big surprise for him. Jordan was a big MJ fan who used to dress like him, a very common behavior for young (and in many occasions older) die hard fans of Jackson (and other popular artists for that matter). His mother verified that, in her April 11, 2005 trial testimony (direct by Sneddon):

18 Q. Now, let me go back in time. Before this

19 meeting that you had at your husband’s place of

20 business in 1992, had Jordan ever expressed, to your

21 knowledge, some admiration for Mr. Jackson?

22 A. Oh, very much so, yes.

23 Q. How did he display that admiration?

24 MR. MESEREAU: Objection; hearsay.

25 MR. SNEDDON: I didn’t ask for a statement,

26 Your Honor. I asked for a display.

27 THE COURT: All right.

28 He’s not asking for anything that was said. 5603

1 Do you understand the question?

2 THE WITNESS: Would you repeat the question,

3 please?

4 Q. BY MR. SNEDDON: Yes.

5 How did your son Jordan, prior to this

6 meeting that occurred at David Schwartz’s place of

7 business, express — display his admiration for Mr.

8 Jackson?

9 A. He had a little sparkly jacket that he would

10 wear to parties. He would have a glove like Michael

11 Jackson, and dance around like Michael Jackson.

12 Q. And this was all before he met Mr. Jackson?

13A. Before he met Michael Jackson, yes.

June and Jordie arrived at the shop to meet Michael. June, who was a former model, was described by everyone that knew her as a very attractive Eurasian woman, and her marriage with her 70 year old husband was not going well at the time (they eventually divorced) and Mr. Schwartz had already moved out. According to the people who were present at the scene, Jackson was quickly taken by her as she introduced herself to him.

Wade Robson’s mother testified at the 2005 trial that June was after Michael. She said “My impression of her is she was a gold-digger“. She also stated she felt June Chandler tried to use Michael and that she would order the staff around like she owned it. Even Evan Chandler had noticed that, as it is revealed from his taped conversation with Jordan’s stepfather, David Schwartz. This conversation is listed in the full transcript that is included as exhibit no 10 in the case no SC 031 774 (Schwartz vs. Chandler-David Schwartz sued Evan Chandler because in late 1993 during a meeting in Larry Feldman’s office David yelled at Evan Chandler that “this is all about extortion”, and Evan lost it and hit David). Also it is revealed from June’s testimony that she had a conversation with Michael about trust issues, telling him that men in her life had let her down and she had a hard time trusting someone. That’s not exactly a friendly conversation.

June introduced Jordan to Michael and she informed him that they had seen him before, while eating at an L.A. restaurant but they didn’t approach him. She also informed him that when he was hospitalized for his Pepsi burn accident in 1984, Jordan, who was 4 at the time, sent a letter and a picture of himself to the Brotman Memorial Hospital. The letter included their telephone number. In reality, it was June who wrote the letter and gave it to MJ’s bodyguards in the hospital including the picture and her telephone number. She was trying to meet Michael for a long time before May 1992. Thousands of fans all over the world had bombarded the hospital with letters and phone calls and extra staff was hired from the hospital to handle the fans’ reaction. Former US president Ronald Reagan was among the people who sent MJ a letter to wish him well. The Pepsi commercial accident made big headlines worldwide in newspapers, magazines, shows and TV news at the time. Michael Jackson called the Chandlers back to thank Jordan for his letter, as he used to do throughout his life on numerous occasions, given the well- known and amazing attachment he always had with his fans. He also suggested that Jordan should participate in an audition for one of his commercials at the time. Jordan did participate but he wasn’t selected and he didn’t meet Jackson. In 1989, Frank Dileo contacted June to offer her tickets for the BAD concert in Los Angeles. MJ has offered tickets to his fans of all ages, races, social status and sex, hundreds of times in his career, a fact well documented over the years going back to his Jackson 5 days. June and Jordan attended the concert and tried to meet MJ backstage, but with no success.

After June explained to MJ how huge a fan Jordan was, she wrote down her telephone number and handed it to him, suggesting that he should call Jordan sometime. David Schwartz seconded that, adding that Jordan was his biggest fan. That was the second time June was offering Jackson her phone number. June verified the Rent-A-Wreck incident in her 2005 trial testimony. From her direct examination by Sneddon:

“5 Q. And do you recall how long you were with Mr.

6 Jackson and Jordan that day?

7 A. Briefly. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

8 Q. And did — was there any information

9 exchanged between you and Mr. Jackson that day?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And what was that?

12 A. I said, “If you would like to see Jordie or

13 if he could call you or if you’d like to speak to

14 him, here is our number, and you can give him a

15 call.”

16Q. And you gave that to Mr. Jackson?

17A. Yes, I did.

Jordan described the pressure on Jackson to take the phone number and call him in his interview with Dr. Gardner on October 6, 1993:

-My stepfather took him [Michael] outside to choose a car for him to use. And I guess when my stepfather was outside he said, ‘You don’t have to pay for the car if you just take Jordie’s number and give him a call’.
– Why would your stepfather say that?
– Because my stepfather knows I was interested in Michael Jackson and his music.
– And this was in your presence?
– No. I was told this by my stepfather.

Mel Green, who was also present, had the following to say in his interview with Mary Fischer for her 1994 GQ article on the case: “It was almost like she (June) was forcing [the boy] on him,” “I think Michael thought he owed the boy something, and that’s when it all started.”

According to every available given fact coming from the parties involved, including the Chandlers themselves, it is unquestionable that they forced themselves on Michael Jackson, not vice versa, as the media still likes to falsely present it. They offered their phone number twice without Jackson asking for it, they pressured him to call because Jordan was his biggest fan, David called June to bring Jordan, they brought him to David’s shop, and they tried to meet him before May 1992.

MJ-Chandlers friendship

Jackson befriended the Chandlers-like he did with many other families that approached him over the years- inviting June, Jordan and Lily to Neverland in February 1993. June invited him many times to her house as well. During the same period of time, MJ had a friendly relationship with others including the Culkins, Cascios, Robsons and Barnes. June lived with her son Jordie, her daughter Lily, and a live-in housekeeper. Mr. Schwartz had already moved out by then. Sometimes they were joined by Evan Chandler when Michael was there. In her trial testimony, June said that MJ never stayed there 30 days in a row after the trip to Monaco, as the media falsely reported. June testified that could be a week or two only. From her testimony:

“Q. After you got back from Monaco, did Michael Jackson spend nights at your home?

A. Yes.

Q. Were the 30 nights you’ve described after you got back from Monaco?

A. No.

Q. How many nights after you got back from Monaco do you think Michael Jackson stayed at your home?

A. Oh, perhaps a week or two.

Q. And this was a point where you were getting upset that your son wanted to spend all of his time with Michael Jackson, right?

A. Yes.”

Given the timeline we know from the Chandlers, and the business schedule of MJ, those 30 days are somebody’s fabrication. June’s 2005 trial testimony and MJ’s overloaded schedule refute it even for the period prior to Monaco. It couldn’t have been in Mr. Chandler’s house either because June Chandler said Michael stayed at Evan’s on one or two occasions for 4-7 days. Jordan Chandler gave an even more confusing and contradictory timeline to Dr. Gardner. It seems that no one was able to keep his story straight. Jordan’s confused memory was also noted in the DCFS report.

She also said that it was her son and not Jackson who requested her permission to sleep in MJ’s bedroom during their 3d visit at Neverland.

Evan Chandler felt uncomfortable about the fact that Michael Jackson had begun to take his place in Jordan’s life. He discussed it with June and David. Michael Freeman, June Chandler’s lawyer, said that Mr. Chandler felt that he was left out. David Schwartz also felt that he had lost his wife because of MJ (although there were marital problems before that) and he didn’t like the fact that Michael was buying presents for June. In fact Michael Jackson had a very old habit of buying jewellery for women he liked, dating back to his elementary school years, when he used to steal his mother’s jewellery to give them to teachers he liked. He talks about it in his autobiography, and so does his mother in her book. He kept that habit throughout his life, which is a very well-known fact about him. Evan reportedly didn’t have much of a great relationship with Jordan, as he was $68,804 behind in child support.

The National Enquirer tabloid wrote an article after Michael’s trip to Monaco under the title “Michael’s new adopted family” and everybody was wondering who that beautiful woman was next to Michael. The media played constantly the footage of Michael, June, Lily, and Jordan and presented it as if Michael and June were having an affair. Evan Chandler and David Schwartz were not amused and they discussed this issue.

Evan finally met Michael and according to his side of the story he had already been suspicious about Michael and Jordie’s relationship, although he never provided any explanation for this. When the allegations were made public, J. Randy Taraborelli said that Jackson’s staff were investigating Evan Chandler since May 1993, and they refused to give in to Chandler’s request because the allegations were false. The interesting thing here is that May 1993 is the time where Michael Jackson was seen in public with the Chandlers and the media picked it up.

Having said that, one can only wonder why Evan invited Michael to stay in his house (he had expressed his suspicions before the invitation by asking his patient Carrie Fischer, who knew Dr. Arnold Klein, for information on MJ. Dr. Klein answered that Michael was a nice guy acting like a big child, and that he was perfectly straight), why he asked him to build them a new wing so he can spend more time there, and if MJ could possibly buy them a bigger house.

How did Mr. Chandler come up with thatsuspicion in the first place?June Chandler never suspected Michael of anything and she was very clear about it both in 1993 and 2005. Jordan Chandler never said anything like that to his father at the time and he even denied the allegations when he was questioned in July 1993. David Schwartz didn’t agree with Evan either and even accused him of extortion. So where did that accusation come from? For the record, at no time did Evan Chandler ever claim to have witnessed any sexual misconduct on Jackson’s part. Did someone approach, manipulate and use Mr. Chandler by planting the seeds of molestation in Mr. Chandler’s head, after seeing the family in the news in May 1993? Was someone around Evan Chandler before he even had any thoughts and ideas of misconduct?

The Plan

On July 7, 1993, Evan Chandler filed papers for modification of the custody agreement. For everything that was about to follow, Mr. Chandler first needed to have the custody of Jordan. During a July 8, 1993 taped conversation with David Schwartz, Evan said that he was angry because MJ stopped telephoning him and he stopped being his friend. He also said that he recently informed Michael about what he wanted from their relationship. When referring to the same event, Michael Jackson said that Chandler asked him to fund movie projects for 20 million dollars making him a partner to his Sony deal. This is corroborated by painter David Nordahl in his interview with Deborah L. Kunesh (2010):

“I was working on sketches for his film production company, called “Lost Boys Productions”….Sony had given him (Michael) $40 million to start this production company and that little boy’s dad (Evan Chandler), who considered himself to be show business material, because he had written part of a script….after that he considered himself a Hollywood screenwriter, and being friends with Michael and his son being friends with Michael, this guy had assumed that Michael was going to make him a partner in this film production company and that’s where the $20 million figure came from. He wanted ½ of that Sony money. It was proven. It was an extortion. Michael listened to his business advisors and they all told him to keep his mouth shut and to go on to Korea, go on with your tour, you’re in the middle of a tour. We’ll take care of it….”

http://www.reflectionsont...rdahl.html

It was also mentioned in Los Angeles Times dated August 28, 1993:

“Film industry sources have said that the boy’s father sought a $20-million movie production and financing deal with Jackson. Although the boy’s father has not commented publicly about that charge or any other aspect of the case, he has told friends that the extortion allegation is untrue.”

Evan’s request for partnership in movies was not a secret in film industry circles. According to his brother, Ray Chandler, he discussed it with his wife Natalie. In this conversation Evan Chandler says that Jordan asked for Michael to give him a job in his movie productions. Chandler had faced serious professional problems, and there was a period where his license was suspended. He had also been sued by one of his clients. He wanted to become a movie writer and quit his job, and in 1992 he co-wrote the script for Mel Brook’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights. From Los Angeles Times article dated June 13, 1993:

You’ve all heard of script doctors. Well, here’s a new one: script dentists.

Beverly Hills dentist Dr. Evan Chandler–the man who’s entrusted to care for Sherry Lansing’s, Christian Slater’s and Valerie Golino’s teeth, among others–found a new patient in his chair one morning interested in listening to a couple of his movie ideas. The patient was screenwriter J. David Shapiro; the idea actually came from Chandler’s then 11-year-old son, Jordie. The conversation took place post-“Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and resulted in a writing partnership that has become “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

“Evan Chandler’s son turned to his father and said, ‘You know, Dad, you know what would be a great thing, a spoof of Robin Hood,‘ ” recalls the King of Parodies, Mel Brooks, who liked the duo’s screenplay send-up of the 1991 hit that starred Costner as the chivalric arrow-slinging hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor and decided to make it his next movie. “It didn’t hurt that the man’s in a lot of show-biz mouths,” he said, acknowledging his connection to Shapiro through a mutual friend who works for Brooksfilm.

Brooks also gives a nod to the kid despite the fact he’s in a Writers Guild arbitration with his father and Shapiro over who should get what screenplay credit. Brooks says they should get story credit and he and Shapiro screenplay credit. Chandler would not comment for this story. (Consideration is being made whether to give Jordi some recognition in the end crawl credits.)

“Even though the kid was 12 or 14 years late, it was still a good idea,” said thespoof-meister of such genre lampoons as “Blazing Saddles” and “YoungFrankenstein.”

Evan Chandler

Evan and Jordan Chandler were capable of writing a Hollywood script. That is a fictional story, which could become a movie. The idea was Jordan’s, and he participated in the writing of the script. Anyone who has seen “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” knows that it is filled with sexual jokes and innuendoes. June Chandler had an argument with Evan Chandler because he didn’t give his son part of the money for the script. She said he owed him $ 5,000 dollars.

At the time, June, David and Michael were a team against Evan Chandler. June and David tried to warn Michael about Evan but unfortunately he didn’t take them seriously, saying that these kind of things happen to him all the time, and people were always trying to get money out of him, which is a very common problem for celebrities.

Evan Chandler also said the following on the tape (excerpts from the transcripts dated early July 1993):

20 MR. CHANDLER: Let me put it to you

21 this way: I have a set routine of words that I’m

22 going to go in there that have been rehearsed and

23 I’m going to say.

24 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

25 MR. CHANDLER: Okay? Because I don’t

9

1 want to say anything that could be used against me.

2 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

3 MR. CHANDLER: So I know exactly what I

4 can say. That’s why I’m bringing the tape

5 recorder.

6 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

7 MR. CHANDLER: I have some things on

8 paper to show a few people –

9 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

10 MR. CHANDLER: — and that’s it. My

11 whole part is going to take two or three minutes,

12 and I’m going to turn around [tape irregularity],

13 and that’s it. There’s not going to be anything

14 said, other than what I’ve been told to say –

15 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

16 MR. CHANDLER: — and I’m going to turn

17 around and leave, and they’re going to have a

18 decision to make.

19 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

20 MR. CHANDLER: And based on that

21 decision, I’ll decide whether or not we’re going to

22 talk again or whether it’s going to go further.

23 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

24 MR. CHANDLER: I have to make a phone

25 call. As soon as I leave the house, I get on the

10

1 telephone.

2 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

3 MR. CHANDLER: I make a phone call.

4 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

5 MR. CHANDLER: Say “Go” or I say,

6 “Don’t go yet,” and that’s –

7 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

8 MR. CHANDLER: — the way it’s gonna to

9 be.

10 I’ve been told what to do, and I have

11 to do it.

12 I’m not — I happen to know what’s

13 going to be going on, see? They don’t have to say

14 anything to me. [Tape irregularity] “you have

15 refused to listen to me. Now you’re going to have

16 to listen to me. This is my position. Give it a

17 thought.”

18 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

19 MR. CHANDLER: “Think it over.”

20 I’m not saying anything bad about

21 anybody, okay? I’ve got it all on paper.

22 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

23 MR. CHANDLER: I’m going to hand out

24 the paper so that I don’t inadvertently [tape

25 irregularity], handing out the paper, “Michael,

11

1 here’s your paper. June, here’s your paper.”

2 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

3 MR. CHANDLER: “Compare papers. Read

4 this whole thing. This is my feelings about it.

5 Do you want to talk further? We’ll talk again.”

6 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

7 MR. CHANDLER: “If you don’t” [tape

8 irregularity] — but, see, all I’m trying to do

9 now, they have forced me to go [tape irregularity]

10 on paper and give it to them to read –

11 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

12 MR. CHANDLER: — because [tape

13 irregularity]. I mean, isn’t that pitiful?

14 Now, why would they want to cut me out,

15 to go this far, spend this much money, spend so

16 much time in my life crying, being away from my

17 practice, not paying [tape irregularity] everybody

18 else? Why would they want to put me through that?

*******************************************

13 MR. CHANDLER: Well, I have to count

14 the days because I can’t let it go on forever.

15 By the way, they’re going on tour on

16 August 15th. They’re going to be gone. They’re

17 going to be out of the country –

18 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

19 MR. CHANDLER: — for four months.

20 MR. SCHWARTZ: Is that bad?

21 MR. CHANDLER: Well, I’m not going to

22 be able to communicate with them about this when

23 they’re gone, am I?

24 MR. SCHWARTZ: I mean, but you think

25 that –

18

1 MR. CHANDLER: By the way, they’re not

2 going.

3 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

4 MR. CHANDLER: They don’t know that

5 yet, but they are not going.

17 MR. CHANDLER: — to give it one more

18 try, and that’s the only reason, because this

19 attorney I found — I mean, I interviewed several,

20 and I picked the nastiest son of a bitch –

21 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

22 MR. CHANDLER: — I could find, and all

23 he wants to do is get this out in the public as

24 fast as he can, as big as he can –

25 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

25

1 MR. CHANDLER: — and humiliate as many

2 people as he can, and he’s got a bad [tape

3 irregularity] –

4 MR. SCHWARTZ: Do you think that’s

5 good?

6 MR. CHANDLER: — (simultaneous,

7 inaudible) he’s costing me a lot of money.

8 MR. SCHWARTZ: Do you think that’s

9 good?

10 MR. CHANDLER: I think that’s great. I

11 think it’s terrific. The best. Because when

12 somebody — when somebody tells you that they don’t

13 want to talk to you –

14 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

9 MR. CHANDLER: It’s true. I mean, it

10 could be a massacre if I don’t get what I want.

11 But I do believe this person will get what he

12 wants.

13 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

14 MR. CHANDLER: So he would just really

15 love [tape irregularity] nothing better than to

16 have this go forward. He is nasty, he is mean –

17 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

18 MR. CHANDLER: — he is very smart

19 [tape irregularity], and he’s hungry for the

20 publicity [tape irregularity] better for him.

21 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

22 MR. CHANDLER: And that’s where it’ll

23 go –

24 MR. SCHWARTZ: You don’t think everyone

25 loses?

27

1 MR. CHANDLER: (Simultaneous,

2 inaudible) totally humiliate him in every way –

3 MR. SCHWARTZ: That — everyone doesn’t

4 lose in that?

5 MR. CHANDLER: That’s not the issue.

6 See, the issue is that if I have to go that far –

7 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

8 MR. CHANDLER: — I can’t stop and

9 think “Who wins and who loses?”

10 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

11 MR. CHANDLER: All I can think about is

12 I only have one goal, and the goal is to get their

13 attention –

14 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

15 MR. CHANDLER: — so that [tape

16 irregularity] concerns are, and as long as they

17 don’t want to talk to me, I can’t tell them what my

18 concerns are, so I have to go step by step, each

19 time escalating the attention-getting mechanism,

20 and that’s all I regard him as, as an

21 attention-getting mechanism.

22 Unfortunately, after that, it’s totally

23 out of [tape irregularity]. It’ll take on so much

24 momentum of its own that it’s going to be out of

25 all our control. It’s going to be monumentally

28

1 huge, and I’m not going to have any way to stop it.

2 No one else is either at that point. I mean, once

3 I make that phone call, this guy’s just going to

4 destroy everybody in site in any devious, nasty,

5 cruel way that he can do it. And I’ve given him

6 full authority to do that.

7 To go beyond tomorrow, that would mean

8 I have done every possible thing in my individual

9 power to tell them to sit down and talk to me; and

10 if they still [tape irregularity], I got to

11 escalate the attention-getting mechanism. He’s the

12 next one. I can’t go to somebody nice [tape

13 irregularity]. It doesn’t work with them. I

14 already found that out. Get some niceness and just

15 go fuck yourself.

16 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

17 MR. CHANDLER: Basically, what they

18 have to know, ultimately, is that their lives are

19 over, if they don’t sit down. One way or the

20 other, it’ll either go to the next step or the

21 [tape irregularity]. I’m not stopping until I get

22 their attention.

24 MR. CHANDLER: The other times I tried

25 to tell them that I needed to talk to them, all I

131

1 got was, “Go fuck yourself. We’re not talking to

2 you.”

3 So now I had to let them know and make

4 sure that they know they’d [tape irregularity]

5 they’re gonna get hurt by it, so (inaudible) — I

6 had to make [tape irregularity] if they don’t sit

7 down and talk to me they’re gonna get hurt. They

8 can’t keep telling me to go fuck myself anymore.

9 They have to talk. I want to talk to them. I

10 don’t want to hurt anybody. They’re forcing me to

11 do it. They’re forcing me to do it by refusing to

12 sit down and talk to me. That’s all I ask for.

13 “You sit down and you talk to me [tape

14 irregularity] side of the story, I’ll listen to

15 yours, we all sit down and see how it could be

16 resolved.”

17 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah. So that’s

18 there –

19 MR. CHANDLER: That’s all I ask for.

21 MR. SCHWARTZ: But when you say

22 “winning,” what are you talking about, “winning”?

23 MR. CHANDLER: I will get everything I

24 want, and they will be totally — they will be

25 destroyed forever. They will be destroyed. June

133

1 is gonna lose Jordy. She will have no right to

2 ever see him again.

3 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

6 MR. SCHWARTZ: Does that help –

7 MR. CHANDLER: — Michael the career

8 will be over.

9 MR. SCHWARTZ: Does that help Jordy?

10 MR. CHANDLER: Michael’s career will be

11 over.

12 MR. SCHWARTZ: And does that help

13 Jordy?

14 MR. CHANDLER: It’s irrelevant to me.

5 MR. CHANDLER: That’s silly. No.

6 Michael has to be there. Michael has to be there.

7 He’s the main one. He’s the one I want.

25 MR. CHANDLER: Let me put it to you

128

1 this way, Dave. Nobody in this world was allowed

2 to come between this family of June, me and Jordy.

18 If

19 I go through with this, I win big time. There’s no

20 way that I lose. I’ve checked that out inside out.

21 MR. SCHWARTZ: But when you say

22 “winning,” what are you talking about, “winning”?

23 MR. CHANDLER: I will get everything I

24 want

*****************************

1 MR. CHANDLER: You know, you gotta

2 forgive me for one thing, but I have been told by

3 my lawyer that if I say one thing to anybody –

4 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Okay.

5 MR. CHANDLER: — don’t bother calling

6 him again. He said this case is so open [tape

7 irregularity] “You open your mouth and you blow

8 it,” he said, “just don’t come back to me.”

9 MR. SCHWARTZ: Okay. I respect that.

10 Okay.

11 MR. CHANDLER: Not that I don’t trust

12 you or anything –

*************************************

24 MR. SCHWARTZ: But why not? Why

25 couldn’t we go talk it over –

197

1 MR. CHANDLER: Because the thing’s

2 already — the thing has already been set in

3 motion.

4 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

5 MR. CHANDLER: It’s happening at 8:30.

6 8:36 tomorrow –

7 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

8 MR. CHANDLER: — it’s out of my hands.

9 I do nothing else again –

10 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

11 MR. CHANDLER: — after 8:36 tomorrow.

12 It’s all been automatically set in

13 motion.

14 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

15 MR. CHANDLER: I’m not even in contact

16 anymore –

17 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

18 MR. CHANDLER: — with this person.

19 This thing is –

20 MR. SCHWARTZ: Let me ask you this,

21 then.

22 MR. CHANDLER: (Simultaneous,

23 inaudible) 8:36, unless I call in –

24 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

25 MR. CHANDLER: — and tell him not to

198

1 do it.

2 MR. SCHWARTZ: So why don’t you call

3 and say not to do it?

4 MR. CHANDLER: Because I’m not going

5 to.

6 MR. SCHWARTZ: Why? Why wouldn’t you

7 go with me? I mean, we trust each other. We

8 respect each other. Why couldn’t you go with me

9 and we’d decide together?

10 MR. CHANDLER: Because I don’t want to

11 talk to you about it.

12 MR. SCHWARTZ: Why?

13 MR. CHANDLER: I want to talk to June

14 and Jordy and Michael –

14 MR. CHANDLER: (Simultaneous,

15 inaudible) Michael Jackson — Michael Jackson’s

16 career, Dave. This man is gonna be humiliated

17 beyond belief. You’ll not believe it. He will not

18 believe what’s going to happen to him.

19 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

20 MR. CHANDLER: Beyond his worst

21 nightmares. [tape irregularity] not sell one more

22 record.

23 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

24 MR. CHANDLER: That’s for sure. And I

25 mean I’m [tape irregularity] it just has to happen

201

1 in order to get — to keep [tape irregularity] and

2 it doesn’t have to happen if they show up tomorrow.

3 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

4 MR. CHANDLER: But if they don’t show

5 up — and I’ve made it very clear — I’ve tried to

6 make it really clear on that answering machine,

7 “This is the last chance to talk. If you talk, we

8 have a chance. If we don’t talk, it’s all over.”

9 It’s out of my hands. I mean, what

10 else can I do?

20 MR. CHANDLER: Then why don’t you just

21 back me up right now and let’s get rid of Michael

22 Jackson.

5 MR. CHANDLER: There are other people

6 involved that are waiting for my phone call that

7 are intentionally going to be in certain

8 positions –

9 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

10 MR. CHANDLER: — [tape irregularity].

11 I paid them to do it. They’re doing their job. I

12 gotta just go ahead and follow through on the time

13 zone.

14 MR. SCHWARTZ: Um-hmm.

15 MR. CHANDLER: I mean the time set out.

16 Everything is going according to a certain plan

17 that isn’t just mine. There’s other people

18 involved –

A small part of the taped conversation between Evan Chandler and David Schwartz was played by Pellicano in a news conference, after the allegations were made public on August 30 and September 1, 1993.

On July 8 1993, Jordan Chandler's stepdad Dave Schwartz, recorded a series of phone conversations between himself and Evan Chandler, Jordan's father. In them, Evan speaks about feeling shut out from his sons's life and expresses concern for his son's well-being. He reveals that he paid tens of thousands of dollars for the evidence he will use against Michael Jackson if neither Jordan, his mother June, or Michael agree to speak with him. Read the complete transcripts of these conversations and join in the discussion at mjfiles.com
http://www.mjfiles.com/allegations

If Evan Chandler indeed suspected that something wrong was happening, then why didn’t he go to the police? Why did he try hard to make them listen to him and give him the attention he needed? Why did he say that the issue could be resolved? Resolved in what way? And what was the issue, since June and Jordan discredited him at that point? Why did he hire a lawyer that could get what he wanted, and why was Evan rehearsed on what to say so not to say anything that could be used against him? What did he want? And why was he afraid that this could be used against him? What was the plan he was talking about that wasn’t just his?

Mr. Chandler sued June Chandler and David Schwartz for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy because they taped him and released the audio. The mother said that they were being sued by Evan Chandler to avoid payment of child support and they filed a cross-complaint against Evan Chandler. In that cross-complaint David Schwartz stated that he did not think Michael Jackson had molested his stepson. The stepfather also sued Evan Chandler for brain damage, two counts of assault, and two counts for battery.

The paper Mr. Chandler refers to in the taped conversation as evidence, is the letter that Dr. Mathis Abrams, a psychiatrist, sent to Barry Rothman (the nasty lawyer Evan picked up). Barry Rothman was an entertainment lawyer of questionable character that had been accused for fraud, had a temper, owed people money, and had filed for bankruptcy in November 1992. He was also the lawyer of a client who accused her ex – husband for molesting their child while Mr. Rothman worked at the father’s company at the same time. As a result of his work on this case, he had some experience regarding child abuse accusations. It should be noted that Rothman, with respect to this case, was accused of conflict of interest.

Rothman called Dr. Abrams and presented him with a hypothetical incident. The psychiatrist didn’t meet with anyone at the time. Based on this hypothetical scenario by Barry Rothman, he sent back a letter stating ”reasonable suspicion exists that sexual abuse may have occurred”. This was the letter Evan Chandler used as a bargaining tool for the $20 million dollar demand in his meeting Michael Jackson on August 4, 1993, and he is referring to it in the conversation as “evidence”.

Mr. Chandler also repeats many times how crucial it is for him to be listened to and not ignored, otherwise he will go crazy. He also said that he cried hysterically over the phone to June because he was losing but she didn’t care about his feelings. He is complaining that Michael Jackson, who has money and power, impressed his family and now is a role model for Jordan, replacing him. He also concluded that if it weren’t for MJ, June and Jordan would still be in his life. In the phone calls he appears to be clearly jealous of the superstar. The transcript is full of grandiose statements and threatening behavior. Through the years it became known that he was bipolar, receiving medical treatment for the serious mental disorder, and that he wasn’t always very compliant with his medical treatment. He also had a well known temper, and violent behavior, which is one of the reasons June divorced him. He tried to kill his son Jordan in August 2005, he hit David Schwartz, he spoke about violent behavior in the transcripts, and here is what Jackson’s biographer J. Randy Taraborelli had to say about him after he committed suicide in November 2009:

“I met him several times in the 1990s. I had lots of secret meetings with Evan Chandler, trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. I was pretty young, sort of green and wish I had my present level of expertise to be able to have applied back then. I have stories about that guy that I have never even published. He was about as inconsistent as they come. He was so determined to get me on his side, I thought he was just a tad scary. If you read my book you sort of get how I felt — feel — about him. When it came out, he called me screaming at me for not just buying his story 100%.

He actually threatened me, and I thought… okay, pal, now I know who you really are. I wish it had all been handed differently. To be honest, I wish MJ had never settled, and I told Michael that several times. But… he felt he had to save his life, and I understood that, too. He really was in bad shape. However, I wish it had gone to trial so we could have had real evidence presented in a court of law – like the Arvizo nonsense — and then really been able to sort through it and come to some real decisions. It all seems so useless now, though, doesn’t it? And such a shame.”

Taraborelli, in his 2010 edition of Michael’s unauthorized biography, also writes that Evan Chandler called him after his 2003 edition was published and said “You owe me. If I ever see you again, it’s not going to go well for you. You’d better hide because I am coming for you”.

According to the court documents filed in 2006 (in which Jordan Chandler sued his father and he obtained a permanent restraining order against him), Evan Chandler hit his son from behind with a 12.5 pound weight, which means there was no self-defense involved. Then he maced him in his eyes and tried to choke him. The date of the incident is more than interesting. August 2005; Michael Jackson was acquitted on all counts on June 13, 2005. But the media, who have been negatively criticized for their unethical, unprofessional, and biased tabloid coverage, continued to lie about the singer. Did Jordan decide to speak up for Jackson and did Evan Chandler lose it again? Had Jordan defended MJ, Evan could have faced charges. Jackson’s 2005 lead defense attorney, Tom Mesereau, repeatedly said in public that he had witnesses to testify that Jordan had admitted the 1993 case was his father’s set up plan against Jackson and he was innocent of the allegations. These witnesses were Jordan’s friends. In fact, Jordan Chandler has been very talkative about it during his period in college, but the media didn’t find it convenient for their agenda to report it.

MESEREAU: Now the one you’re talking about never showed up. He’s the one who got the settlement in the early 90s. And my understanding is prosecutors tried to get him to show up and he wouldn’t. If he had, I had witnesses who were going to come in and say he told them it never happened. And that he would never talk to his parents again for what they made him say. And it turned out he had gone into court and gotten legal emancipation from his parents. His mother testified that she hadn’t talked to him in 11 years. So, you know, there was a problem there as well.
(Harvard University , November, 29 2005)

Josephine Zohny was one of the potential witnesses for the defense in the 2005 trial, and her name can be found in the witness list. What she had to say was this: during a conversation regarding Michael Jackson’s allegations, Jordan Chandler expressed the belief that the singer was innocent, and when he referred to his father, he said that he had a poor relationship with him, and he made him do things he didn’t want to do.

The prosecution in the 2005 trial never opened the door for the defense to bring witnesses regarding the 1993 allegations. The defense’s role is to rebut the prosecution; they are not the ones who introduce subjects or witnesses to the trial. Jordan Chandler never came to testify against Jackson and his mother, who testified, did not accuse the singer of anything.

Evan Chandler

June, Michael and Jordan never showed up in that July meeting Evan was desperately asking for.

Geraldine Hughes was Barry Rothman’s legal secretary that witnessed the plot for extortion that took place in Rothman’s office. She was there when Evan Chandler had meetings with Rothman way before any allegations were made and she met Jordan as well in that very office. She described Jordan as being cool, while Evan was stressed, and Jordan was trying to calm him down. Hughes describes the plot/plan in detail in her book Redemption, in which she kept a calendar with a chronological order of the events. In the book she states that her calendar can stand the scrutiny of a forensic ink dating test. When her book was released neither Rothman nor Evan sued or challenged her. She offered her testimony to the defense during the 1993 investigation, but no trial ever took place. Among numerous things she offers in the book are overheard statements that she wrote down such as:

“It’s my ass that’s on the line and in danger of going to prison” Chandler yelling at Rothman after the allegations had made it to the public. He said that on August 24 1993 and it was the day Pellicano publicly mentioned the extortion.

Chandler to Rothman “I almost had a twenty million dollar deal”.

Rothman to Chandler telling him over the phone that they had “to meet over the weekend” before speaking to the investigator “to make sure our stories are thesame”.

Rothman to Chandler “we just have to stick to the plan, we cannot deviatefrom the plan”.

Pellicano to Rothman before the allegations “No way-that’s extortion”.

On July 9, 1993 June and David met with MJ’s private investigator Anthony Pellicano and played him the tape that David had made of his conversations with Evan Chandler. Michael’s lawyer Bert Fields was also present in that meeting and he represented June as well, according to her testimony. (For the record, Evan sued David for recording him and David said he did it because Evan has been violent and threatened him, and he needed evidence for his lawsuit against him). Bert Fields later said he was very concerned after hearing the tape because it sounded like extortion. The singer had already heard the tapes and he was very angry. Among other things, he said “Tell Evan that Michael Jackson said he can go to hell”.

Anthony Pellicano arranged a meeting to talk to Jordan Chandler the next day. June Chandler confirmed the meetings with Pellicano in her 2005 testimony, acknowledging the fact that Pellicano was representing her too at the time, along with Bert Fields. She was on Michael Jackson’s side against her former husband. Pellicano questioned Jordan for over an hour, asking him directly if anything inappropriate ever happened. Jordan Chandler’s answer to all of these questions was NO. Pellicano in his various media appearances at the time, talked about that day.Paul Baressi handed to Aphrodite Jones portion of the transcripts from the Jim Mitteager tapes, which were well known to the media. Mitteager was a reporter for The Globe tabloid, and he recorded his meetings with the parties involved in the 1993 case while interviewing them. Many famous journalists have listened to these tapes, and when he died his widow gave them to Baressi. Parts of these transcripts were handed over to FBI for the case against Pellicano (in 2006 he was arrested on illegal wiretapping, among other charges). Here is an excerpt handed to Jones that can be found in her official site:

TRANSCRIPT

September 1994

PELLICANO: You have to understand something. I have nine kids. Michael [Jackson] plays with my baby. They crawl all over him. They pull his hair. They pull his nose. Sometimes he wears a bandage across his face. If I let my own kids (unintelligible) do you think there’s a chance?

MITTEAGER: Well, all things being equal, I would say, no.

PELLICANO: Not only that. If you sat this kid [Jordie Chandler] down like I did, as a matter of fact, he couldn’t wait to get up and go play video games. I said, “you don’t understand how serious this is. Your dad [Evan Chandler] is going to accuse Michael of sexual molestation. He going to say all kinds of stuff.” He [Jordie] says, “Yeah, my dad’s trying to get money.” As a matter of fact, I (unintelligible) for 45 minutes. Then I tried tricking him. I mean, I want you to know, I’m a vegetarian. I picked this kid with a fine tooth comb. So we’re there (unintelligible) with this kid… and If you sat down and talked to this kid, there wouldn’t be any doubt in your mind either. And I said Michael is all upset. We went over and over. I tried to get him to sit down and he wants to play video games while I’m sitting there. I’m sitting there with the kid’s mother [June Chandler] and David Swartrz walks in and (unintelligible) what’s this all about? And [Barry] Rothman(unintelligible)asking questions. There is no question that Rothman (unintelligible) what this is all about.”

http://www.aphroditejones..._Trial.htm

This would not be the only time Jordan Chandler would confirm the extortion. Jordan mentioned the extortion in the Child Services report on August 17, 1993. Excerpt from the report:” Minor stated he and his father met with Michael Jackson and attorneys for father and Mr. Jackson andconfronted him with allegations in an effort to make a settlement and avoid a court hearing”. Almost everyone in the media had illegally obtained this report but they chose not to mention this part with the exception of a few (non-tabloid of course) newspapers like The Times and USA Today. And there is another mention of the extortion from Ray Chandler, Evan Chandler’s brother, in his book.

“Had Michael paid the twenty million dollars demanded of him in August, rather than the following January, he might have spent the next ten years as the world’s most famous entertainer, instead of the world’s most infamous child molester.”

Evan Chandler also admitted the extortion in his diary in his own words and it was read in public in May 1994. They all refer to the August 1993 meeting where the extortion took place. Their references are consistent with what Michael Jackson was telling all along, including the exact amount of money. The Chandlers self-admitted the extortion with Jordan doing it twice, even admitting that he was aware of his father’s plan. David Schwartz also referred to the extortion in a late 1993 meeting in Larry Feldman’s office.

June agreed to let her ex-husband have custody of Jordan for one week beginning July 12, 1993, as Evan Chandler requested. After this, he demanded that June sign a stipulation were he asked her not to move Jordan outside L.A., not to let him meet Michael Jackson, allowed her 2 days of visitation per week, that all child support obligations from Evan be paid in full, and that no further child support would be paid as long as he maintained Jordan’s custody. June Chandler signed it because as she said, Evan threatened not to return Jordan as it was agreed on June 18, 1993, unless she signed the stipulation. Why did Evan need to take such extreme measures for Jordan not to meet Michael? If Jordan was molested he would avoid Jackson himself. Instead he was more than happy to visit Michael, and he was missing the scheduled visits with his father. All the people (parents and children) that saw Jordan at Neverland said to police that he looked cool, he didn’t avoid the singer, and he wasn’t afraid of him at all.

And there is also the Monaco trip in May 1993. Supposedly the alleged molestation occurred there as well. Fortunately, the World Music Awards were televised on May 12, 1993. During the whole event coverage the camera zoomed numerous times at the star of the night, Michael Jackson. We could see Lily seating on his lap, Jordan and Lily pushing each other to sit with Michael throughout the night, Lily at some point was sitting in Linda Evans’ lap, June was seating in the row behind them, and Jordan at some point is sitting in Michael’s chair, but not on his lap (Michael is moving and dancing to the song, but Jordan is still. That means he was on the seat). Jordan is comfortable with MJ, he was in a great mood and he was singing and smiling throughout the whole event. This is a weird behavior for an alleged molestation victim. In almost all video footage and photos from that trip Michael is holding Lily in his arms. Also Michael Jackson’s longtime friend and music producer Teddy Riley had this to say about meeting Jordan Chandler at Neverland:

“I can only say for myself that it’s not true (the allegations) because I have met this little boy and he’s been with Michael along with my daughter, and I’ve never seen anything occur, such as something stupid like that. I think it’s a money thing. I’ve been a friend of his for over ten years and I’ve never never witnessed… I mean he’s been with my daughter, my daughter was three years old, and we stayed with him and had so much fun. He’s just a fun guy”.

Evan Chandler didn’t return his son to his mother even after she signed the stipulation. Rothman and Chandler were notified that an Ex Parte hearing would be held on August 17, 1993, for the immediate return of Jordan Chandler to his mother’s custody. Between July 12 and August 17, Evan had plenty of time to deal with his plan. Actually he had been negotiating with Michael Jackson’s camp since August 4, 1993. If MJ had given in to the extortion, Evan Chandler would have never accused him of child molestation. The whole ordeal would have been avoided. Instead MJ was armed with lawyers and investigators and didn’t pay Chandler, though he could have stopped everything right then and there. Ray Chandler confirmed the extortion by saying that if MJ had paid Evan the money he asked, he wouldn’t have accused him, and Evan Chandler said in the tape that if MJ showed up at the meeting and talked to him, nothing would happen. Evan Chandler also confirmed it in his diary.

Evan Chandler had another chance to report to the judge his suspicion of child abuse in the Ex Parte hearing. June would lose custody and Jordan would be safe. Of course Evan Chandler again didn’t report anything and the Court ordered that he should immediately return his son to his mother and that the stipulation would be overturned. It was clear that Evan Chandler was holding off reporting the allegations as part of his plan.

On August 17, 1993, instead of obeying the court’s order, Evan Chandler took his son to see the psychiatrist Dr. Abrams (who wrote his letter based on Evan’s hypothetical) who was obligated by law to report the allegations to the authorities. Ms. Hughes was the one that typed the letter for Barry Rothman to Evan Chandler advising him how to report child abuse through a third party without liability to the parent. The informative letter was sent to Evan Chandler on July 27, 1993. He had been very open about his plan that wasn’t just his as early as July 8, 1993, on the taped conversation.

“There is no way I can lose. I’ve checked that inside out”

Pay close attention to the dates. Evan has been referring to his plan as early as July 8, 1993 (that we know of). Rothman sent him the letter about Third Party Disclosure on July 27, 1993. Jordan Chandler hadn’t accused Michael Jackson of anything at that time. He was even questioned on July 10, 1993, where not only did he deny everything, but he confirmed that he was aware of his father’s plan. Up to that point Evan never contacted the police, but he was desperate to carry out his plan, make his negotiations, and force people to listen to him. The only person accusing Michael Jackson of molestation was Evan Chandler.

On August 2, 1993, during the week that Evan had temporary custody of Jordan, he extracted his son’s tooth using the questionable drug sodium Amytal. This is a psychiatric drug that is used to amnesia adult patients, and it certainly has nothing to do with the extraction of a child’s tooth. Prior to the 1993 case there was another case involving accusations under the influence of that drug (The Gary Ramona case). The defendant was acquitted, and various medical experts testified that the plaintiff’s accusations must be viewed as unreliable because of the drug. Courts, based on scientific research by medical experts and previous cases, have ruled that information obtained from narcoanalysis is inadmissible.

Mark Torbiner, a dental anesthesiologist, was present at this procedure (he was the one that introduced Evan Chandler to Barry Rothman). According toEvan Chandler himself, (in a phone interview that was aired on TV after Harvey Levin reported the story of the drug use on May 3, 1994 for KCBS-TV), when Jordan woke up under the influence of that drug, only then did he come up with allegations against Michael Jackson. That story was repeated again by Jordan for psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gardner on October 6, 1993. The transcript of that interview was made public and the full tooth story is mentioned:

“My father had to pull my tooth out one time, like, while I was there. And I don’t like pain, so I said could you put me to sleep? And he said sure. So his friend put me to sleep; he’s an anaesthesiologist. And um, when I woke up my tooth was out, and I was alright – a little out of it but conscious. And my Dad said – and his friend was gone, it was just him and me – and my dad said, ‘I just want you to let me know, did anything happen between you and Michael?’ And I said ‘Yes,’ and he gave me a big hug and that was it.”

The California Court of Appeal on August 17, 1997 for the Ramona case: “sodium amytal is, in some aspects, even more problematic than hypnosis in its effects of producing false memories and confabulations. If the patient is concerned about sexual matters, he or she will tend to recall sexual experiences. This is likely to forever distort the memory of the subject.”

But there is one thing missing from Jordan’s interview with Dr. Gardner, and that is Dr. Gardner’s report. Not only was it never mentioned, but we know from Dr. Katz’s (the psychologist who interviewed the Arvizos) testimony in 2005 that he entered the 1993 case when Larry Feldman asked him to review the tapes of that interview and give him his feedback. From the 2005 transcripts, Dr. Katz’s testimony:

13 My work was to review the videotapes that

14 were made between the victim –

15 Q. No, I’m — go ahead.

16A. — and Dr. Richard Gardner.

17 Q. Okay.

18 A. And to review those tapes, those videotapes,

19 and to view them and analyze them to give my

20 feedback to Mr. Feldman.

Larry Feldman sent Jordan to Gardner, and he was the civil attorney for Evan Chandler in his lawsuit against Jackson. Why would Mr. Feldman need another report for that interview? Why didn’t he like Dr. Gardner’s report on Jordan Chandler and his story? Why was there no mention of Dr. Gardner’s outcome? Dr. Gardener was an expert in false child abuse allegations.

We now know from Feldman and Katz that they knew each other because Feldman’s wife is a psychologist and she knew him from the McMartin case. Dr. Katz was the one that assessed 400 children and determined that 369 of them have been sexually molested. The story turned out to be completely false and the children were highly coerced and manipulated in the interviews. From the 2005 trial transcripts Dr. Katz cross examination:

3 Q. Were you involved in that case in any

4 professional way?

5 A. Yes, I was.

6 Q. How were you involved?

7A. I was the director of training and

8 professional education at the Children’s Institute

9 International, and that’s the agency that initially

10 interviewed all the McMartin children.

11 Q. And were you involved in that case for a

12 number of years?

13 A. Well, my involvement was that I was director

14 of the program. And Kee McFarland, who was the

15 woman who interviewed the children, actually worked

16 under me. But I was not — I did not directly

17 interview the children’s parents.

18 I did interview — my involvement with the

19 McMartin case was, I did do assessments. I was

20 asked by the Department of Children & Family

21 Services to assess the children of the alleged

22 perpetrators to see if they had been molested.

23 Other than that, I had very little involvement

24 directly with the case.

25 Q. Is it your understanding that that was

26 perhaps the longest and largest criminal case in the

27 history of Los Angeles County?

28 A. I think it was.

So Larry Feldman knew how easily Dr. Katz diagnosed sexual molestation. No wonder why he chose him when Dr. Gardner’s report didn’t serve Mr. Chandler’s plan. Yet it was the same Dr. Katz who, in a taped conversation dated June 2003 with sheriff’s investigator Paul Zelis of Santa Barbara Police Department, said the following about Michael Jackson:

“And, you know, he doesn’t even really qualify as a paedophile. He’s really just this regressed 10-year-old.”

“Yeah, yeah, I agree,” replied Zelis.”

The expert who sees sexual abuse everywhere around him said that and Zelis agreed.

August 2, 1993 was the first time Evan Chandler allegedly heard his son saying he was molested by the singer. So what was the story with Evan accusing MJ prior to that? And why didn’t Evan report the abuse? Why didn’t he mention it on August 17, 1993 at the Ex Parte hearing for custody? Apparently, it was not part of the plan. The allegations begun to form only after Jordan was removed from his mother and was isolated under his father’s control. Up to this point, the only person accusing Jackson of molestation was Evan Chandler and nobody else.

On August 4, 1993, there was a meeting which is described by Pellicano in his interview to Mary Fischer. The same was repeated for Randy Taraborelli who had interviewed everyone involved in the case. From the 1994 GQ article:

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.”

Anthony Pellicano also said about that meeting where both Evan and Jordan Chandler hugged Michael Jackson: “If I believed that somebody had molested my kid and I got that close to him, I’d be in the death row right now”.

That same night Rothman made the $20 million dollar demand to Pellicano.

On August 9, 1993, Rothman met with Pellicano, who, according to Geraldine Hughes, yelled at Rothman “no way, that’s extortion!”. Pellicano later sent a fax to Rothman stating that Michael Jackson didn’t do anything wrong and he will not pay the money requested. They met again on August 13. The recorded conversation with Barry Rothman was all about money, and molestation was not mentioned. Mr. Rothman was very careful in the conversation, as Pellicano was very famous for taping people. When Pellicano brought up the $20 million demand made by Rothman ($5million each for 4 movie deals), the lawyer answered “we’re past that point”. Barry Rothman certainly did not sound like he was hearing the extortion issue for the first time.

Did Jordan participate in the plan to please his father during the bitter custody battle? Did Evan really give the drug to Jordan? Torbiner, who was supposedly present and administered the drug, was reluctant to speak about that day, saying only the confusing “If I used it, it was for dental purposes”. But the medical experts and the drug’s instructions refuted Torbiner, because it can’t be used for dental purposes and it can’t be used on minors. We know that Jordan was aware of his father’s plan in July 10, 1993, and he denied any allegation against Jackson. The choice of Jordan’s words when he was approached in 2005 to testify in the trial is more than interesting. He told the FBI that he wasn’t interested in testifying against Jackson, and threatened to take legal action if Sneddon tried to subpoena him, and he said “I have done my part”.

What was his part? Did he participate in his father’s plan instead of being manipulated during anaesthesia? Why is Torbiner silent? According to Jordan Chandler, Torbiner (who has a proven questionable professional past because he illegally drugged people) was not present in the scene between Jordan and his farther, a very convenient move because there was no witness. And just why did the anaesthesiologist leave before the patient’s full recovery, especially after having given him a dangerous drug for which there are no legal doses for someone of Jordan’s age? Evan Chandler even tried to frame Jackson in his home in May 1993 where he invited him despite his suspicions, brought Torbiner to drug him when he complained about a headache, and put him to sleep in Jordan’s bedroom. Evan Chandler did have controlling behaviour, he was violent, he was mentally ill, he was jealous of Michael Jackson, he wanted to become a screenwriter and quit his job as a dentist, he was hungry for money and he did have a plan. And Torbiner’s role is very mysterious. The timeline, the contradictions and the events surrounding the case always spoke loud enough for themselves.

Evan Chandler covered everything the best possible way. He was never going to be accused of perjury because it was Dr. Abrams who reported the allegations, not him. And it was not his fault that Jordan came up with allegations under the drug’s influence. Jordan had already changed his story, which makes him an incredible witness, plus he changed it under the drug’s influence, so legally he couldn’t be blamed, or be believed. Evan made sure that his son could not be a credible witness and he could never be competent to stand trial. Not one of the Chandlers was going to be accused of perjury. Yes, it was indeed a good plan. Remember Evan’s words:

“There is no way I can lose. I’ve checked that inside out”

Michael with June Chandler, Jordan Chandler, & sister Lily

HIStory vs EVANstory: The 1993 allegations Part 2

The investigation

On August 17, 1993, Dr. Abrams reported the allegations to the Los Angeles Child’s Services Department, who in turn informed the police. Police issued search warrants for Jackson’s Neverland and Century City condo on August 21 and 22, 1993. Dr. Abrams was not an expert in child abuse, and in the Child Services report it is mentioned that he “thought” there was misconduct. Michael Jackson was in Thailand for the kickoff of the second leg of Dangerous World Tour and he was out of US since August 20.

A freelance reporter, Don Ray, first broke the news on Monday, August 23, 1993 to KNBC channel 4, and Conan Nolan reported this information at 5pm. He said that police conducted a search in Jackson’s premises as a result of allegations made by a woman who claims her child was abused at one of the singer’s houses. A report was also carried later that day on KNBC-TV’s New York sister station, WNBC. The other networks reported the news on August 24, 1993.

They rushed to report poorly researched information because ratings could not wait. In fact, it was Evan Chandler that accused MJ, not June Chandler, and the allegations were reported by Dr. Abrams. Don Ray would later reveal that he got a call from a source inside the police on August 22, 1993 that informed him about the raiding. He tracked down the locksmith who accompanied the police officers and that’s how he broke the story. The locksmith said he hoped they didn’t find what they were looking for. Don Ray would later say that he was embarrassed to be a journalist because the way his colleagues covered the case and lynched Michael Jackson, and he felt bad for breaking the news. He said that he chose not to report the nature of the alleged abuse. Was it a coincidence that this source from the police chose to reveal the story to Don Ray on the eve of the opening of the singer’s tour?

Tabloid reporter Diane Dimond said that her boss called her in his office to watch KNBC’s coverage and he put her on the story. Burt Kearns would later write in his book Tabloid Baby that he got a fax of the Child Services report and he gave it to Ms. Dimond to report it. He had served as the managing editor of the tabloid shows Hard Copy and A Current Affair, and the majority of the shameful coverage came from those two programs, which have been characterized as tabloid trash programs. Hard Copy has also been labeled as one of the sleaziest tabloids, and its anchors Diane Dimond, Terry Murphy, and Barry Nolan were labeled as “the most repulsive things you could see in your living room with less than six legs”. NBC’s “Dateline” has been accused for copying these tabloid shows. Diane Dimond has been negatively criticized for her biased reporting on Michael Jackson, her conduct with the prosecution, and her inaccurate stories. She has described herself as “a shark always moving in the water”, and Ishmael Reed and Broadcasting & Cable referred to her as the “Michael Jackson stalker”. She has been behind every discredited “tell all” story, and she bought an autographed hat of the singer in a Hollywood auction for $1,200 dollars. “I just had to buy it. I wanted to touch it and put it on”. Her involvement is considered suspicious by many people since “tell all witnesses” were telling all only in her show and she was around individuals of dubious character and activity who were after Michael Jackson.

That same night Los Angeles Police Cmdr. David Gascon confirmed that an investigation had begun a week ago, but he didn’t disclose details. He said that the investigation was at an early stage, and that Chief Williams “is very concerned that the investigation is done objectively and with absolute fairness to everyone involved” He added that the Jackson camp is fully cooperating with the detectives. It turned out that Chief Williams was not that concerned.

The LAPD proved to be the greatest source of leaks of confidential information, and the events that followed actually demonstrated that Chief Williams and his department did not conduct a fair investigation on both sides. They were extremely unfair to Michael Jackson. In the days to follow, Michael Freeman (June Chandler’s lawyer) would meet with the Child Services Department and tell them that he was very upset about the leaks, and employees from the police and DCFS would later say that they were afraid of being fired, and everyone was destroying copies kept on their desks. Judge Tucker issued an order reminding the LAPD and LA Child & Family Services that leaking confidential information without the court’s approval is against the law.

Pellicano appeared also on the news the same day and said that this is the result of an extortion attempt that went awry. He didn’t disclose the nature of the allegations.

The media outlets were erroneously repeating the false rumor that the mother accused Jackson and filed the report. They never checked anything; they were reporting this story as they always used to do when it comes to Michael Jackson. The mother never accused him of anything; Evan Chandler did, and Dr. Abrams reported the allegations. The media were too unprofessional to wait for an official confirmation, and they were feeding their audience with inaccuracies.

On August 24, 1993, the official confirmation of the nature of the allegations came from the Jackson camp through Anthony Pellicano, who also said it was the result of a $20 million failed extortion. Pellicano would later say that he received a call after the raid informing him about the incident, and he realized that Evan Chandler had materialized his threats. The Jackson family issued a statement in support of Michael (they would repeat their statements of support and TV appearances through the whole ordeal-La Toya Jackson and her husband Jack Gordon also supported Michael, but this would later change when Gordon realized that he could make money from the story) and Howard Weitzman (the criminal lawyer hired for the case) read Michael Jackson’s statement:

• “I am confident the (Police) Department will conduct a fair and thorough investigation and that its result will demonstrate that there was no wrongdoing on my part. I intend to continue with my world tour, and look forward to seeing all of you in each of the scheduled cities. I am grateful for the overwhelming support of my fans throughout the world. I love you all. Thank you. Michael.”

Michael Jackson would vehemently deny the allegations for the rest of his life.

June Chandler’s lawyer, Michael Freeman, told CNN’s Larry King that she was not part of any extortion attempt and she knew nothing about the allegations, until police informed her. He added that she was shocked to hear the news. He would later say that the police officers told her with serious facial expression that the singer fits the “classic profile of a pedophile”. That scene could easily be a part of a spoof movie. The police officers, who lied to Mrs. Chandler, were ignorant enough not to acknowledge the fact that there is no such thing as “classical” profile in science. They also didn’t know that Jackson was nowhere near in what is described as “similar characteristics among perpetrators”. They were totally unqualified to make such statement and this would be only the beginning of a questionable behavior displayed by police. Police officers are not allowed to call names or put labels on the subjects of an investigation, let alone diagnose that subject. This particular naive incident was picked up and laughed at, in the news coverage outside US.

KNBC-TV reported that detectives seized property, including videotapes and photographs. This was falsely presented as “evidence” by the lazy, sensationalist tabloid media. What evidence? There was no evidence of anything at all, and as a result Jackson was never arrested.

The fact that police issued warrants based on an unsubstantiated claim of Jordan Chandler raised a lot of questions at the time. They had nothing to corroborate his story and the search did not result in anything incriminating for the singer. In order to request a search warrant, police need to prove they have a probable cause that a crime has been committed, and they didn’t have such a thing.

An explanation was offered to the Los Angeles Times:

“Deanne Tilton-Durfee, executive director of Los Angeles County’s Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, cautioned that many may be jumping the gun. “These kinds of investigations go on thousands of times a year. It is premature to attach much credibility to this yet. Celebrities are vulnerable to extortion,” said Tilton–Durfee, who said she has seen many allegations made against high-profile entertainers that were not substantiated.

Of the 2.9 million reports of child abuse made nationwide in 1992, only about 40% are substantiated, she said. Last year the Police Department investigated 4,213 child abuse reports, resulting in 1,219 arrests.

Authorities are obligated to investigate all credible reports they receive of physical or sexual child abuse, although such inquiries are supposed to be confidential until criminal charges are filed.

In Los Angeles, child abuse reports normally are called in to police or the Department of Children’s Services, which cross-references their cases. While Children’s Services investigates to determine if a child is in danger and should be removed from a home, police typically undertake a parallel investigation only if there is reason to suspect criminal activity.

Search warrants–such as those that were served Saturday on Jackson’s homes in Century City and Los Olivos–are not uncommon in child abuse investigations. “Legally, a search warrant can be used very liberally with an allegation of abuse,” Tilton-Durfee said.

Barry Tanlow, a criminal defense attorney and expert in search warrants, said to Adam Sandler of Daily Variety:

• “It’s wrong to draw some kind of conclusion that Jackson is guilty based on the fact that a search warrant was issued. There are rubber-stamp magistrates who routinely approve search warrants. They will sign anything stuck in front of them”

Police sources told The Times:

• “There is no medical evidence, no taped evidence; the search warrant did not result in anything that would support a criminal filing”

Some lazy media reporters unsuccessfully tried to create innuendo by falsely presenting the chauffeur’s story but their effort died out soon after Gary Hearne’s recorded deposition. Mr. Hearne said he was instructed to remove a briefcase from the Century City condo after the police had completed their search. He also said he never opened it. Police sources put an end to the tabloids’ imagination.

In the meantime, the singer received overwhelming support from his fans all over the world who were calling TV and radio stations to support him even if he was not the topic of discussion in the show. Parents were calling because their kids wanted to express their support. The author of this article was one of the MTV callers. Two 10 year olds, Jeremy & James Alsop, wrote a letter of support to the singer and they made it a song called “ Michael”. The video clip was played at MTV News and it was characterized by Lisa l’Anson as “brilliant”. J. Randy Taraborelli strongly supported Michael Jackson numerous times calling the allegations “bogus” and so did MTV, Sony and Pepsi (Pepsi would later announce that because the Dangerous tour had ended, that the contract had expired but the fans who felt that the company tried to distance itself from the singer openly boycotted their products, and as a result Pepsi sales dropped). Tommy Mottola was the new appointed manager of Sony Music Entertainment, replacing Walter Yetnikoff, and he was criticized for not supporting the singer like Yetnikoff would have done.

Non-tabloid magazines and music magazines had supportive covers and tributes, and program directors of radio stations stated that people were constantly asking for his music. In their various interviews they also said that Jackson had such a huge contribution to music that they could not turn their backs on him just because of an unsubstantiated claim without any evidence to support it, no trial and no conviction. They also asked the media to replace their ridiculous coverage with objective coverage, and they reminded them that it’s not their job to decide if Jackson was guilty or innocent. They pointed that callers were strongly complaining about the tabloid coverage and Jackson’s treatment in the media. People were also writing to newspapers to complain about the salacious coverage, and were calling MTV to leave messages of support. Orlando Sentinel wrote about readers’ reaction “Even people who don’t like the man’s music or his lifestyle couldn’t believe the allegations that the pop star molested a 13-year-old boy”. There was an increase in MJ’s album sales. Anyone who actually followed the 1993 case, and was following the singer years prior to that, knows that the allegations broke into a period where the entire planet was in Jacksonmania.

Numerous celebrities publicly defended him, including Elizabeth Taylor, who also flew with her husband to meet him on the tour. Frank Dileo (his ex-manager who was fired in 1990) and John Branca defended MJ by giving interviews to Rolling Stone. Dileo said “I would trust my own children with him and have. He lived in my house in Encino for seven months. There is no way he did that; it’s not in his nature”. Dileo defended Jackson in 2005 as well. Michael Jackson’s habit of staying in other people’s houses was well known. And thousands of children have interacted with Michael Jackson through the years, and they all had only good things to say about him. Macaulay Culkin’s father would later say that when he asked his children what they wanted to do for the day, they answered that they wanted to go to Neverland. He also said that Jackson treated all of his children equally (both boys and girls), and that his daughters were never left out of the games. He added that the singer felt very comfortable around his family like “one of them”. Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who has represented numerous celebrities, said that he has seen Michael with children and he would trust his child with him. In a 2009 interview Allan Scanlan, who operated the amusement park at Neverland Ranch for over 15 years, had only good things to say the ranch’s owner and his relationship with children. Bob Good is one of the many people who have met the singer when they were youngsters and, like all the rest, he has defended Jackson, and even offered himself as a character witness in the 2005 trial.

Michael’s fans were protesting worldwide in support of his innocence. Award-winning actor Maximilian Schell paid to take out an ad in the Hollywood Reporter in order to publish his supportive letter to Michael Jackson. He also appeared in a news conference where he talked about it and presented the handwritten letter to the media.

http://www.greektube.org/.../134775/2/

William G. Steiner, former director of the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, a non-profit organization serving abused and neglected children, said that “charges like those against Michael Jackson present significant problems, especially in custody battles. The singer deserves our presumption of innocence. And real victims of abuse deserve our support”. He went on to say:

• “Michael Jackson is particularly vulnerable. Any public figure or individual who works around children or associates with them is not immune from such an accusation, which from time to time is unfounded. Personally, and at the risk of alienating my own children, I think Michael Jackson is an oddball, albeit a most talented oddball. There’s a childlike quality to him. It is not surprising to me, therefore, that Michael Jackson would feel comfortable surrounded by children. Perhaps he has good altruistic reasons for paying so much attention to children and he most certainly might not be a pedophile, but frankly I think that he is probably pretty lonely and, to some extent, lives in his own fantasy world”.

He added that while the media are too busy scrutinizing Jackson, real perpetrators get away. A careful look at the news during that period reveals that there were numerous molestation stories in US, especially in California, involving priests, parents and teachers. At the same time, Woody Allen was accused of molesting his adopted daughter, but he wasn’t scrutinized like Jackson.

LAPD would continue not to elaborate on the case because as they said they didn’t want to feed any wild speculation. With no confirmed and accurate information, and with no evidence, the tabloids would continue to create stories. The press kept repeating the unsubstantiated claims from the illegally obtained report, and failed to mention the extortion description which was in the very same document. Not only did they have no right to display such twisted behaviour, but their biggest problem was that they were internationally criticized for their tactics, and the world witnessed the mishandling of the case by police and media, as well as their undeniable effort to tarnish Jackson’s public image.

The sad consequence of this subculture was that many of these tabloid reporters would later brag about their unprofessional and shameful behaviour. Those very tabloid reporters whose “coverage” has been discredited countless times would continue to lie before an audience forever. And the audience never bothered to look at the facts. People were cognitively disabled from the filthy coverage, and to this day they continue to run with false rumours, displaying their ignorance here and there. Several newspapers attacked CBS’s This Morning anchor Paula Zahn for the decision to call tabloid reporter Diane Dimond of Hard Copy.

“During all the coverage of Michael Jackson’s supposed molestation of this teenage boy, I turned on ‘CBS This Morning’ and saw Diane Dimond being interviewed by Paula Zahn. And I remember thinking, ‘This is a seminal moment in the regression of TV journalism.” – Los Angeles times TV critic Howard Rosenberg.

They were very worried that the tabloid reporters were given air time on mainstream news. The Salt Lake Tribune characterized the CBS incident “a seminal moment in 1993’s incestuous media process”. The international reporting about tabloids being used as “sources” in America was much more condemning. This sad truth was also revealed in the FBI files, where we can see the tabloid covers in their reports, and they had to spend money and time to check every crazy person’s claim. They found nothing credible in these claims, and this is a very disturbing situation for police when a case makes it to the news, and it involves mentally unbalanced people who are trying to get involved in an investigation in order to feel important for 5 minutes.

Burt Kearns, who played a fundamental role in tabloid TV, would later reveal:

“Here’s how it worked: Say someone in the office heard-or decided to start-a rumour that Michael Jackson was caught en flagrante with his llama. The assignment editor in New York would call the L.A. office to check it out. If the story turned out to be unconfirmable-or untrue-it wasn’t necessarily shot down or declared dead. If the story was good enough, some tabloid vet in New York would then feed the deflated tem to one of the many British tabloid newspaper journalists encamped in Los Angeles. The Brit, would seize upon the rumour, pay someone as a supposed “unnamed source” to confirm it, then write the story as a gospel for one of the outrageous London tabloids. The story would next be faxed from L.A. to London, published in England, then faxed back to A Current Affair office in New York, where the staff would do a quick day-of-air story on what they knew never happened in L.A. The story would include a shot of the British newspaper headline to show they were only reporting “what the world is talking about”. So a story that was generated in New York City, shot down in Los Angeles, concocted for England, published in London, and sent on its way back to New York City, would now air across America. The Fox lawyers would okay the story because it was attributed to the London papers”.

Kearns added that it was no wonder why Jackson would need more of his prescribed pills and that tabloid TV treated its viewers like “fucking morons”.

Greta Van Susteren reminded everyone during her appearance on CNN that a reporter’s job is to present only proven facts, not rumours and opinions. The media critic of L.A. Times said that the Jackson story has obliterated the line between the tabloid press and the so-called respectable media. The New York Times refused to continue writing about the story until factual evidence on the case would come out from official sources. Actually, New York Times only covered the facts that were verified from official sources, and they didn’t report anything that came from tabloids. The well respected French newspaper Le Monde wrote that the singer had been convicted by the press based on rumours, and not on facts coming from the police investigation. Le Monde only covered the facts and not the rumours, while at the same time criticizing the tabloid press, along with so many other international newspapers of that status. Barbara Reynolds of USA Today, appeared on CNN’s Mary Tillotson to say that the press was not fair on Michael Jackson and they spent too much time presenting the un-cross examined allegations of Evan Chandler as the truth, even though Michael Jackson was not charged with a crime, and even though it was already known that this person wanted something from Jackson. She went on to say that suddenly the press forgot who Michael Jackson was, and they spent little time presenting the other side of the story in which numerous children and their families were defending the singer.

The hysteria at that period of time in America, where everyone thought their neighbour was a child molester, and anyone could be easily accused, was also mentioned. In fact, during the ‘90s this issue had turned into an epidemic, leading to many false accusations.

At the time it became known that the social workers never interviewed Jordan’s mother, father and sibling because the LAPD sergeant Thomas Felix, asked them to stop their investigation.

Having found no incriminating evidence at all, police began interviewing everyone that was close to the singer, using phone numbers found in an address book they seized from the Century City condo. A police source told the Times that “they are even interviewing friends of friends to see if they were told anything”.

Again, this was falsely presented by tabloid reporters as more people that came forward. In reality, nobody came forward; the police tracked them down, asked them to be interviewed and they all defended Jackson. Many of those kids appeared on TV to publicly defend the singer (Bret Barnes and Wade Robson among them), and did the same thing in the 2005 trial. Families that befriended Jackson continue to defend him to this day.

Another tabloid myth was that Jackson was planning to surrender. Actually the only thing he was planning was his concert that night. Howard Weitzman immediately discredited them: “There is no plan for him to surrender because there is no reason for him to surrender“. Such wishful fantasies of the media never materialized.

In the meantime, the investigation for the extortion claims had begun. Given the fact that Jordan Chandler described the incident in the Child Services report for Ms. Rosato, one can only wonder what kind of investigation was conducted. Evan Chandler and Barry Rothman refused to be interviewed by the police for the extortion claim. How suspicious is that? At the same time Jackson was fully cooperating for the molestation investigation. Rothman filed a lawsuit for defamation of character against Jackson, Fields, Pellicano, and Weitzman because he had to leave Chandler’s representation, since there was an extortion investigation on him. The sad truth is that police did a lousy job investigating the extortion. They didn’t spent the same time, the same amount of tax payers money, they didn’t have the same rage, they didn’t issue search warrants for Rothman and Chandler, they left them alone when they refused to cooperate, they didn’t call a Grand Jury hearing as they did for Jackson, they didn’t fly all over the world to find “potential victims”, and they didn’t question every human being that knew them engaging in questionable and inappropriate techniques like they did for the singer. The extortion was the most plausible explanation and they did nothing to investigate it. Chief Williams failed in his promise to be fair to Michael Jackson. The extortion was not equally investigated and the authorities were obsessed and biased against Jackson. This was also noticed and criticized internationally. The national coverage was (and is) another story by itself.

A reader wrote to Los Angeles Times:

“It is appalling to see the way in which the local television news reporters are covering the allegations against Jackson. After leading every newscast with stories and side stories about the investigation, several stations have taken the high-and-mighty position of criticising the British press for revealing the names of the accusers. Since the local stations are so eager to reveal the name of someone accused of child molestation, why they won’t reveal the names of those accused for extortion? At least the British press is consistent”.

DeWayne Wickham of USA Today, criticized his colleagues for biased and inaccurate coverage, for not including the extortion mentioned by Jordan Chandler in the DCFS report, and for presenting only the graphic unsubstantiated and uncross-examined allegations. He added that accusing Jackson, whose affection of children is known worldwide, for a sex offence is something similar to claiming the Pope has broken his vow of celibacy. It was obvious that an internationally condemned offense was used to bring down an international superstar. Charles Madigan of The Chicago Tribune attacked the media and wrote that Jackson is “drawing hungry sharks”. Reverends Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan asked from the media to exercise some judgement and not destroy somebody through innuendo.

Police officers told The Times that they had a hard time controlling the information presented by the media because tabloids were paying people to come up with stories. They also told Daily Variety: “With denials and conflicting statements all around, and no physical evidence to link anyone, we may have a hard time developing a case that the D.A. can file on. Everybody’s stories have holes in them”. Who told them they had to develop a case? Did they forget what their job was? It never crossed their biased mind that maybe Jackson was innocent. They were not psychologically ready to deal with it. Their job was to find the truth and seek evidence, not to nail Michael Jackson. It was obvious that their objectives were somehow lost during the procedure.

The singer was already experiencing symptoms of stress and was hospitalized twice for exhaustion, dehydration, and migraines, and had to cancel some concerts. He kept releasing taped statements for his fans declaring his innocence and informing them about his health problems.

Police issued a third search warrant for The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. They said they did it to corroborate information. That was a desperate move because it was no secret that June, Jordan and Lily had accompanied Jackson there, and in fact they could all describe the colour of the carpet. According to the waiter, Chad Jahn, who served them in Mirage’s Chinese restaurant, Jackson and Jordan swam with dolphins in the hotel’s marine centre. He also said ”They talked in whispers and laughed like a father and son”.

On August 28, 1993 the Los Angeles Times referred to a man who called them to brag that he went to the police to tell them that he had interviewed some of the youngsters that were also interviewed by the police. He said he had interviewed them for a book that he had been working on for years. The well-known liar who has been discredited by anyone involved in the case, and who has been characterized by Ray Chandler as sleazebag is Victor Guttierez. He was sued by Michael Jackson for his lies, and had to pay him $2.7million dollars. He had to flee the country to avoid payment and declared bankruptcy.

Out of nowhere, a man suddenly appeared and begun making rounds to the tabloids. Ernie Rizzo made “statements” all over the place but it soon turned out that he was a complete scam. He contacted the press saying that he was an investigator working for Evan Chandler. At the same time he contacted the Chandlers saying that he was an investigator for tabloid show Hard Copy. When he was discredited by Evan Chandler he told the press that he was working for June Chandler. When this was discredited too he again said that he was working for the father but it was a “secret”, and that’s why nobody would confirm it! The man was a complete joke. Evan Chandler’s attorney, RichardHirsch, made several public statements about Rizzo and his lies on several occasions, while Rizzo kept changing his story:

• “Mr. Rizzo is not working for or authorized to speak for the family”- “I have notified Ernie Rizzo that he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the father or the family. At this point, he is not retained by anyone connected to the case”-“He is vacationing in California and is free to say anything he likes, just like any other tourist. But that’s all he is, a tourist”.

Ernie Rizzo was so desperate to remain in the news and connect his name to a famous case that he again contacted the press (not the police) and said that someone sent him on an alleged agreement between the mother of a teenager and the “Michael Jackson Organization”, allegedly signed on July 7, 1992 for $600,000. Rizzo said he believed there was a 50-50 chance that it could be real. In reality it was 0% real. The Jackson lawyers called it a phony. Not only had none of Jackson’s lawyers participated in such procedure, but it was written in plain paper with the title General Agreement, it was not written in legal terminology, it contained no real signatures, and there was no such thing as a “Michael Jackson Organization”. The police checked it and did not find any merit in it. Bert Fields sued the Globe tabloid for $10 million dollars. This would only be the beginning of how far troubled people would go to attach themselves to an international story and gain publicity and a few bucks. Many people would come out of the woodwork to claim all sorts of things for tabloids after the 1993 story was made public. Poverty and greed can create all sorts of “memories”. Actually, tabloid reporters would refer to it again in 2005, hoping that the public would not remember the false story from September 1993. The fake September 1993 General Agreement story actually came from a stringer with a shady past who tried to fool Jim Mitteager into buying it. Here is an excerpt of Roger Friedman’s further research on the story, which was already proven false back in 1993. Excerpts of Friedman’s article that was published on March 25, 2005:

Mitteager, at least in the case of Jackson, relied heavily on a sketchy stringer named Taylea Shea. Her veracity consequently became integral to a lot of tabloid reporting at the time.

Shea, who seems to have gone by a number of aliases and had a long list of addresses and phone numbers, could not be contacted for this story, despite many tries.

Neighbors at the Los Angeles address at which she lived the longest do not remember her fondly. They recall a hustler and con woman who was always on the take.

“She should be in jail, if she hasn’t been already,” one former friend and neighbor said.

On one tape, Shea reads what sounds convincingly like a legal document drawn up between Jackson and a 12-year-old boy named Brandon P. Richmond, who is represented by his mother, Eva Richmond.

Brandon, according to the document, received $600,000 from Jackson. He and Jackson would no longer have any contact with each other.

Shea read the document, which is dated July 1992, to Mitteager the following year.

This would have been a blockbuster, if true, because it would make Brandon, not the differently-named boy who settled with Jackson in 1993, the first of Jackson’s accusers.

Shea also says on the tape that the legal document came from the offices of famed Hollywood lawyer Bert Fields, Jackson’s attorney at the time.

No reason is given why Jackson and Brandon Richmond should be separated. The implication, however, is clear.

The Globe published the story without using names. Over time, it was assumed that Brandon P. Richmond was in fact Brandon Adams, a boy who had appeared in Jackson’s “Moonwalker” video.

Discussions on the tapes indicate that the tabloids also believed the two Brandons were one and the same. But there’s a problem with Shea’s story: Nothing adds up.

For one thing, a source close to Fields says the document uses language uncommon to their usual agreements.

Then there’s the actual family.

According to the Adamses, whom I met in January, they don’t know an Eva Richmond.

Brandon Adams’ mother is named Marquita Woods. And Brandon’s grandmother assures me she knows nothing of a $600,000 payment. The family has lived in a modest home in Baldwin Hills, Calif., for 30 years.

Brandon Adams, who is now 25, is a struggling actor. He appeared in “D2: The Mighty Ducks” and the indie film “MacArthur Park,” and is currently working on building a music career.

“I wish I had $600,000,” he said. “I’m broke.”

The Adamses pointed out that Brandon never visited Neverland, just the Jackson family home in Encino.

For a short time they were friendly not only with the Jacksons, but with Sean Lennon and his mother Yoko Ono, who were also part of “Moonwalker.” But the relationship seems to have ended well before Taylea Shea’s big scoop.

Was Shea simply lying to Mitteager to collect a big fee? It would seem so.

Curiously, nobody I spoke with who worked at the tabloids could remember Shea. And her own alleged main source — an attorney then associated with the office of Larry Feldman, the first accuser’s lawyer — insists vehemently that she did not know Shea and had little knowledge of the case anyway.

The poor stringer thought that since Michael Jackson was rich, he would have an organization. Was Larry Feldman’s office involved in spreading false stories about Michael Jackson to press for a settlement and end the tabloid madness, or was Taylea Shea lying about it as well?

Ernie Rizzo had nothing to do with the 1993 allegations and was not anywhere near the parties involved. It was also soon revealed that he had an antagonistic relationship with Anthony Pellicano from a previous case, and he entered the scene out of revenge. For the years to come, “reporters”, would use him as a “source”, only proving their lack of credibility.

Meanwhile, Gloria Allred (who is known for trying cases in the media) was hired as an attorney by Evan Chandler, and she held a news conference on September 2, 1993 at the Regent Beverly Hills Wilshire Hotel. She said: “My client wants the truth to come out. He is ready, he is willing, he is able to testify”. But the truth was very far from that statement. Evan Chandler didn’t want his son to give a deposition under oath, under cross-examination, and under the threat of perjury. And he never did. Their legal actions from that point on would prove that they had no plans to enter a courtroom. A few days after that statement, Gloria Allred was fired and refused to comment. Gloria – my client wants the truth tocome out – Allred, was immediately replaced by Larry Feldman, a civil lawyer who filed a lawsuit against the singer on September 14, 1993 (it was later reported that it was a $30 million dollar lawsuit). Jackson’s lawyers filed their answer to the civil complaint denying the allegations. Larry Feldman was the one that fired Gloria Allred through a letter.

The Chandlers were alleging that Jordan was molested by Michael Jackson and nobody else. But in the lawsuit they included as defendants Does 1 through 100 as well. For example, if you were in a train accident your lawyer can sue the rail company plus Does, which would be the company that owns the rail, the companies that maintain the rails, people that were working that day on the train, etc. But molestation is a very specific situation. Was Jordan molested by others that could not identify? The Chandlers never alleged such thing. By suing all of Michael Jackson’s business entities they only showed their greed and nothing else. Jordan Chandler was not molested by Jackson’s business interests, and by suing them they were putting pressure for a settlement involving the companies that held these interests. It was all about money.

June Chandler, in her 2005 testimony, said that Ms. Allred was their lawyer for 2 seconds and she laughed. Larry Feldman is still laughing at Ms. Allred, as it’s revealed from his September 2010 speech on the case for the Frozen in Time seminar. See, he has every reason to find it funny, because he wasn’t the one to scare Evan Chandler with justice statements.

Mr. Feldman immediately starting manipulating the media: “The child is getting crucified; everyone is batting this kid around in the newspaper”. This was a lie and the only one crucified in the press was Michael Jackson. This would be the beginning of a series of false statements and innuendoes by the lawyer, who has since admitted that the media frenzy on the singer helped him push the settlement of the civil case on Jackson’s lawyers.

The day he filed the lawsuit, he also said something interesting in his effort to justify the action. He said that the on-going criminal investigation on Michael Jackson will take a long time to be completed so the lawsuit was meant to speed up the process. He also said that he didn’t even know if all these would lead to an indictment. How did he know that the criminal investigation would take a long time to be completed? The investigation could end the same day, the next month or the next year. Did Mr. Feldman know the truth? It was already known that the authorities had nothing on the singer no matter how hard they tried.

Another interesting thing comes from Ray Chandler. He said that getting a conviction against Michael Jackson would be impossible without a second victim. Why would it be impossible? Wasn’t Jordan telling the truth? Wasn’t he considered a credible witness? How did they know that there was no second victim? The answer is simple. They knew Michael Jackson was innocent. That’s why Jordan Chandler had to name every other kid at Neverland because he “thought” they could have been molested. They desperately needed someone to corroborate his story. As it was previously mentioned, the raid didn’t result in anything incriminating for the singer, and all the other kids defended Jackson.

Mr. Hirsch, the father’s lawyer, said that both parents stand behind that lawsuit. But June Chandler in her 2005 testimony would distance herself from the legal action. She would deny suing Jackson saying that Jordan Chandler’s family did it.

Mr. Mesereau: Q. When you sued Michael Jackson, you sued through Larry Feldman, true?

June Chandler: A. I did not sue Michael Jackson. Jordan Chandler and his family were — that was his family. We did not sue Michael Jackson.

When she was reminded on the stand that her name was in the lawsuit she said that it was Evan Chandler’s idea. June Chandler’s lawyer at the time said that Ms. Chandler was afraid that Evan Chandler would accuse her of negligence if she didn’t comply with his strategy. After a while Michael Freeman 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.”

Mr. Hirsch also said that the father and his son have been interviewed by the police on several occasions regarding the criminal investigation on Jackson. We know two of those dates from Tom Sneddon: September 1, 1993 and December 1, 1993. Detectives Deborah Linden and Rosibel Feruffino were present, and he was questioned by Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis.

At this point, it was time for a Filipino couple to claim some money and fame in the media frenzy. Mark and Faye Quindoy worked at Neverland as housekeeper and cook from 1989 until 1991. They left their employment claiming that they were owed $500,000 dollars (!), and they filed a lawsuit for that reason. After the publicity of the scandal, they said they left because they “couldn’t stand what they were observing”. But in 1992, they had only good things to say about Jackson in the Geraldo Rivera show. When they were asked why they didn’t go to the police but they decided to speak to tabloids after the allegations and after the tabloids were paying for stories, they provided this naive and ridiculous answer: “we were just witnesses not victims”! Mark Quindoy was a lawyer in his country… They held press conferences promoting their diary, talking about serious allegations with a stupid smile on their face while bragging about it. They were shopping for a good deal. After seeing them on tabloids, detectives Sicard and Linden flew to Manila (on taxpayers money) to interview the couple, and found them worthless as witnesses. Quindoy’s nephew, Glen Veneracion, came forward to discredit them. He said they were opportunists that would do anything for money. He also said that they only had good things to say about Michael Jackson, and now they were jumping into the bandwagon. He gave information about his uncle and aunt to Jackson’s lawyers and offered himself as a witness for Jackson. The Quindoy’s diary invention would give ideas to other crooks later on. It also emerged that the Quindoys had a contract with a tabloid 3 years ago to sell information on Michael Jackson.

The cultural decadence displayed by the tabloids made the police’s job difficult.

After the Filipino couple, Philippe and Stella Lemarque (ex-Neverland employees who were fired in 1991) crawled out and contacted former porn star Paul Baressi to help them sell their stories and make the negotiations for them. Stella was dating Baressi prior to her marriage, and knew his connections to tabloids. They sold their story (describing Culkin’s fondling by Jackson) to a British tabloid for $100,000, and when the price became $500,000 the story changed. At the time the Lemarques had a $455,000 debt. The child star would discredit them and would later defend Michael Jackson in his 2005 trial. He is the godfather of Prince and Paris Jackson, and he spoke in Michael’s defense on Larry King Live on May 24, 2004. Macaulay Culkin’s father, Kit Culkin called the Lemarques a “predator pair”. Mr. Culkin not only discredited them, like his son, but he also said something that was corroborated by all the other parents and Neverland staff: that there were always parents present having access everywhere in the house and also the staff was looking after the kids. Baressi was recording the couple as they were making up stories according to the price. He would later explain in detail how he manipulated the media by involving the authorities so he could sound more credible and ask for a better price. He admitted that he didn’t care if the story was true, as long as he had a good percentage from the deal, and he was giving different versions of the fictional story to tabloids to decide which fairy-tale they liked more. The Lemarques had a long history of cashing in on Michael Jackson, and they were negotiating with the National Enquirer in 1991 to sell stories for Jackson, such as Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding at Neverland. They even asked the tabloid to cover their expenses if Jackson sued them. Philippe Lemarque later ran a porn site called Virtual Sin.

The media frenzy continued, and Dr. Bonnie Maslin (clinical psychologist) appeared on Geraldo Rivera to remind everyone that you must know a person before making any allegations as to if they are capable of such act, adding “I’ll ring the neck of any professional who answers that question. Because what you are doing is applying armchair psychology to a person you simply don’t know. You’re taking gossip and turning into fact”. Dr. Maslin was more than right, but in the years to come people would continue to watch TV caricatures playing psychologists and psychiatrists making totally incorrect judgemental statements and hilarious correlations that scientifically do not exist.

In the meantime, the molestation allegations were investigated by Los Angeles D.A. Garcetti, Santa Barbara D.A. Sneddon, the LA Department of Child and Family Services, Lauren Weis-the head of LA County District Attorney’s Sex Crime Unit, and the FBI. As a result of this massive investigation, nothing incriminating was ever found, there were no credible witnesses, and no charges were filed. A 4th search warrant was issued, this time for Jackson’s family home in Encino, which again resulted in nothing incriminating.

There was not such a thorough investigation for the extortion allegations though. The authorities never took it seriously and it didn’t serve their purpose either. By that time (November 1993), it was obvious-at least outside the US- that they were fixated on Jackson and they could not continue the molestation investigation if they gave merit to the extortion allegations. Miraculously, nothing was leaked from the extortion investigation. The leaks only concerned Jackson.

On Friday, November 12, 1993, Michael Jackson cancelled the remaining concerts of his tour, informing his fans through a taped statement about his addiction to prescribed medication:

• ”My friends and doctors advised me to seek professional guidance immediately in order to eliminate what has become an addiction. It is time for me to acknowledge my need for treatment in order to regain my health. I realize that completing the tour is no longer possible and I must cancel the remaining dates. I know I can overcome the problem and will be stronger from the experience. As I left on this tour, I had been the target of an extortion attempt, and shortly thereafter was accused of horrifying and outrageous conduct. I was humiliated, embarrassed, hurt and suffering great pain in my heart. The pressure resulting from these false allegations coupled with the incredible energy necessary for me to perform caused so much distress that is left me physically and emotionally exhausted. I became increasingly more dependent on the painkillers to get me through the days of the tour. Elizabeth Taylor, my close friend, has been a source of strength and counsel as this crisis came about. I shall never forget her unconditional love and encouragement in helping me through this period”.

Elizabeth Taylor held a news conference to inform the public that she had sent MJ to a rehabilitation clinic after witnessing his condition but didn’t say where. It later came out that the clinic was in London.

http://www.greektube.org/.../134632/2/

[Edited 3/5/17 11:55am]

Larry Feldman

Larry Feldman, in his well-known and self-admitted game with the media, tried to compensate by interpreting the singer’s hospitalization as an excuse to remain out of the country. Many people were not able to see the facts and read between the lines. As Howard Weitzman correctly put it, if Jackson needed an excuse to remain out of the country, he would have stayed on his tour. There was no arrest warrant, no charges and no legal reason for him to be in US. He had the right to be anywhere he liked and he didn’t need any excuse for it nor could he be labelled a fugitive. Jackson’s personal physician, David Forecast, had provided a sworn declaration backing up the statement that the singer was under treatment for drug addiction (filed on November 23, 1993 for case no SC 026225). Another declaration was filed the same day from lawyer Eve Wagner for the same case, who said that while he was deposed in Mexico for the copyright case, he was glassy eyed, could hardly stay awake, had slurred speech, and was unable to focus on the issues. Bert Fields said that the singer “was barely able to function adequately on an intellectual level”, a statement that Michael didn’t like because it made his fans sad. The video of Jackson’s deposition in Mexico for a copyright case (which he won) proved that he was incoherent and under medication.

It was reported in November 1993 that Jordan Chandler had given a description of the singer’s genitals, and Feldman at that point declined to comment. Howard Weitzman said he was not aware of any search warrant regarding the issue and added “You got to be kidding me. Mr. Fields is going to depose this young man at the appropriate time. And we are not concerned about those issues in this case. We don’t believe it. Period”. It would later emerge that the description was false, and as a result Michael Jackson was not arrested after the search, as he would have been if it matched.

On November 23, 1993, Mr. Feldman gave a news conference outside the courthouse, (after Judge Rothman had denied the defense’s motion to delay the civil trial), and among other things he said that he wanted a medical examination of Jackson’s body, and that he was in the process of requesting it. In the same news conference Howard Weitzman said that the Santa Barbara D.A. didn’t give him copies of the seized material, and that this was unusual. Thomas Sneddon Jr. would continue his unusual behaviour in 2003-2005 as well. Mr. Fields stated in the conference that based on the evidence they were confident that they would prevail in the civil trial and in a potential criminal one. Mr. Weitzman added (he was questioned about it from reporters) that he was only aware of investigation on Chandler’s claims and nobody else’s.

The Times had obtained a letter that Mr. Fields sent to Police Chief Willie Williams when parents of children told him what happened during the police interviews. He sent it on October 28, 1993:

• “I am advised that your officers have told frightened youngsters outrageous lies, such as “we have nude photos of you”in order to push them into making accusations against Mr. Jackson. There are of course no such photos of these youngsters and they have no truthful accusations to make. But your officers appear ready to employ any device to generate potential evidence against Mr. Jackson”.

Howard Weitzman added that police were trying to trick people into making untrue accusations because they had no evidence. Chief William answered that he was satisfied with his officers’ investigation, but this news caused negative reaction from international media.

Instead of following the legal actions that revealed many interesting things, the media were trying to figure out where Jackson was hospitalized.

http://www.greektube.org/.../134629/2/

This time they were offering air time to another scam, Reynoza. This guy fooled them by asking people to believe that he had met Jackson 10 years ago, never had communication with him these 10 years but all of a sudden, in the middle of this ordeal and while under treatment and investigation, Michael Jackson not only chose to call him out of all the people in his life, but he also informed him about his future plans, saying that he was never coming back. Of course we know that Jackson did come back. While he was repeating his fairy-tale, it was reported that Jackson’s plane had landed in the US. For the record, Michael Jackson didn’t know who he was. Raynoza had scheduled an interview for USA Today, but when he found out that the paper does not pay for interviews he cancelled it. After manipulating the media for his few minutes of fame, he would later do the same thing for O.J. Simpson’s case, alleging he could be a witness. The judge found him unreliable and he was characterized as a known liar from the Michael Jackson case.

Jackson’s lawyers had argued that the civil trial should be put on hold until the criminal proceedings would be concluded. The criminal proceedings/investigation could lead to an indictment and a criminal trial –or not – and they could end at any time from this point until the statute of limitation expired. Michael Jackson was asking for justice while the Chandlers were asking for money, while doing everything in their power to avoid justice! Jackson’s lawyers had been fighting for this since October 29. Michael Jackson was willing to be tried in a criminal court, the Chandlers were not. The judge ordered that no interviews be conducted in connection with the civil case until after his decision on November 23. The media either did not understand the legal actions and their significance, or they misinformed the public on purpose. They falsely reported that Jackson was trying to delay the civil trial. In reality, they asked for it to be held until the criminal investigation was completed. And the criminal investigation could be completed at any time, even the next day.

The media and many brainwashed members of the audience failed to notice the difference between a civil and a criminal trial, and failed to understand the meaning of the motions. That’s the standard procedure in every similar case because of double jeopardy (Fifth Amendment right). For the record, in a civil trial the defendant will never go to prison if he loses the case – he will only pay money. Civil trials are for money, not for justice, and the defendant cannot be sentenced to prison.

Larry Feldman argued that this delay of the civil trial (money not justice) could have an impact on Jordan’s memory. But that’s why we have depositions. Jordan Chandler could have given a deposition that could be used in the criminal proceeding and civil trial as well. He didn’t even have to be physically present, and there would be no problem with his memory at all. The problem is that a deposition involves cross-examination and the threat of perjury.

Jordan Chandler never gave a deposition.

Bert Fields stated loud and clear that Michael Jackson wanted to testify and clear his name in the criminal proceedings before the civil trial, a constitutional right that we all have. Nobody wondered why a “guilty” person would insist on a criminal trial that could put him behind bars, and his defense attorneys were fighting to have the motion granted! Unfortunately, on November 23, 1993 Judge Rothman denied the defense’s request as premature since no charges had been filed against the singer at that point, ordered Jackson to give a deposition for the civil trial by January 31, 1994, and set the civil trial for March 21, 1994. In such case, the only way for the defendant to have a fair criminal trial (if the investigation could lead to one) would be to make the civil trial go away.

Because of the filthy coverage, the doctor that was treating Jackson for the addiction issued a statement. Dr. Beauchamp Colclough stated that the singer was not hiding and that he was not undergoing treatment for any condition other than his drug addiction. Jackson’s lawyers invited Larry Feldman to visit MJ in the clinic and witness his condition, but he declined.

It was time for the infamous “Hayvenhurst 5” (five ex-Hayvenhurst employees) to crawl out for money and revenge. These guards (not personal bodyguards) were Leroy Thomas, Morris Williams, Donald Starcks, Fred Hammond and Aaron White. The Quindoys’ and Lemarques’ filed a copycat suit against Michael Jackson, claiming that they were fired on February 1, 1993 because they knew too much (case no BC093593 filed November 1993 in Los Angeles). Of course they never reported anything to the police, and they went to the tabloids to sell their stories, like all the rest. Not creative and very boring, but the tabloids bought it and sold it to their audience. In fact, this was their second lawsuit. They filed for the first time when they were terminated (their lawsuit was dismissed), but they didn’t mention any salacious recollections. Their second lawsuit took place after the 1993 allegations broke, and this had a different effect on their memory. Their lawyer was Charles Mathews. Bert Fields vehemently denied the allegations and said “That never happened. Nobody ever has been fired for anything they know or not know about Michael Jackson”. Actually it turned out that this was their second filing because their first one was rejected and didn’t include such knowledge. It also turned out that they were working for the Jacksons, and not for Michael Jackson, and that he wasn’t the one that fired them. It also came out that when they were fired, Morris Williams called journalist Florence Anthony (Michael Jackson’s friend) and asked her to help him contact MJ. He told her that he knew that Michael Jackson didn’t know he had lost his job, and knew that he could help him get it back. So much for the guards’ credibility. MJ did help him get his job back, but then he was fired again. Williams was dismissed from the suit early, on the grounds that his release was valid. In reality the guards were replaced by a security company that was less costly to the Jacksons, and this company provided guards, paying for their vacations and insurance costs. As usual, it also turned out that the guards were paid from tabloids for their stories (Hard Copy gave them $150,000) and they admitted they needed that money for their lawsuit. The Jackson family discredited their claims, and so did other guards that were working with them, and had also been fired too. They called in to shows in order to discredit the 5 ex guards, and said they were lying to gain money, and that Jackson never had inappropriate behaviour with anyone. The 5 guards were also selling secrets of the Jackson family’s relationship with Michael Jackson, but this was not a secret at all, and it had been reported by J. Randy Taraborelli a long time ago. Leroy Thomas said that MJ asked him to go to his private bathroom and destroy a picture of a nude youngster. He asked people to actually believe that Jackson, who hadn’t lived in Encino for years, who wasn’t their employer, suddenly decided to trust one of them, gave him his key, and then created himself a witness instead of destroying the photo himself! Leroy Thomas enjoyed seeing his face on TV so much that he made the mistake of taking a lie detector test for Maury Povich’s show. Leroy Thomas failed the lie detector in his naked picture fairy-tale. His motivation became more obvious when he announced that he was working on a book about Michael Jackson. Actually the guards, when questioned, said they never witnessed inappropriate behaviour, and they had a different story for police than the one they gave to the tabloids. From William’s 1994 deposition:

“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.”

In September 1994, during his civil trial Jackson was allowed to plead the Fifth regarding questions of child abuse due to the on-going criminal investigation. During the trial several tabloid “witnesses” paraded, and they had no effect on the jury. It came out that they were all paid from tabloids for their contradictory stories. Ralph Chacon and Adrian McManus testified to help their friends. It came out that they had joined forces and they were selling stories to the media. Ralph Chacon, who could not pay his rent at the time, was bragging to his neighbours and landlady in 1994 that he was about to become rich by being a star witness in the civil trial against Jackson. Adrian McManus was deposed on December 7, 1993 regarding Jordan Chandler’s case. She said she never witnessed sexually inappropriate acts by Michael Jackson and that she would leave her own son with him. When McManus decided to make some money too and joined the guards’ lawsuit, she changed her story in a December 2, 1994 deposition. A co-worker of McManus, Francine Contreras, labelled her a liar and a thief in her 2005 testimony. Among other things, she said that Adrian McManus never told her anything negative about the singer and that she had witnessed the maid stealing on the job. Before the civil lawsuit the former employees didn’t have anything bad to say about Jackson.

The civil trial for the wrongful termination lawsuit was thrown out in July 1995.

The timing that all these former employees chose to recover their memory and sell their stories to the tabloids was highly questioned.

At the time it became known that Jackson was closing another multimillion dollar deal, this time with EMI, and that he owned the largest independent publishing company in the world. People again heard that Jackson was becoming richer which helped them recover their “memory” for money.

In another humiliating moment for tabloids, the London Daily Express printed an imaginary interview with Jermaine Jackson, and they were publicly discredited when it turned out that Jermaine never gave an interview to the tabloid, and he threatened them with a $200 million dollar lawsuit. The interview was the tabloid writer’s hallucination. Jermaine also talked about it when he gave an interview with his mother to Jim Moret of Showbiz Today, and added that his lawyers took care of it.

Meanwhile, the police (while exercising their fifth search warrant ) seized MJ’s medical files to see if Jordan’s description was accurate. The media frenzy kept going, and a reader wrote to the Los Angeles Times “What is it about this guy that makes reporters and anchor-persons lose their journalistic integrity and self-respect?”

Mr. Fields, continuing his effort to put the criminal proceedings first, told Judge Rothman that a Santa Barbara Grand Jury was about to indict Jackson. But the information was wrong and was denied by Santa Barbara officials. Mr. Fields had to admit that he misunderstood the information given to him by Mr. Weitzman, who had learned that subpoenas were issued for two people to attend a Grand Jury hearing in Santa Barbara County, but nothing further than that. Howard Weitzman was very upset by Mr. Fields’ action and so was Michael Jackson. There was a very big disappointment from the Jackson family, and from Elizabeth Taylor, about the way Michael’s lawyers were handling the case. Ms. Taylor had requested from her lawyer, Neil Papiano, to monitor the situation. They didn’t like the fact that the most important motion, to put the criminal proceedings first, has been lost and they thought that the singer’s public image was mishandled.

Michael agreed to be deposed for the civil case on January 18, 1994 The Los Angeles Times wrote on December 4, 1993:

Michael Jackson has agreed to be deposed January 18 about allegations that he sexually molested a 13-year-old boy, lawyers on both sides of the case said Friday.

Jackson’s attorneys have said he is eager to tell his side of the story under oath, but they also have warned that they may oppose efforts to take Jackson’s deposition [in a civil suit] if criminal charges are filed against the entertainer or are still under consideration when the date for his deposition arrives.

In a hearing last month, Superior Court Judge David Rothman ordered Jackson’s deposition [in a civil suit] scheduled before the end of January. But Rothman also noted that he might reconsider that order if Jackson is indicted on criminal charges.

Bertram Fields, one of Jackson’s lawyers, said Friday that the entertainer might request a change in the deposition date if there are significant changes in the status of the criminal investigation before the end of January [indictment]. “If things change in the criminal case, we would reconsider the whole question of the civil case. We want the criminal case to go first.”

Michael Jackson’s intention was more than clear: Justice. And he was willing to risk his freedom because if he was found guilty it would mean that he could go to prison long before the statute of limitations expired. Larry Feldman fought that and asked for money only. When Mr. Feldman filed the civil lawsuit against the singer in September, Anthony Pellicano said that since they couldn’t take the money through extortion they tried another way.

Actually, if a civil trial took place after a criminal one, Mr. Feldman wouldn’t need to lay a finger on the case nor spend money to gather evidence because the government would have done it for him. Written and recorded depositions from the criminal proceedings could be used so no one would forget, and their only witness did not have to be physically present. Why did he fight against it? The criminal proceedings mean justice and it was Jackson’s request. Why didn’t the Chandlers want that?

In September 2010, Mr. Feldman was a panelist at the Frozen In Time seminar, and he made fun of the press’ inability to understand what was legally going on. He also said that although no one understood what that 6 year story was all about, everyone “loved it and picked it up”. Actually, it turned out that tabloid reporters could not understand legal terminology, and everyone was manipulating words and terms, thus misinforming the public. Mr. Feldman also said in 2010 “And how I would watch on television with my mouth open where people, real prominent lawyers, would be on television, on the Today Show, on ABC, talking about this Michael Jackson case, and they had no idea what the facts were, what they were talking about, except that they were talking, and they were very happy to be talking.”

John Branca, one of Jackson’s long-time lawyers, informed him about the media’s naïve reaction and recalled the scene for J. Randy Taraborelli:

JB: “I don’t want to start more trouble but you know people here think you are trying to delay the trial for six years”.

MJ: “Six years? What are you talking about Branca? I don’t want to delay the trial not even a day”.

Then John Branca explained to him Bert Field’s motion and Michael answered:

“No way Branca, that’s not what I want. I am not guilty. I want this over with. What’s Bert doing? No wonder everyone thinks I am running scared”.

Michael Jackson, knowing he was innocent and being very upset with the allegations, wanted to fight, as he clearly stated in his two televised messages on the issue. At the time he believed, as we can see from his very first statement read from Howard Weitzman, that since he was innocent the police would eventually discover it. Probably he didn’t know about the police’s biased investigation and their efforts to nail him.

On December 8, 1993, Jack Gordon (La Toya’s husband and manager) thought it was time for him to cash in as well, so he changed his story. La Toya, who had been seeking opportunities for publicity as long as we’ve known her, told reporters at a Tel Aviv news conference that her brother could be guilty, but on the Today show she added that she was not able to provide any proof, and she said that she never witnessed anything inappropriate. Jack Gordon kept scheduling TV appearances for which they were highly paid. La Toya appeared to know too much considering the fact that she was estranged from her family years ago after her marriage, and MJ hadn’t spoken with her since her Playboy cover. The tabloids didn’t pay much attention to them because they could create their own stories, and they didn’t need the couple. LaToya and Gordon desperately looked for a good deal but the tabloids had already paid others to make up stories.

The Jackson family immediately gave a joint interview and strongly rejected the couple’s claims. Joe Jackson accused Gordon of brainwashing his daughter. They kept publicly bashing La Toya and Gordon on every single chance, and Howard Weitzman made a public statement to discredit her as well. Katherine Jackson kept calling them liars, blaming Jack Gordon for the fictional story. When La Toya left Gordon, she revealed that it was all her husband’s idea, and he forced her to make false allegations about her brother by giving her a script to memorize. She also said that he forced her to shoot the Playboy photos, the erotic videos, and write a tell-all book about her family. She talked about her abusive relationship in great detail in many interviews, and also said that he was threatening to kill her, Janet and Michael if she didn’t comply with his wishes. She described how she was able to escape with the help of her brother Randy Jackson. Gordon’s abusive behavior towards La Toya made headlines when he hit her in 1990, and the photos of her bruised face made rounds in the news. He also hit her in 1993, and his bodyguards didn’t let her contact her family. The FBI was interested in Gordon’s criminal behaviour, and he was investigated for Mafia connections. After the divorce he kept stalking and threatening La Toya, and he wrote a fictional book about the Jacksons. The entire family, including La Toya, discredited him. When he died, La Toya sent her bodyguards to check his funeral and verify that he was dead because he had faked his death before, and she was still afraid of him. It took Michael Jackson several years to forgive his sister.

In December 1993, while the singer was still under medical treatment, the president of the LA. Police Commission told CNN that the LAPD is investigating only Jordan Chandler’s claims. That statement refuted (again) the tabloid reporters who falsely speculated that “new accusers’ claims were under investigation”. Various reporters would keep proving that they could not be trusted because they publicly pondered if Jackson was going to be charged “for molesting young boys”. Among them were several passionate but totally ignorant ladies who appeared on CNN & Company and didn’t know what they were talking about. Their poor memory and poor understanding of the case confused them, and they forgot that the case was about Jordan Chandler and nobody else.

It also came out that in 1993 the National Enquirer tabloid offered $200,000 to Ronald Newt Sr. to lie and say that something happened between his kids and Jackson. Mr. Newt refused to lie and he wrote “no good sucker” where his signature was supposed to go. Mr. Newt’s son talked about what he was told at the meeting: “Say he touched you. All you have to do is say it. But you might have to take the stand. You might have to go on ‘Oprah’ in front of all these people. You have to be prepared for this thing. Just say it. And we’ll give you money”. Jim Mitteager brought them the contract, which was signed by the tabloid’s editor, David Perel. Jim Mitteager taped the conversation, as usual, and it’s included in the famous Mitteager tapes. These tapes prove how the tabloids created false stories about Jackson. Had Mr. Newt agreed to lie for money, we would have another tabloid story and another phantom victim for Michael Jackson. Johnnie Cochran referred to the incident in his April 1994 interview for Ebony. Many friends, doctors, relatives, and members of Jackson’ staff have publicly said that the media offered them money to lie about the singer throughout the years. They also said that publishers asked them to write salacious lies, otherwise there were not interested in publishing their books.

It was Blanca Francia’s turn to cash in and get $20,000 from Hard Copy for her story. She copied the Quindoys, Lermaques and the “Hayvenhurst 5 “. Ms. Francia worked for Michael Jackson from 1986 until 1991, and she too claimed that she quit her job in disgust. Her credibility was destroyed when it emerged that she was actually fired because she was stealing from the house. On the tabloid show Hard Copy she was presented as someone close to Jackson but it also turned out that Blanca Francia hardly knew Michael Jackson. She claimed that she was able to see the singer showering and a youngster was present. That youngster was Wade Robson, who had already publicly defended the singer, and he discredited Francia’s story when he was interviewed by the police. He was also a defense witness in the 2005 trial. In other words, she wanted people to believe that the world’s most private person was leaving his door open while showering so Blanca Francia could see him and sell her story to tabloids. She went as far as saying that she suspected molestation of her own son. The maid was dreaming of a $20 million lawsuit against the singer, after having seen what the Chandlers were capable of. After the airing of her Hard Copy interview, Francia complained that her interview had been edited in such way that she appeared to say things that she actually never said. After her tabloid interview, the maid was questioned by the police and was deposed for the civil trial. Under oath she said that she never saw Jackson naked with anyone and blamed Hard Copy for making her embellish her story.

Francia was discredited by a former security guard, Larry Glenn, who said that Jackson never had improper behaviour with anyone and never saw Jackson without his clothes on. Another maid, Shanda Lujan also refuted her: “I think it’s ridiculous. He was great with kids. I think he’d make a good father. He’s just wonderful with them”. Lujan’s duties involved entering Jackson’s bedroom as well. Francin Orosco, another maid, blasted Francia too for her lies and said “you could tell a lot that she had a little crush on him, very jealous of other housekeepers. She didn’t want no one close to Michael. There’s a lot of jealousy there”. They appeared on Larry King Live (December 23, 1993).

It also became known that Francia was very much involved with the tabloids. So involved that she used a National Enquirer reporter, Lyndia Encinas, as a translator so the reporter can be with her during her police interview. Francia sold her story to National Enquirer as well. The Mitteager tapes reveal an interesting conversation dated January 1994 between the tabloid’s editor David Perel and reporter Jim Mitteager about news on the Francia story from their reporter (the story by Lyndia Encinas was about to appear to the tabloid). Excerpts from Roger Friedman’s article on the issue who presented parts of the tapes:

“No. Just hope the cops don’t freak out when they see the story.”

“They sort of know what’s coming,” Perel replied.

Also the Globe tabloid’s editor is talking to Mitteager about the created stories:

“Jim, when you go in on these deals, talk big money and don’t back off. I mean, talk 50 grand. We need [Jackson’s former manager] Frank DiLeo telling all, at $100,000, if we can get him. We need all of Jacko’s celebrity pals. Anything they said.

“Every kid that has ever been with Jacko, we want to know who he is … where he’s coming from … any pictures available. We want to put big offers to any member of the family. We need to go with the big money. The big offers. It’s the biggest story since [Elvis] Presley‘s death.”

Blanca Francia had told the investigators in 1993 and 1994 that her son had repeatedly denied he was molested. She also complained because the sheriff’s deputies were calling her son Jason and having meetings with him while she was not present. She said it made her feel uncomfortable, and that she didn’t know what the deputies were talking about with her son. After her complaint the investigators arranged separate meetings for the maid and her son with a therapist, on taxpayers’ money of course. The D.A. was present during Jason’s sessions, something which is NOT allowed in therapy. The transcript from Jason Francia’s interview with police reveals that they lied to him, they asked leading questions, and that the other kids that complained about police’s behaviour were right:

Det. Neglia: I realize how hard this is. I realize how painful it is to think of these things you tried so hard not to think about but you are doing fine. And you are also helping the kid that he is bothering now.

Jason Francia: What do you mean he’s bothering?

Det. Birchim: He’s doing the same thing.

Jason Francia: Macaulay Culkin.

Det. Neglia: Only he’s getting a lot more into it. Like your mother pulled you out of there. Macaulay’s mother is not going to pull him out of there. They are feeding him.

Det. Birchim: He’s doing worse stuff.

Det. Neglia: It’s much worse with him.

Of course they were lying, and Macaulay Culkin had discredited them repeatedly. Moreover, one officer, Federico Sicard, told attorney Michael Freeman (June Chandler’s lawyer) that he had lied to the children he’d interviewed and told them that he himself had been molested as a child.

Once again, from the same police interview transcript during Jason’s 2005 cross examination:

Q. Do you remember in that interview one sheriff telling you, “Mr. Jackson is a molester,” and the other saying, “He makes great music, he’s a great guy, bullshit”? Do you remember that?

A. I don’t remember that specifically, but I think I remember hearing it on the tape, which was my voice, or his voice.

Jason Francia, in his 1994 deposition under oath, said that the investigators pressured him to come up with stories. When he was cross-examined about it in 2005 he had amnesia:

Q. Do you remember stating in that interview, “They made me come out with a lot more stuff I didn’t want to say. They kept pushing. I wanted to get up and hit them in the head”? Do you remember that?

A. No.

Q. Would it refresh your recollection if I show you the transcript of that?

A. Probably not. But you can show it to me anyway.

Q. Do you remember anything you said in that interview at the moment?

A. Not really.

In another part of his interview with the police he tried to make up a story. When Tom Mesereau in 2005 pulled out the transcript, Jason Francia was hit with amnesia again:

Q. — that was recorded – all right? – when asked if Mr. Jackson said anything to you about whether you should discuss what happened, do you remember telling the interviewers, “No, but I’m working on that”?

A. I do not remember that.

Q. Would it refresh your recollection if I show you the transcript?

A. No. But — you could bring it over.

Q. Well, I can’t unless you’re willing to see if it refreshes your recollection.

A. Okay. Bring it over. I’ll give it a shot. I’ll read it just to see if it refreshes my memory.

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Have you had a chance to

23 review those pages –

24 A. I have.

25 Q. — of your transcript?

26 Do they refresh your recollection about what

27 you said on that subject?

28 A. No, it does not. 4942

1 Q. It doesn’t.

2 A. Sorry.

“Research over the last several years dramatically demonstrates the importance of properly interviewing child witnesses. Interviewers with pre-existing biases who ask leading, suggestive, questions risk confirming their beliefs and getting false information. There is now a clear consensus in the scientific community about how children must be interviewed in order to get accurate, uncontaminated, forensically useful information. Unfortunately, field interviewers aren’t using these techniques. Instead, they readily slip into undesirable behaviours that risk compromising the integrity of the interview and the reliability of the information the child gives them”.

Hollida Wakefield, American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2006

The issue of these unacceptable techniques was brought up in the 2005 trial, and one of the investigators had to admit under cross examination that this was not what they were taught in police academy. In addition, the tape of the Gavin Arvizo’s (2003 accuser) police interview explicitly proves that the investigators engaged is such ridiculous techniques and one of the jurors, Paul Rodriguez, said that the police tried to make Gavin come up with allegations. Anyone who has seen this tape has noticed the amateuristic behaviour of the police officers, and the leading questions.

Jason Francia’s 2005 testimony was so ridiculous that the jurors were overheard by media members laughing at him repeating parts of his testimony during their break, after they have heard his testimony. Their behaviour was reported to Judge Melville. Paul Rodriguez, the jury foreman of the 2005 trial had this to say to Nancy Grace about Jason Francia after the verdict on June 13, 2005:

GRACE: Mr. Rodriguez, did you believe the boy that came in that is now a youth minister (Jason Francia) that stated Jackson molested him in the past?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we got a little problem with that because he had no idea where some of his money came from, and he didn’t want to talk to his mother. And so those kind of things that we kind of didn’t focus on, but it did keep — we kept that in the back of our minds.

GRACE: So would it be safe to say you did not believe him?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, we had a hard time believing him.

GRACE: Yes. What about the one kid that became a youth minister, who stated plainly Jackson molested his — fondled his genitals?

RODRIGUEZ: Again, like you said earlier, you know, about his scenario or his testimony, it was hard to buy the whole story, when he acted like he knew nothing about it. I mean, he acted so much like the mother of the other accuser (June Chandler), you know, he just didn’t seem that credible.

He didn’t seem to convince us, like we wanted to be convinced. And he just — he was leaving too many little loopholes in his statements.

Blanca and Jason Francia had been interviewed by the police in 1993, and were deposed in 1994 for the Grand Jury hearings in the context of the criminal proceedings regarding the Chandler’s case. As a result, Michael Jackson was not charged with a crime. Blanca and Jason Francia, who had given different stories according to who was asking them and were paid by tabloids, were not credible witnesses. Jason Francia told a reporter in 2004 that Michael Jackson never had improper behaviour, he was always good to him, and bragged about being in Neverland. In fact, Jason Francia cannot even be considered an alleged victim because there was never an investigation for him, and charges were never filed.

It was also revealed in 2005 that Corey Feldman was interviewed in 1993 by Sgt. Deborah Linden and Detective Russ Birchim, and the tapes reveal the shameful behavior displayed by the police in Michael Jackson’s case. Although he completely denies any abuse, they keep pressuring him, and Feldman went as far as telling that he knows how abuse is because he has been a victim and he knows the difference. He even named his abuser but since it was NOT Michael Jackson the police investigators didn’t care! Parts from his 1993 police interview from the tapes:

• “I myself was molested so I know what it’s like to go through those feelings, and believe me, the person who molested me, if this was him that did that to me, this would be a different story because I would be out there, up front, doing something immediately to have this man given what was due to him.” –“You don’t know how many times I have racked my brain and gone, ‘is there something I’m forgetting? Is there something that, you know, I’m thinking didn’t happen but it really did?’ If I could find something I would love to be able to tell you, but nothing happened.”

Corey Feldman also appeared on Larry King Live on November 21, 2003, and repeated that Jackson never acted inappropriately with him and that he had never seen him acting inappropriately with any other kid at Neverland. It also turned out that Corey Haim was not a “victim” of Michael Jackson either, no matter how hard the police “investigators” tried to make all these people come up with stories so the prosecutors can justify the huge loss of the taxpayers’ money. They had interviewed everyone that knew the singer, and they came up with nothing.

In early December, Maureen Orth appeared on Larry King to promote her article on the allegations that would appear on the January 1994 issue. J. Randy Taraborelli was there to defend Michael Jackson against Orth’s article, and Katherine Jackson called, being furious, to blast Orth as well. Maureen Orth looked uncomfortable under Katherine’s attack.

On December 10, 1993, Michael Jackson returned home, proving the tabloids wrong once again. He was accompanied by the Cascios, who would remain his friends until his dying day, and they would support him in 2005. During a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Cascio parents said that they had to explain to their kids in 1993 what was going on because they couldn’t understand it. Ms. Winfrey, who does not have a clue about Michael Jackson, would advertise the Cascios’ interview referring to them as a family whose relationship with Michael Jackson was a secret. This is the classic way that the media fools their audience. It was not a secret because we know it since 1993 and Frank Cascio gave an interview on June 2005 to defend Jackson when he no longer had the gag order.

When Michael Jackson came back home, Hard Copy falsely reported that the singer was selling Neverland, proving again that they didn’t research their stories. In reality it was a nearby property for sale that had nothing to do with Jackson.

On December 13, 1993, Jackson’s lawyers asked for a gag order so that the media could not get any additional information, and they also asked that Larry Feldman be barred from providing information about the civil case to the D.A. Johnnie Cochran Jr., the new lawyer on board (for Jackson), said “we have to protect Michael Jackson’s right to a fair trial. This case cannot be tried through press conferences”. He added that they had concerns that the D.A. would try to use the civil case to indict MJ: “the D.A.’s office has all the power and all investigators. They can talk to witnesses themselves. Why would they piggy-back on depositions on this case?” Mr. Feldman would acknowledge in his 2010 speech the importance of the singer’s Fifth Amendment right and the fact that the defense’s legal actions were moving around it.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. announced that the singer was back and ready to establish his innocence. The LAPD didn’t announce the status of the investigation at that point, but Reuters reported they would announce their decision to file or not charges in early 1994.

On December 20, 1993, leaders of the Western Regional N.A.A.C.P. blasted media for their coverage on Michael Jackson, and they reminded everyone that media have a long history of trashing black people. They also sent a letter to Los Angeles D.A. Gil Garcetti and to L.A. Police Chief Willie Williams questioning the handling of the criminal investigation. Parts of the letter included “What is the agenda of your investigation team? Why are some facts of the investigation being ‘leaked’ and others not? Is this investigation being carried out in an ethical manner?”. They also said that the tabloid coverage was biased and racist and if there are charges to be filed those charges will be filed in a courtroom not in a newsroom. And if there is someone to judge the case it will not be the news anchor but someone appointed at the bench.

On December 21, 1993, it was announced that Bert Fields and Anthony Pellicano were no longer members of Jackson’s team. While Mr. Fields was fired by Michael Jackson, Anthony Pellicano said it was a mess and he didn’t agree with the new team, so he decided to leave and continued to defend MJ’s innocence. Actually the only new member was Mr. Cochran, and when he came on board it was clear that he didn’t object to a settlement like Fields and Pellicano. For the record, Johnnie Cochran Jr. was a long time friend of Larry Feldman’s, and Mr. Feldman once represented him in a case. Mr. Fields would later say “They had a very weak case, we wanted to fight. Michael wanted to fight and go through a trial. We felt we could win.” A member of the Jackson team told The New York Times that the singer was surrounded by “advisers and leeches” that made him distant and unapproachable. Both of his ex-wives would refer to these leeches, and so did his friends. One of the people representing Jackson at the time was Carl Douglas, who worked for Mr. Cochran and was member of the defense team. Mr. Douglas, when he was called to talk about the case at the Frozen In Time Seminar, appeared to care more about the fame that came from the case than defending Jackson, and bragged about being able to visit Neverland, working with Johnnie Cochran, and buying a new car with his payment as member of Jackson’s team. Did the new team have Jackson’s best interest in mind?

In the meantime, there were rumours that the authorities were investigating possible molestation of Blanca Francia’s son. In reality, the authorities were trying to make Jason Francia come up with a story and there wasn’t an investigation for him nor were charges filed.

The authorities informed Jackson’s lawyers that they would continue the investigation at least through February and it was reported that Michael Jackson was spending $100,000 dollars per week for his defense. His lawyers lost key motions that would have delayed the civil case until after the disposition of the criminal case. They had also lost the motion to prevent Larry Feldman from turning over the civil case information to prosecutors. It was clear that Larry Feldman was pushing for a settlement like every other smart lawyer would do. If he cared for justice and not for money he would agree not to disclose information to the D.A. By violating the singer’s right to a fair trial, he was leaving the Jackson lawyers with no choice. Mr. Feldman would later refer to the significance of the 5^th Amendment right, and its effect on the defense’s decisions about the civil case: “then we filed a motion right away to get a speedy trial.” And “there was a criminal case behind the civil case, and they had to defend him worrying about his Fifth Amendment rights.”

Mr. Feldman elaborated more on this when he discussed the settlement of the civil lawsuit in 2010:

• Yes, [it was] a total voluntary agreement. To put it into context, at the point this case settled, a lot of witnesses had been deposed, but Michael Jackson had not been deposed (for the civil case), and at some point in time Michael Jackson was going to have to decide whether he was going to take the Fifth Amendment, which he didn’t, or whether he was going to let us depose him. And there was a lot of procedural maneuvering by the defense to try to keep putting that decision off. And as that decision and their moves were not able to accomplish what they wanted, which was never to have Michael Jackson take the Fifth Amendment.

People like Mr. Feldman, who are not ignorant about the law and the facts of the case, know very well that in a civil trial if the defendant pleads the Fifth, it is legal suicide. Civil trials are very different from criminal trials. Mr. Feldman understood very well that Michael Jackson wanted to be deposed for the criminal proceedings first and used that weak spot to pressure for a settlement.

Larry Feldman also said

• “The defense, with all due respect to them, had to worry about not just defending Michael Jackson in civil court, but more importantly they knew there was a criminal case behind the civil case, and they had to defend him worrying about his Fifth Amendment rights”.

Larry Feldman had to fight hard for it because on January 11, 1994, Jordan Chandler would reach 14 years of age, and that meant that he would no longer be entitled to trial within 90 days. In that case the criminal case would come first and Mr. Feldman didn’t want that, so he used Jordan’s age to pressure the judge:

• “If we could get Michael Jackson to answer the complaint before the boy turned 14 years of age, then we would be entitled to a trial in 90 days. That was the selling point to the district attorney to give me a chance to see if we could get this under or 120-day speedy trial. We filed the complaint, they answered the complaint for whatever reasons, and then we filed a motion right away to get a speedy trial”.

On December 22, 1993, Michael Jackson released a live statement from Neverland Valley Ranch. Kamau Omowale, spokesman for Johnnie Cochran, informed the media and said “I don’t know whether he is going to read the statement or whether he has memorized it, but it will definitely address the boy’s allegations”. The Los Angeles Times wrote “the entertainer’s announcement was treated with the gravity of a presidential news conference” and it was also reported by Jim Moret of CNN as “demonstrating media power normally reserved for world leaders”. All seven Los Angeles broadcast stations interrupted their programming to carry the statement live which was also shown worldwide. At 3.00 PM EST, Michael Jackson, through this strong and emotional statement, informed the audience about his health, vehemently denied and blasted the allegations (which he called disgusting), asked the public not to treat him like a criminal, angrily blasted the media coverage, and described the body search he had to endure to prove his innocence. Michael Jackson was fighting back.

The body search was conducted on December 20, 1993, and was officially confirmed by Jackson himself in his Neverland statement. The dissatisfaction of the parties, which the singer referred to in his statement, came from the fact that the authorities had to leave his house empty handed after the search because the description didn’t match, and as a result they could not arrest him on probable cause.

Present in that search were: Jackson’s bodyguard Bill Bray, his lawyers Johnnie Cochran Jr. and Howard Weitzman, his personal physician from the Dangerous tour David Forecast, his dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein, and his personal photographer Luis Swayne; for the authorities: Santa Barbara D.A. Tom Sneddon, Detective Russ Birchim (for SBPD), photographer Gary Spiegel, Detective Sicard (for LAPD) and Dr. Richard Strick. The doctors, the photographers, and Jackson’s bodyguard were the only ones present during the actual search. Tom Sneddon, along with two detectives, Dr. Forecast and Jackson’s lawyers were in another room. The singer was described as being angry and hostile.

In a desperate move after realizing that Jordan’s description didn’t match, and an arrest could not be made, Larry Feldman asked the court to obtain Jackson’s photographs so his client can have a look and make a second description. Here is what he asked in his multiple choice motion: a) to obtain the photos so that Jordan Chandler could make a second description and then Michael Jackson could undergo a second search b) in case that could not happen he asked for the photos to be excluded from evidence in the civil case.

Tom Sneddon, in his own desperate move after the negative results of the body search, went back to Jackson’s medical records to check if he could find what he was looking for there. Again he left empty handed.

Jackson’s lawyers said that the police didn’t give them the affidavit they used to get the search warrant, and when they asked for it they got one full of blanks. They also said that the search warrant of that kind was unusual. That was suspicious enough from the very beginning, and combined with Mr. Feldman’s motion after the body search result was known, it was clear that Michael Jackson was being set up. It was outrageous and few people noticed it because the majority of the audience never followed the case and they were too busy believing their favourite tabloid anchor. The affidavit had the probable cause, which means that they would search for something very specific, but the problem was that the description was so general that they tried to tailor it and could not present the affidavit.

Jordan Chandler made a funny drawing for the police and he wrote “my theory” on it. What theory? Was he making it up? It was supposed to be a description, not a theory. Jordan said Michael was circumcised, but he was wrong. Michael Jackson was not circumcised, and it was determined by the doctor. A naïve guess, given the fact that Evan and Jordan were Jewish and they probably assumed that all men are circumcised. Jordan also talked about a “white spot similar to the colour of his face”. Tom Sneddon talked about a “dark blemish”. Nice try! Michael Jackson talked about his vitiligo disease during his interview with Oprah Winfrey in February 1993, and everyone that knew him had already seen the marks. Jordan Chandler made a wrong guess, talking about a dark background with a light spot, and Tom Sneddon would later try to cover that mistake by talking about a light background with a dark spot. No wonder Michael Jackson was not arrested that day. And no wonder why Jordan’s original description made to police woman Deborah Linden suddenly “disappeared” after the search.

Dr. Richard Strick, who was the doctor hired by the police to determine if Jordan’s description was a match or mismatch, dropped a bombshell in 2009. During an interview with Geraldo Rivera he revealed that he was told there was a match. We know there was not a match and that’s why Jackson was not arrested. Dr. Strick was there to determine if there was a match, which means that someone didn’t let him do his job, or someone questioned his findings. That someone was no other than Tom Sneddon, who was not present during the search (he was in the house but in another room), and flatly admitted in 2005 that he was the one that arbitrarily made that decision, hoping that the public would not remember the inconsistencies, and that no one would notice that the district attorney is not a medical expert, and it was not his job to decide anything about it. He did that when he was losing the 2005 trial, and he tried to lynch Michael Jackson both inside and outside the courtroom.

After the devastation that they suffered after not being able to arrest Jackson, the authorities had the audacity to claim that somebody saw a dark spot but they didn’t photograph it. So we had to believe that though the reason for the search was this, the police somehow didn’t take a picture. Apart from exposing the biased investigation it doesn’t have any other significance because Jordan didn’t talk about a dark spot anyway. When Tom Sneddon was losing the 2005 trial and tried to save face, he got a response from Tom Mesereau in a filed motion that a description (not the original one with light splotch) without the photographs, and photographs without the description mean nothing. Tom Sneddon never presented the Linden Affidavit in his filed motion because there was not a correct description in it.

In late January 1994 USA Today and Reuters cited law enforcement sources confirming that “photos of Michael Jackson’s genitalia do not match description given by the boy who accused the singer of sexual misconduct”. Lisa l’Anson reported it for MTV News (MTV Europe). Though the news was reported internationally, little attention was paid in US.

Michael Jackson and his then wife Lisa Marie gave an interview to Diane Sawyer for ABC’s Prime Time Live on June 14, 1995. Michael, who knew more about his case than the pundits, gave the best answer himself:

Diane Sawyer: How about the police photographs, though? How was there enough information from this boy about those kinds of things?

Michael: The police photographs?

Diane Sawyer: The police photographs.

Michael: That they took of me?

Diane Sawyer: Yeah.

Michael: There was nothing that matched me to those charges, there was nothing.

Lisa Marie: There was nothing they could connect to him.

Michael: That’s why I’m sitting here talking to you today. There was not one iota of information that was found, that could connect me

Diane Sawyer: So when we’ve heard the charges

Michael: There was nothing

Diane Sawyer: …markings of some kind?

Michael: No markings.

Diane Sawyer: No markings?

Michael: No.

While Tom Sneddon was trying to lynch Michael Jackson in the public, he failed to explain why the singer was able to sit and talk to Diane Sawyer.

Michael Jackson’s lawyers (Cochran & Weitzman) appeared on Larry King Live right after the live Neverland statement on December 22, 1993, and brought up the possibility that Jordan Chandler had been put up to make the allegations, and they also revealed that at one point he had recanted his allegations to an investigator. They said that the paid tabloid witnesses did not say anything incriminating in their depositions and they recanted their tabloid stories. They also appeared on the Today show the next morning and again disclosed that all witnesses that had been questioned said that the singer never did anything improper, and that Hard Copy had tricked them. They met on December 14, 1993 with Larry Feldman, Deputy D.A. Lauren Weis and Judge David Rothman to discuss the case and they were informed about the investigation. Larry Feldman would later reveal how disturbed he was when he found out that one of his potential key witnesses had been paid $15,000 from Hard Copy. That’s all Mr. Feldman had; people that contradicted their stories and were paid from tabloids. These people that were interviewed by the police, testified in front of two Grand Juries, in front of a jury in a civil trial, and in the 2005 criminal trial, and nobody believed them. And Mr. Feldman had to rely on these people while we all thought that Jordan Chandler was his key witness. That admission was interesting to say the least.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. told JET magazine “They (Hard Copy) want ratings. Any similarity between the truth and Hard Copy is purely coincidental”.

In late December it became known that Court TV intended to televise the civil trial, contributing to the media circus surrounding the case.

On December 28, 1993, after Michael Jackson’s televised message from Neverland, Larry Feldman tried to reduce the PR damage. He filed a declaration on Jordan’s behalf about the alleged molestation as an addition to his already filed civil lawsuit. This declaration was “somehow leaked” to the press. Few people noticed the details: It was written in an official and adult language, and it did not come directly from Jordan Chandler. There was nothing new in the declaration – it was the Child Services report repeated. The signature under the name “J. Chandler” does not match Jordan’s handwriting (we have already seen his letters from the drawing that was attached as Exhibit 1 to Detective Ferrufino’s report in LAPD Case No. 930822245). Jordan Chandler could not sign anything because he was a minor. Tabloid reporters with limited perception referred to this declaration as a “deposition”. They didn’t know the difference between a declaration and a deposition and they were totally ignorant about the case. Jordan Chandler never gave a deposition. Johnnie Cochran Jr. had to call in one of the shows to inform them about their mistake.

Larry Feldman also asked to see Jackson’s financial records (another indication that the case was all about money), and he also asked to see the defense’s evidence for the civil case: “He is a millionaire hundreds of times over whose assets are tied up in intangibles. Plaintiff will need the three months remaining before the trial to be able to track down these assets and come up with an approximation of their worth”. One of the singer’s associates told J. Randy Taraborelli “once Feldman started demanding information about his bank accounts, we knew the game was over. You can take pictures of Michael’s dick and he is not gonna like it. But once you start trying to figure out how much money he has, that’s when he stops playing around”. These were characterized as unusual requests. Larry Feldman knew or correctly assumed that Michael Jackson would not be amused. Somehow Jackson’s financial records would end up in tabloids like all the rest. Malcolm Boyes, producer of the tabloid show Inside Edition, had this to say about Feldman’s motion referring to Jordan’s declaration leak: “The media ran with it and it helped Feldman push the settlement”. Larry Feldman had to keep the unsubstantiated allegations in the public’s mind.

A Santa Barbara Grand Jury had begun hearing witnesses since December 1993, and when Harvey Levin of L.A.’s KCBS-TV made the report, Howard Weitzman said he didn’t know anything about it. Santa Barbara officials didn’t confirm or deny its existence at that point but it later became known that the report was correct.

On January 22, 1994, the NAACP awards aired and Michael Jackson, who was there as a presenter, took the chance to declare his innocence again.

Also on January 22, 1994, there were rumours that the civil dispute was near a settlement. At that point Larry Feldman had stopped spreading innuendo in the media because his goal had been achieved. Larry Feldman fought hard for that settlement, and that’s what civil lawyers do. He fought in every legal and PR way he could think of, and he certainly deserved his payment. It was his personal achievement. A New York attorney told Time magazine “Feldman publicized, publicized, publicized, and then got the big settlement”.

The tabloids, instead of researching the correct amount, began throwing ridiculous amounts coming from their imaginations. On the other hand, several newspapers reported that people close to the singer had called these amounts “preposterous”, and they said the amount would be closer to $5 million.

On January 24, 1994, the Los Angeles D.A. announced, through his spokesperson, Mike Botula, that no action was planned regarding the criminal investigation of the extortion allegations. Was the timing a coincidence or was Michael Jackson being punished for not allowing the prosecutors to build a case from the civil one? If they had a case they would have filed charges during their six month investigation. For the record, there were never “leaks” for the extortion investigation, no search warrants, no Grand Jury, and no interviews of the alleged suspects and their friends. In that announcement the D.A didn’t announce their detailed actions as they would do for Jackson months later. Why? The extortion investigation still remains a mystery. When Mr. Botula was questioned by reporters about the rumours of a settlement in the civil case, he answered that the negotiation of an out of court settlement is not against the law.

That same day Jordan’s parents resigned as guardians, and a retired appellate court judge (Jack Gersten) was appointed as a Guardian Ad Litem for him.

With the settlement rumours mounting, the tabloids went ballistic. They would make any kinds of laughable speculation in order to capture their audience’s attention. They were about to lose their everyday coverage and they were terrified. Many people actually made a living and built a “career” as Michael Jackson detractors.

A few voices of reason (not from the tabloids of course) pointed out the obvious: the case was over exposed and was hurting the singer’s career and future income. He was tried and convicted from the filthy tabloids, and he could not have a fair trial. He had also lost key motions, and as a result he could not be deposed for the criminal proceedings first because his Fifth Amendment right had to be secured. If Michael Jackson wanted to “pay off” the Chandlers, he would have done it in July or August 1993 when he had the chance, and nobody would have ever heard of the Chandler’s story.

Unfortunately many misinformed people failed to notice important facts before they humiliated themselves with their baseless “theories”: Jackson had no other legal option to secure his Fifth Amendment right. Given the fact that the case involved a minor, the police were investigating him anyway, and this had nothing to do with the civil case. And they had investigated him for 6 months with 6 search warrants (including the body search), conducted numerous interviews (even with the tabloid paid tell all witnesses), impanelled two Grand Juries,and Jordan Chandler had already been interviewed by the police. The story had been leaked to the press since August 23, 1993. As a result of this investigation Michael Jackson was not arrested and no charges were filed against him. All of this took place 6 months before the settlement. There was nothing for him to “buy out”. He was not being prosecuted; he was being sued and he never faced jail in 1993. Any statement to the contrary only shows complete ignorance on the case and lack of common sense.