Michael Jackson: A Quarter-Century Of Sexual Abuse Allegations

[Kenny]

The two-part documentary Leaving Neverland, which began airing on HBO on
Sunday night, tells the story of two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck,
who accuse Michael Jackson of having sexually abused them for years,
beginning when they were respectively about seven and 10 years old.

Michael Jackson’s estate continues to deny all allegations, as the
entertainer did in his lifetime. His estate has sued HBO for distributing
the Dan Reed-directed documentary, which debuted at the Sundance Film
Festival in January; in its filings, the estate called Leaving Neverland a
“posthumous character assassination.”

It’s no secret that, before and even after his death in 2009, Jackson was
the subject of multiple sexual abuse accusations and police investigations
as well as civil and criminal lawsuits. This timeline lays out key dates,
known allegations and the main accusations the artist and his estate have
faced, going back more than a quarter century.

December 1986: James Safechuck meets Michael Jackson on a Pepsi ad set
A 10-year-old California boy, James (Jimmy) Safechuck, is hired to appear
in a Pepsi commercial alongside Michael Jackson. In Leaving Neverland,
Safechuck says that Jackson befriended him and his family after the ad
began airing, that the singer was immediately generous to him and
allegedly began lavishing him with gifts — including, Safechuck says, his
jacket from the “Thriller” video. Safechuck and his family also say that
Jackson began flying them for visits and on vacations.

On one such trip to Hawaii, Safechuck alleges, Michael Jackson first asked
the boy to sleep with him in his bed.

August 1993: Los Angeles police begin investigating Jackson
The Los Angeles Times reports that the LAPD has begun investigating
Jackson based on allegations that he possibly molested four children,
including a 13-year-old boy. (The boy is mentioned by name and in photos
in Leaving Neverland.)

The police find no incriminating evidence at Jackson’s Neverland ranch,
nor at his Los Angeles condominium.

In a lengthy report published the following January, Vanity Fair — calling
the boy “Jamie” — publishes the 13-year-old and his family’s allegations.
The boy’s lawyer tells the magazine, “Michael was in love with the boy.”

The family says that Jackson argued with Jamie’s mother about sleeping in
the same bed with him, saying, according to Vanity Fair, “Why don’t you
trust me? If we’re a family, you’ve got to think of me as a brother. Why
make me feel so bad? This is a bond. It’s not about sex. This is something
special.” From that point onwards, the family claims, Jamie slept with
Jackson nearly every night for the next several months.

September 1993: One family files suit against Jackson
In the filing, a family — whose child is ostensibly the 13-year-old boy
referred to as “Jamie” by Vanity Fair — alleges that Jackson had
“repeatedly committed sexual battery” on their son.

Jackson’s team maintains that the suit is part of an attempt to extort the
star for $20 million. More than a decade later, however, Court TV reveals
in a 2004 report that Jackson settled the suit for even more than that. As
part of the settlement, the singer denied any “wrongful acts.”

In September 1994, prosecutors announce that they are not filing criminal
charges against Jackson involving three boys — because the “primary
alleged victim” declined to testify.

In the course of the investigation and ensuing civil case, Jackson and his
team put various young boys on the witness stand and in front of cameras.

One is 10-year-old Wade Robson, an Australian boy who first met the
megastar five years earlier, when he won a Michael Jackson dance contest
in Brisbane. Within a few years, Robson had moved with his mother to Los
Angeles with Jackson’s encouragement.

In 1993, Robson’s mother talked to CNN about her child’s “slumber parties”
with the singer.

“They play so hard, they fall asleep, they’re exhausted,” she tells the
interviewer. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”

In Leaving Neverland, Robson says: “I was excited by the idea of being
able to defend him. And being able to save him.”

February 2003: Living with Michael Jackson documentary airs in the U.K.
and U.S.
The documentary, reported by journalist Martin Bashir, includes footage of
Jackson holding hands with and cradling a young teenager, then identified
as a cancer survivor, and says that they share a bed. Both Jackson and the
boy deny that anything untoward is going on. “My greatest inspiration
comes from kids,” Jackson says to Bashir indignantly, while holding onto
the child. “It’s all inspired from that level of innocence, that
consciousness of purity.”

After the documentary airs, Jackson issues a statement denying any
wrongdoing, and says that he is “devastated” by Bashir’s portrayal of him.
Nevertheless, Living with Michael Jackson sparks a criminal investigation.

November 20, 2003: Police book Jackson on child molestation charges
Two days after raiding Neverland, Jackson’s famous ranch in Santa Barbara
County, Calif., the sheriff’s office arrests Jackson on charges of child
molestation, but does not immediately disclose details of the charges or
identify the victim.

Jackson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, calls the charges “a big lie.” After
posting $3 million in bail the same day and surrendering his passport,
Jackson is allowed to go free as he awaits trial.

Jackson is eventually indicted on 10 criminal counts, including child
molestation, abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.

February 28, 2005: Jackson’s criminal case goes to trial
After being charged in late 2003 and then given additional charges the
following April, Jackson is put on trial. The victim is identified as
Gavin Arvizo, the young man who appeared in the Bashir documentary; he is
among those who testify at the trial.

Among those testifying in Jackson’s defense are actor Macaulay Culkin,
James Safechuck and Wade Robson. (By 2005, Robson is a noted choreographer
and songwriter, who has created dance routines for the likes of Britney
Spears and ‘NSYNC, and who has already had his own show on MTV.)

They are described as “special friends” of Jackson who have slept with the
singer in his bed. The men deny that Jackson has touched them or otherwise
acted inappropriately. According to The Washington Post, Robson’s mother,
Joy, says of the singer: “Unless you know him, it’s hard to understand
him. … He’s not the boy next door.”

Gavin Arvizo is now aged 14, and says on the stand that Jackson
masturbated him; Gavin’s brother corroborates his claim, and says that
Jackson gave them alcohol and showed them pornography. Gavin’s mother,
Janet Arvizo, also appears as a witness; the BBC describes her testimony
as “combative and rambling.” A former member of Jackson’s household staff,
Blanca Francia, testifies that she saw the singer taking a shower with
Robson. Francia’s son also alleges that Jackson has molested him.

Years later, both Robson and Safechuck say that they lied at the trial.

June 13, 2005: Jackson is acquitted of all criminal charges
After a trial that had a circus-like atmosphere and whose proceedings
seemed to sometimes be upstaged by Jackson’s antics (including showing up
late in pajamas on one occasion), the singer is acquitted of all charges.
At least some of the jurors seem to place the onus on the alleged victim’s
mother, Janet Arvizo. according to NPR. Allowing a child to sleep with any
non-family member, one of the female jurors asks, according to NPR, “What
mother in her right mind would allow that to happen?”

Within months, prosecutors charge Janet Arvizo with fraud and perjury
related to statements made at the Jackson trial; she accepts a plea
agreement the following year.

June 25, 2009: Michael Jackson dies, age 50
The singer is found unresponsive at his home in Holmby Hills, Calif. At
the time of his death, his family releases a statement saying that it is
believed that he died of cardiac arrest.

On Nov. 11, 2011, a doctor, Conrad Murray, is found guilty of involuntary
manslaughter in Jackson’s death for having administered a deadly dose of
the anesthetic propofol.

During the trial, the New York Times reports that Murray, who had been
hired as Jackson’s personal physician, “had stayed with Jackson at least
six nights a week and was regularly asked — and sometimes begged — by the
insomniac singer to give him drugs powerful enough to put him to sleep.”

2013-2014: Wade Robson and James Safechuck file suits against the Jackson
estate and his companies
The Daily Beast reports in 2013 that after very publicly and repeatedly
defending Jackson, Robson now says that Jackson sexually molested him for
seven years.

Two years later, in May 2015, a judge in Los Angeles County Superior
Court, Mitchell L. Beckloff, dismisses Robson’s suit against the estate,
saying that he waited too long to file his claim. In December 2017, the
same judge dismisses the rest of Robson’s suit, filed against Jackson’s
two companies, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, because the two
corporations could not be found liable for Jackson’s alleged behavior.
Notably, neither of these judgments address the credibility of Robson’s
accusations.

James Safechuck files a similar suit against MJJ Productions and MJJ
Ventures in 2014, alleging that Jackson abused him on “hundreds” of
occasions between 1988 and 1992. Beckloff, who is also the presiding judge
in this suit, rejects Safechuck’s suit in June 2017 on the same grounds he
gave Robson.

March 3, 2019: Leaving Neverland begins airing on HBO
After debuting at Sundance in late January, the two-part, four-hour
documentary begins airing. Jackson’s estate has already filed suit against
the network, claiming that damages could exceed $100 million. Its petition
begins: “Michael Jackson is innocent. Period.”

The estate also argues that HBO has violated a non-disparagement agreement
that it made with the singer in order to air a concert special, Live in
Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour, back in 1992. (That program was a megahit
when it aired, scoring HBO its highest-rated special ever at that time.)
In a bid for positive counter-programming, Jackson’s estate releases the
1992 film on YouTube at the same time as Leaving Neverland‘s broadcast
premiere.

“In producing this fictional work,” the suit continues, “HBO ignored its
contractual obligations to Michael and his companies by disparaging both
him and the Dangerous World Tour that HBO had previously profited from
immensely.” The estate also calls Robson and Safechuck “two admitted
perjurers,” and accuses them of “practicing their stories and rehearsing
their lines … for years now.”

In an interview on All Things Considered, filmmaker Dan Reed says that two
different threads drew him to telling the two men’s stories.

“It’s the complexity that drew me into wanting to really tell the story,”
Reed says, “which is that in an abusive pedophile relationship there is
both love, affection, mentoring, friendship, caring — and there is sexual
abuse. Those two things coexist.”

Additional reporting by NPR’s Elizabeth Blair.

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sexual-abuse-allegations/>