Born in the Bronx in 1944, Evan Robert Charmatz showed an interest in the entertainment industry at an early age. While attending the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, Evan and classmates Phil Feliciotto and Tom Johanson, as well as Evan’s brother Ray, formed a cover band called The Candy Men. With Evan on rhythm guitar, Phil on lead vocals, Tom on lead guitar, and Ray on bass guitar, the band had fun playing college gigs and frat parties. “Then one summer Phil and Evan got together and wrote that first song. We ended up getting a contract with Columbia Records,” Tom Johanson said. After that, the band changed their name to The Fugitives, and they put together an album. “The whole album didn’t get released, but we had three singles that were released,” according to Tom.
Their double-sided single “Mean -Woman” with “I’ll be a Man” on the B side was released in 1965. “We did get to play a lot and did some TV shows… got a lot of coverage. We lived the rock star lifestyle for a while anyway,” Tom reminisced. They appeared on local programs in the New Jersey and Philly area. “We played with The Birds. [Bob] Dylan used to come in and listen to our songs,” remembers Phil. With the one single’s moderate success on the East Coast the band had high hopes; they felt that they were going to make it big. “We looked good and everyone wanted us because we had the perfect rock and roll look.” The band soon changed their name to Fantasia and signed with Kama Sutra Records.
For the most part the band members all got along with the exception of Phil and Evan who, according to Tom, had “little personality squabbles sometimes—they didn’t get along that well. Evan was the business manager and he was very outgoing, and Phil was kind of introspective and a little wimpy, so I guess that kind of bothered Evan.”
At the new label the band recorded a song entitled “Got to Get Away” and had high hopes for the single’s success and the possibility of appearing on national TV. “We were excited for the Sullivan Show and everything. And then the third song kind of bombed out. I guess Phil was the one who got discouraged and he decided to go on his own. That kinda broke up the band,” said Tom.
Asked if Evan had taken a break from school at this point to focus on his music career, Phil Feliciotto said no. “Oh, he continued with school. I went to a party at his apartment one time and there was nothing but med students there. They were all doing drugs and here I am thinking, I’m the one who looks like the hippie that everyone assumes does drugs. It really made me look at that profession differently. They were all high.”
Apparently Evan had something of a reputation as a ladies’ man too. “Well, you wouldn’t want to leave [Evan] behind to watch your girlfriend. One time he dated this girl named Barbara Fontana. She was the daughter of a mob guy and it got messy. Things always got messy between Evan and these women that he would date. A cat would bring home a bird…Evan would bring in these women. I guess it was his gift to us,” he laughed.
Evan’s brother Ray would later exaggerate his brother’s supposed good looks, going as far as to claim he was better looking than Rob Lowe. He claimed that Evan “never had a problem attracting women. Blessed with movie star looks, a keen sense of fashion, and far more intelligent than the average bear, they flocked to him like ewes to a rutting ram. His problem was holding on to them.” In later years Evan would have numerous plastic surgery procedures that would ultimately disfigure his face and make him nearly unrecognizable. Because of that, claims of his extraordinary good looks still remain unproven.
After the band broke up, they all went their separate ways with Evan continuing his education to become a dentist, reluctantly following in his father’s footsteps. He obtained his dental license in 1972 and was working in New York when he met June Rochelle Wong, a beautiful woman of Asian and African American ancestry who had briefly worked as a model. The two married and moved the following year to West Palm Beach, Florida where Evan set up a dental practice. But Evan “hated being a dentist” a family friend told journalist Mary Fischer, “he always wanted to be a writer.”
His aspirations to break into the entertainment industry followed him throughout his life. Evan saw his former band mate and nemesis, now calling himself Phil Cody, living in California and having great success as a songwriter. Phil co-wrote “Solitaire” with Neil Sedaka, a song that would be covered by both The Carpenters and Elvis Presley. Evan in turn, determined to make it in the industry in some way, changed his name to Chandler—a former colleague told Fischer that he believed Charmatz was “too Jewish sounding” – and moved to Los Angeles with his wife June in tow, hoping to make it big as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
But Evan Chandler was having little success in both his screenwriting career and his dental one, and by December of the following year he was in trouble. In 1978 he was employed at a family dental center in a low-income area of LA. Evan performed restoration work on sixteen teeth in the mouth of a single patient, all during the same visit. An examination of the work by the Board of Dental Examiners revealed that Chandler, “left decay under the alloy, decay around the preparation, fracturing and crumbling restoration” of many of the patient’s teeth. The dental board sighted “gross ignorance and/or inefficiency” and revoked his dental license, all while Evan and June were expecting their first child and finances were tight. The revocation was later stayed; the Board instead suspended him for ninety days and placed him on probation for five years. Chandler later petitioned the dental board to terminate his probation, stating that he had been a sole practitioner in private practice since June 1983, which was not true since he had actually incorporated a self-named private practice 5 years early in August,1978. But despite the blatant lie, the board granted his petition and terminated his probation in December 1983.
By that time, Evan’s marriage to June was in trouble and the couple divorced in 1985. An unnamed friend of June’s would later say that, “one of the reasons June left Evan was because of his temper.“ June received full custody of their son Jordan, who was five years old at the time, and the court ordered Evan to pay $500 per month in child support.
June moved on from Evan very quickly; that very same year she married David Schwartz, founder of the very successful Rent-A-Wreck company, and like Evan he was many years her senior. June and David went on to have one child together, a daughter named Lily born in 1987.
Note: It appears that Evan Chandler never gave up his dream of being rich and famous. He later filed a claim against Michael Jackson for breach of the settlement agreement. He was such a loving protector of his allegedly abused son that he wanted the following for himself –
Ask yourself.
What parent would want to sensationalize their child’s alleged abuse?
The settlement agreement did not stop your child from testifying in a criminal proceedings so why stop co-operating with authorities? ( The Chandler’s claimed threats and harassment)
If you were so fearful of threats and harassment – Why claim your son will now testify and ask the courts to allow camera’s into another civil suit you filed against against Jackson, ABC and others.
And most disturbingly. why would you pen a song entitled “Duck Butter Blues” given what your brother later claims in his book about the perverse meaning of the term.
I have broken down the court’s decision along with information as to how the tabloid media got away with printing false stories . Some fans feel that Diane Dimond escaped Michael’s law suit due to a letter that Tom Sneddon had written on her behalf, but these types of lawsuits are very difficult to prove. You need to show:
Actionable statement of Facts
Clear and convincing evidence of malice
Court decision statement of facts (Dimond):
To give rise for defamation, a false statement consists of false assertions of fact regarding the plaintiff (Jackson) The undisputed evidence before the court shows that the statements at issue truthfully and accurately reported on a developing story about the possible existence of a videotape, and it was stated that it was impossible to independently confirm the existence of the video tape. “Hard Copy” broadcaster, Dimond emphasized that “it’s impossible to independently confirm the existence of the videotape.” In addition, during the KABC-AM radio show, Dimond expressed what was clearly her personal opinion that she was, “as sure as (she) possibly (could) be,” of the video tapes existence.
An essential element of libel is that the publication must contain a false statement of fact.
Court Decision on Malice (Dimond) the court sites several things:
Gutierrez had been a reliable source of information in the past, specifically advance notice of Michael’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley
Dimond called and spoke with Sneddon regarding investigation
She spoke with British tabloid brokers
Then the London Tabloid “The Sun” reported the search
Media
Several newspapers attacked CBS This Morning anchor Paula Zahn for the decision to call tabloid reporter Diane Dimond of Hard Copy. Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg said, “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.’” 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 rumor that Michael Jackson was caught in 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 item to one of the many British tabloid newspaper journalists encamped in Los Angeles. The Brit would seize upon the rumors, 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’s 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.” In the hysteria of that period of time in America, when everyone thought their neighbor was a child molester, anyone could be easily accused, and many were in child custody cases. In fact, during the ‘90s this issue had turned into an epidemic, leading to many false accusations.
Victor Gutierrez bragged about his connections in the tabloid business. Stating that he had sold many stories that were made up and that the money is easy – even for false stories.
If all else fails – threaten bad press and humiliation
Evan Chandler and Gutierrez both fought to have camera’s present during their concurrent law suites.
As per Victor Gutierrez’s attorney: If there is a trial in this case, there will be publicity adverse to Mr. Jackson. Gutierrez had also instructed his attorney to give Mr. Jackson a “message” that he (Gutierrez) intended to hold up a copy of his book every time he was interviewed on television in connection with this case.
Response to Chandler’s attorneyCourt records indicate that Chandler sold his portion to Dr. Mells on April 1, 1994 and stuck his former wife Nathalie with a tax bill of $21,952
Appears the Chandlers were trying to avert the courts decision to have the case adjudicated by a 3 judge panel by filing for Jordan in a different jurisdiction
In my opinion Chandler wanted this case tried in open court with cameras present – in the hopes Jackson would be pressured into settling.
Let me first start by saying that as I read through the court documents I got the impression that Ms. Ager was mentally unstable. Ironically, She remembered these incidents after therapy .
Evan Chandler who was an alleged Dr.Feelgood that provided shotty dental work was accused of sexually abusing a women. That claim came out after she went to a psychiatrist—or after he received the settlement. This claim was eventually thrown out of court and not widely reported on—if at all.
From August 23,1993 to November 25, 1994 Suzanne Ager alleged that Evan Chandler not only failed to provide adequate dental care (malpractice) —something he was already disciplined for by the California dental board. But she also claimed that Evan Chandler repeatedly sexually assaulted her while under sedation.
From court documents:
“On or about April 1995 and began to feel extremely anxious and depressed relating to the dental treatment performed by Chandler. On or about the same time I began psychological treatment with a licensed clinical psychologist, Marcia Lamm, PhD beginning in or about April 1995 and continuing to the present, I have suffered a lot of stress, loss of concentration, distractibility impaired or short-term memory and disturbing dreams which I believe relate to or rise out of Chandler’s dental treatment.”
Plaintiff contends that the assault and battery occurred during dental treatment while she was under the influence of intravenous sedation. As such, the allegations of battery are directly related to and arise from the dental treatment provided by Dr. Chandler.
On at least five occasions, October 4, 1993, December 3, 1983, February 8, 1994, February 12, 1984, February 28, 1994) during Chandler’s dental treatment of plaintiff, Chandler sedated plaintiff intravenously, a rendering plaintiff semiconscious and/or unconscious. Today, Chandler has produced no documentation which would indicate that he followed the excepted guidelines for the use of conscious sedation in periodontics. In fact, there is no evidence to indicate that the minimum number of personnel, too, were present during the administration of conscious sedation. On each and every occasion referred to above, Chandler strongly encouraged plaintiff to accept the administration of intravenous sedation and, in an attempt to persuade plaintiff, agreed to administer intravenous sedation at no cost to plaintiff.
In or about March 1997, during the course of her psychological treatment, plaintiff began to recall instance wherein she was subjected to sexual assault and/or battery by Chandler.
Plaintiff recalled that on or about February 12, 1997, while under the influence of intravenous sedation, requested to go to the bathroom. While in the restroom, plaintiff perceived the presence of sperm and her vaginal area. Also in or about February 1997, Chandler and sexually assaulted plaintiff by performing sodomy upon plaintiff while she was under the influence of intravenous sedation. Plaintiff did not recall these events prior to March 1997 because the intravenous sedation and paired plaintiff’s memory of the events constituting sexual assault. Plaintiffs memory of these events was triggered as a result of revealing evidence in the case as well as psychological therapy related to her anxiety and depression.
Ager VS Chandler
From approximately August 23, 1993 to November 25, 1994 said defendant’s negligently and carelessly diagnosed and treated plaintiff’s dental problems, which acts or omissions fell below the degree of skill and competence commonly exercised by medical practitioners in this community. Such acts or missions include, but are not limited to the following:
Overlays contouring porcelain veneers on teeth with margins that were sub gingival
Failure to treat teeth with extensive and deep restoration
Failing to treat plaintiffs gum line which is acutely inflamed and bleeding with any tissue contact
Failure to properly repair plaintiff’s right bridge
Failure to properly treat plaintiffs left bridge, causing root canal problem with decay
Plaintiff Suzanne Ager’s complaint alleges causes of action for sexual assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiffs cause of action arising from acts allegedly occurring during dental treatment provided by defendant Evan Chandler, DDS, between February 1994 and the end of March 1994.
Since plaintiff failed to file her complaints until June 13, 1997, — statute of limitations cited by Evan’s attorney. Plaintiffs previously filed a complaint on September 13, 1995 for dental malpractice against Dr. Chandler relating to dental treatment she received during the period of August 1993 through March 1994. Ager vs Chandler case SC038465 trial in this matter was initially set for February 11, 1997 and was continued until June 3, 1997. On May 14, 1997, plaintiff moved the court to amend her complaint to add causes of action for sexual assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional to stress (the same causes of action contained in the complaint which is the subject of this Demurrer) the matter was heard and department “B” before the Hon. Judge Robert M. Letteau. Judge denied plaintiff’s motion. Trial on this matter is presently set for July 21, 1997 and department “A”
The allegations of battery are directly related to and arise from the dental treatment provided by Dr. Chandler. Plaintiff previously attempted to add punitive damages to her complaints for dental malpractice against Dr. Chandler. Plaintiff’s new complaint is merely a way of bypassing the code and seeking punitive damages against Dr. Chandler.
On at least five occasions(October 4, 1993, December 3, 1993, February 8, 1994, February 12, 1984 and February 28, 1994) during Chandler is dental treatment of plaintiff, Chandler sedated plaintiff intravenously, rendering plaintiff’s semiconscious and/or unconscious. To date, Chandler has produced no documentation which would indicate that he followed the accepted guidelines for the use of conscious sedation in periodontitis. In fact, there is no evidence to indicate that the minimum number of personnel, two, were present during the administration of conscious sedation. On each and every occasion referred to above, Chandler strongly encourage plaintiff to accept the administration of intravenous sedation at no cost to plaintiff. On or about April 1995, plaintiff showed visible signs of anxiety and depression related Chandler’s dental treatment. Beginning in or about April 1995 and continuing through to the present, plaintiff began suffering from cognitive deficiencies related to the stress, including loss of concentration, distractibility impairment of short term memory and disturbing dreams. In or about March 1997, during the course of her psychological treatment, plaintiff began to recall incidents wherein she was subject to sexual assault and/or battery by defendant.
Declaration of Suzanne Ager-(excerpts)
Between August 23, 1993 and March 23, 1994, I obtain dental treatment from defendant Evan Chandler, DDS. During the period in Chandler provided me with dental treatment, Chandler engaged in a continuous and repeat course of conduct, without consent, subjecting me to sexual touching and conduct. On at least five occasions (October 4, 1993, December 3, 1993, February 8, 1994, February 12, 1994, and February 28, 1994) while I was under Chandler’s dental treatment, Chandler utilized intravenous sedation rendering me semiconscious or unconscious. Chandler insisted on utilizing intravenous sedation during the period he treated me. On or about April 1995 I began to feel extremely anxious and depressed related to the dental treatment performed by Chandler. On or about the same time I began psychological treatment with a licensed clinical psychologist, Marcia Lamm, PhD beginning in or about April the 95 and continuing to the present – stress, depression, anxiety– in approximately March 1997, in the course of my psychological therapy and after reviewing Evan Chandler’s deposition transcript, I recalled an incident which indicates that I was sexually assaulted and battered by Chandler. In March of 1997 I recalled that during a dental appointment on February 12, 1997, I requested to go to the restroom while under the influence of intravenous sedation. Chandler summoned his assistant, Patty, into the treatment room in order to escort me to the restroom. While in the restroom, I perceived the presence of sperm. I had not been sexually active at that time on or about March 1997 I also recall that Chandler subjected me to unwanted and unconsenting sodomy while I was under the influence intravenous sedation.
Plaintiff recalled that on or about February 12, 1997 while under the influence of intravenous sedation, requested to go to the restroom. While in the restroom, plaintiff perceived the presence of sperm in her vaginal area. Also in or about February 1997, Chandler sexually assaulted plaintiff by performing sodomy upon plaintiff while she was under the influence he is of intravenous sedation.
Plaintiff could not recall these events prior to March 1997 because of the intravenous sedation and paired plaintiff’s memory of the events constituting sexual assault. Plaintiff’s memory of these events was triggered by a result of reviewing evidence in the case as well as psychological therapy related to her anxiety and depression. Presently, plaintiff suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Her attorneys filed a motion to withdraw as attorneys of record citing– Plaintiff has failed to respond to telephone calls, effectively communicate with counsel, written requests Etc. plaintiff chronic failure to cooperate with counsel compels counsel to seek this motion. Filed June 13, 1997
According to Ray Chandler’s Book – Dave Schwartz testified that June had told him about incidents were Evan had become physically violent with several people, including his wife Nathalie, June’s mother and Evan’s own mother. June testified that she had heard of a January 1992 incident between Evan and his wife Nathalie that had turned physical.
Note that Emmanuelle was born July 2, 1992 making her approximately three months pregnant during this altercation! (Evan and June’s mothers are both deceased)
June and Nathalie were present at both assaults against David (according to June & Ray)
A portion of June Chandler’s declaration in the Schwartz v Chandler case:
I suspect that defendant has either influenced or been instrumental in keeping alive the public’s interest in our lives, much to my dismay and consternation. I believe that he, or those acting on his behalf, have been continually providing the media with information regarding my son, myself and defendant. In particular, defendant and his brother have authored a book regarding our ordeal. While they have purportedly agreed to refrain from publishing the book, they have nonetheless advised me that the transcript mysteriously disappeared from defendant’s home. At the same time, a National Enquirer reporter that had been hounding me has suddenly revealed that he has a manuscript. In light of these facts, and since defendant and his counsel have not articulated any particular reason why a videotaped deposition is necessary, I believe defendant seeks to acquire the videotape not just for the instant proceeding, but for other uses including media and commercial exploitation.
A reporter who worked for the National Enquirer during the 1993 allegations.
Reporter–there was no video tape
Me -How did you know that — did he (Victor) admit it?
Reporter –No, in October I stayed with a friend in LA. The woman was in the music business for many years and the editor of the Hollywood reporter. One of the foremost experts on black music in the country. She has known the Jackson’s since they were kids and she knew Margaret Maldonado very well and it was supposed to be her kids. She called me up at the show I was working for and we reported that there was no tape. She was the one who called and told me …Victor tried to sell it to me but we didn’t buy stuff. I worked for the networks–they didn’t pay so he went off the radar and the next I heard was Diane Dimond (She’s laughing) reported it. But also the source, he said who showed him the video tape, said he never met Victor.
Me: the source he said was Margaret.
Reporter: He said the LA DA office’s investigator was his source and showed him the tape. He would brag that he was a source for him and Diane Dimond. She (Dimond) had a source in the LA DA’s office because when I was working OJ she was getting stuff –and Hard Copy was paying for it. They got an entire copy of the murder book of Nicole and Ron Goldman and it came from someone in the DA’s office. It must have been the same source who worked on Michael Jackson. This was supposedly the same source for the video but you know if there was a video they (DA) would have used it. I mean (laughing) they wouldn’t have kept it quiet.
Me: You wouldn’t happen to know a tabloid broker named Ken Wells, would you? —-
Reporter: Are you sure that’s his name? Because there was a tabloid broker in Malibu who was British named Bryan Anderson and I know Victor did business with him. Unless, that wasn’t his real name. — That’s the only one I knew in Malibu and he lived on Pacific coast Hwy.
Me: xxx said Seagull Way
Reporter: No, than that’s not him I’d been to his house. I’ve never heard that name and it’s funny because I knew most of those Brits –they all liked to live on the beach. He (Victor) liked to do business with Splash news service. There British owned and one was named Kevin Smith and I don’t remember the other…Gary something. Splash were the first ones to have guys on motorcycles and all that. Splash offices I think are in Marina Del Ray. Those guys are probably Victor’s age. They made a ton of money and they have a branch here in South Beach because of all the European stars. I’m surprised that Splash news service didn’t come into play and I think he tried to sell that video tape to Bryan Anderson as well. See nobody would touch it (video story)
Note that Victor keeps changing his source. He claimed to LAPD investigator’s that Kevin Smith was a source ( proven false)
Bryan Anderson’s wife tried to talk Dimond out of doing the story and spoke with Michael’s attorney.
Reporter: When Michael — the last trial with the Hispanic kid. I was hired by ABC to work on it. At the time they were negotiating with me they were negotiating with Diane Dimond. They were assembling a team and Diane Dimond wanted to bring in Victor. ABC was the one. He was in Chile –didn’t they (ABC) get him the visa to come back?
Me: IDK, I didn’t even know he was at the trial until you told me. I know he worked with Bashir.
Reporter: Yeah, and Dimond made her deal with Court TV. She and I were staying at the same hotel in Santa Barbara when we worked on the case.
Me: what was she like?
Reporter: We all basically did our own thing. She was always nice to me, so. A lot of use stayed at the same hotel. She had the biggest satellite truck and it was always a problem. I remember on a Sunday I went wine tasting in the Santa Barbara wine country near Neverland and she called me saying, “were are you, were are you” and I said I’m out, why? And she said, “I was so worried. I thought they had gotten to you!” and I said who’s they? (Laughing) and she says, “Jackson’s people!” and I said No, (still laughing) I’m out in the country having wine.
I ask her about Lisa Marlowe
Reporter: Oh my god, that’s Bryan Anderson’s wife.
Me: No! this is just too weird. —I read what Marlowe said about Dimond.
Reporter: I tell you why she’s no fan of Victor’s. Bryan Anderson was the first Brit to sell for Victor and Victor was very enterprising. He started selling his stuff to Splash and they were very competitive. Bryan had a business name but I don’t remember what it was called. Lisa wrote for the LA times travel section. When I worked at the Enquirer I had contact with all of those people but when I went to the networks –they didn’t pay for stories so I didn’t have contact.
Me: Lisa worked for the travel section so how did she know Dimond?
Reporter: All of those people sold to everyone back in those days. That was the case that started it. Those guys would all fight and steal stories from one another, Victor wasn’t the only one.
Me: Well the Chandlers sold stories to the Enquirer too.
Reporter: I don’t know. Whose names are on the bi-lines?
Me: I have to look it up. — They (Chandler’s) were calling the tip line.
Reporter: I think it was him (Evan) because nobody was paying attention to the story. The tips started coming in I would say about 2 months before the story broke. I mean, they didn’t call every day but probably once a week and each time they would call they would give a little information, then a little more. The reporter from the local –KNBC news ,Conan something, got tipped off and reported the story. The enquirer was sitting on the story and afraid to publish it for about a month because they really –I mean they only had that source the caller and the caller didn’t want to ident–, didn’t want money which was highly unusual. The caller didn’t identify themselves and they were just trying to push the story and the Enquirer was afraid of getting sued because contrary to what people believe they were very careful to push a story unless they knew there was some truth to it. The TV guy was able to report it because there was a raid. After that everyone went crazy and there was competition between the Bryan Anderson’s and the guys from Splash. The MJ tabloid stories were a big deal in England. —-
Reporter: I know at the time he sold that story he (Victor) needed money. He never thought it would backfire like that because people had been saying horrible things for years and never got sued. Victor made the claim about Michael and his nephew.
Me: May 1993 Enquirer story
Reporter: They had a story about Jordie and his mother at a music thing in Monaco and in Las Vegas. About all the stuff he was buying for this woman and the kid. It wasn’t Evan –it was the mother or someone close to her. I was not involved so I don’t know exactly who it was. I know how they function…but they would get the pictures and ya know –it was probably someone in her circle. Evan wanted Michael to put up money for a movie, that was his motivation.
Me: I’m sorry, the article I was thinking of was September. The bi-lines say David Duffy and Julia Coates.
Reporter: David Duffy is dead and has been for a long time and as far as I know Julia Coates still works for the Enquirer.
Me: they did a story about a month after the allegations came out and they have a lot of quotes attributed to Evan.
Reporter: Julia Coates…Does it say Evan told the enquirer or Evan told a friend? Because if it says, “Evan told us or Evan told the Enquirer.” If they quote him directly. One thing to keep in mind is the Enquirers style of writing…second hand quotes they have attributed to a friend. So their quoting him but not directly.
Me: “The alleged victim’s father told the Enquirer”
Reporter: They spoke to him.
Me: How much did they pay for stories back then?
Reporter: Back then, pretty good money. Is it on the cover?
Me: I believe so.
Reporter: 20 grand, 30 grand if it was a big cover story. Back then you got good money. Now your luck if you get 500 dollars because nobody buys printed publications anymore.
Me:Susan Yu called the DA’s office and they mistook her for Diane Dimond, you know they were buddies with Dimond.
Reporter: Yeah, they were buddies and they were buddies with Victor too.
Reporter: What happened with Ray was his brother had a confidentiality agreement. Ray Chandler is crazy
Me: Did Victor ever talk to Ray?
Reporter: Ray hated Victor.
Me: I think they were on Hard Copy together.
Reporter: Not together. They might have been in the same segment but I’m sure they were not interviewed together (laugh) I mean, you know what I’m saying? They might have been in the same segment but interviewed separately. Victor got all that stuff from the Chandler’s maid. I know he never spoke to you know. He was very good at charming all of the Hispanic maids.
Me: You said after the settlement that someone was trying to sell one of Jordan’s descriptions to the networks? Do you remember that?
Reporter: It was Victor.
Me: Was it the same one Ray Chandler published, do you know?
Reporter: It was on a napkin and it was a picture of a penis with splotches on it. Very little writing like brown here and white there –that sort of thing.
Me: Did it look like a legal document in any way?
Reporter: It was a paper restaurant napkin. It was like you know like a nice, higher quality type napkin. It had arrows pointing to the spots, it was a crude drawing. It was in Victor’s book.
Me: Oh, It’s the same one because the one in Victor’s book makes reference to Brett Barnes and has ‘my theory” written on it. Ray had the same picture in his book and on a website but he blocked out most of the writing.
Reporter: Do you have Victor’s book in front of you?
Me: No, I don’t have his book and had to get some things online
Reporter: I have the book (Victor’s) someplace. I have storage boxes with stuff from that time and I have a copy of the book. You said he has a web site?
Me: Ray’s web site is down now. His book came out in 2004.
Reporter: They wanted him to finance a movie; they wanted money and didn’t care about the kid.
Me: —I tell her some of the crap Ray had to say
Reporter: They only turned on Michael when he said no, he wouldn’t finance the movie. That’s one of the reasons the police had such a problem bringing a case. Also, all of the people involved sold their stories somehow; they couldn’t bring that case to court. All the witnesses sold their stories for a lot of money and weren’t credible. That’s why the case didn’t get anywhere.
Me: That didn’t stop Sneddon from trying again later on.
Reporter: He kept pushing on it and on it and the only reason that settlement was pushed was because Johnny Cochran was going to take OJ’s case and he couldn’t have two very high profile cases going.
Me: how do you know that?
Reporter: I know that because I was working on both stories and he pushed for a settlement of the Michael Jackson case. Remember how the Michael Jackson case was settled suddenly? That’s the reason it was pushed through. Johnny Cochran recommended that they do a settlement.
Me: I think the entire ordeal was very upsetting to Michael and he just finished rehab.
Reporter: He didn’t want to settle, he didn’t want to settle. They convinced him that it was the right thing to do and Cochran was one of the reasons. The case wasn’t going anywhere and but it was taking it’s time and all of a sudden he was on that dream team. The OJ case was bigger than the Michael Jackson case and he pushed for a settlement. That’s what the other lawyer wanted, Larry Feldman. He didn’t get involved in the case to get justice for anybody he wanted – he’s a plaintiff’s attorney specializing in getting big settlements for his clients. He was not used to going to court, he was not a litigator. So, he wanted to get a settlement for his client. He didn’t want to go to trial or get into a civil case with Michael Jackson, he wanted money. Then it played out that that didn’t happen and now Cochran wanted to go on to this other case. That’s probably why Michael was such a mess and he didn’t want to settle. You don’t get a lawyer like that to go to trial you get them to negotiate a big settlement. The OJ lawyers were litigators, they’re going to fight that they’re not going to settle. If you look up Feldman’s case history he specializes in getting big settlements without going to trial.
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Randy Tarborralli
” 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 buying his story 100%.
He actually threatened me, and I thought ….okay, pal, now I know who you really are. I wish it had been handled 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 Arviso 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 suck a shame.”
Former tabloid broker I spoke to in August 2013.
He wanted to know how long I had been working on this, how his name came up.
I asked about what he said at trial because there weren’t transcripts. I mentioned Eric Mason’s declaration saying he had information on the Chandlers.
Broker: Well I do have information but I just want to feel comfortable. I just want to make sure the situation is what you claim it is …I guess feel comfortable with it. Because I’m a fan of Michael Jackson and I’ve seen what other people have done to capitalize on his name and a lot of false things have been said. The way I look at it, because of being in the tabloid business years ago is, if you don’t see proof it’s probably not there. People will say anything about a celebrity to make money. I don’t want to be involved in something that’s false. I’ve meet Michael Jackson a couple of times and the guy was not a child molester. I don’t care what anyone says and if they think he is they need to bring some kind of proof. Nobody has brought any kind of proof in all these years and if this is a book that you’re trying to get someone to say something…
I told him that I didn’t believe that MJ ever did anything like that. Told some of the people I spoke to and the court documents. Told him that I was willing to have him approve what we wrote that has his name attached
Broker: People don’t realize that his insurance paid the settlement. He didn’t write the check, well he did write the check but it wasn’t paid all at once. It was in a trust account and the trust account was meant to pay Jordan Chandler and he was reimbursed by his insurance company.
I mention Chandlers divorce from Nathalie. He wants to know what exactly I wanted from him. I ask if he had additional information on Victor and asked what he had on the Chandlers.
Broker: What I’m about to tell you now are things I testified to and are public. Anything I know, that I didn’t testify to I will probably need a nondisclosure and you can use me as a un named source. You asked what I knew about the Chandlers. Bottom line is they lied. They had video or pictures of MJ. (He gets Victor and Chandler confused) They came to me because I was also brokering a deal with someone who claimed to have a picture of Michael. It turned out to be bogus and Victor and his attorney came to my house saying that they needed something because of the lawsuit –didn’t care if it was real or not. They lost the law suit and fled the country and I don’t think he ever paid. I told him that MJ got the book pulled by the sheriff. He told me that Victor gave him an autographed copy. Because of the lawsuit me and Michael became semi friends. He appreciated what I testified to but that’s something I will only discuss after a non disclosure. I told him that the Chandlers were talking to tabloids and trying to sell Jordan’s description. Mention how Victor used it in his book.
Broker: Some of the information I sold to tabloids I actually got from Michael Jackson himself .Do you remember the first photo’s of Prince? Was it Hello magazine or Ok magazine. I think it was OK magazine which is now defunked but I got those pictures from Michael Jackson to raise the value. While we were negotiation with OK magazine Michael was negotiating with People and all these other places. He wanted them to think he was about to sell to someone else to raise the price. He wound up getting around 2 million… everyone used the tabloids against one another to make money.
I thought he was on People magazine though? He said that the first photos were on OK magazine and Michael later claimed it wasn’t his child (he laughs)
Broker: You asked about the Chandlers and the problem came in that lawsuit with the Chandlers when they cooperated with Gutierrez. That’s how Michael was able to sue because they had a nondisclosure and once Evan Chandler started cooperating with Victor Gutierrez that put him in violation of the nondisclosure.
I told him that fans always suspected that. How ABC and sawyer won court costs and attorney’s fees but I couldn’t find much on Michaels counter claim against Evan.
Broker: That’s it, it was a counter claim your right.
I ask him if he knew the time frame that Evan was dealing with Evan.
Broker: At the time I knew exactly when it was but now I’m not so sure I don’t want to give you the wrong information.
I told him that I suspected it was before the allegations?/— but he felt it was some time after the settlement, “because the father was still trying to get money. He wasn’t getting much money from the son or something. He was trying to get money…I can’t remember the timeline on that.”
Broker: The late Bob Jones…I don’t know if he was Michael manager or … (Me: PR) yeah, he was in charge of MJJ productions. After all this stuff broke I meet with him at a restaurant in LA regarding all this and he too said that this whole tabloid thing –he was my in-between guy with Michael Jackson regarding the whole tabloid thing. That’s how I got to work with Michael Jackson subsequent to this event getting information from the tabloids.
Bob Jones turner around years later and wrote that disgusting book.
Broker: I didn’t read the book I’m not sure what the book said.
It came up during trial in 2005 and he seemed to put most of the blame on Stacy Brown, the person he was writing the book with.
Broker: I think he was a little upset because Michael Jackson constantly changed…changed management and all. I think he might have been a little upset after getting the boot but he did work for Michael Jackson for thirty something years.
Since Motown I believe.
Broker: I’m not sure what his motivation was so. Like I said earlier if there’s no proof I wouldn’t believe it. If there’s no picture or video I wouldn’t believe it. When you go to court to prove it will you produce some documents you know what I mean. Just because you got paid off doesn’t make it true.
He asked where I was originally from –asked if I ever lived in California.
Broker: I was a little shocked to see the email. You never know who is emailing ya and to see the question about the Michael Jackson thing, lol it’s been a long time.
He goes o to ask me a few personal questions.
Broker: Okay, lol, sorry it’s just that I’ve been dealing with this Michael Jackson thing so many—well not so many but there was a period of time were everybody contacted me and you just never know just what’s going on. Just as recently as this Wade Robson thing. His attorneys contacted me about two, three months ago I guess and I had nothing to say to them.
What did they want?
Broker: Well they wanted to see what information I knew regarding Michael Jackson and I told them that I didn’t want to talk to them.
Ugh, he’s another one. I really don’t think his lawsuit is going to go anywhere—they have another hearing next month. The statute of limitation is up to file a claim and why would you do something like that after the person died.
Broker: Here’s what it was, it’s very simple. They thought they were going to get a hush, hush settlement and Michael Jackson team was not playing it. They’re not doing settlements anymore okay. So then it got leaked, I think they leaked it. Thinking it would embarrass Michael Jackson’s Estate and that didn’t happen. So now it kinda turned around on them. Like you’ve been making all these claims that he was a great guy –within the last year and all of a sudden you’re turning on a dead man. I think it’s backfiring on him. He’s definitely going to lose the law suit. First he said, oh …its repressed memory then he says, oh …well he didn’t say it it was his lawyer. Now he’s saying he remembers everything. Well if you remember everything you should have filed a claim earlier so he’s going to lose that. I think he’s going to try and live off the lime light, his 15 minutes of fame on this.
That was my first impression—that he was trying to get money from the estate to keep this BS quiet.
Broker:The Estate is making money hand over first so everybody is trying to get their piece. You have the show in Vegas, the touring show around the world, you have his Las Vegas game –his machine is the number two selling game, slot machine. I mean their making tons and so people are trying to get a piece –I mean it’s just money. Now if it was me and I was molested or had a child who was molested I wouldn’t give a damn about any amount of money. It would be about taking the person down and if you have proof bring the proof. That’s just the way I look at it so. I’m a little jaded because I’ve seen tabloids –I don’t believe anything in the tabloid really, nothing because I see where it comes from you know.
I mentioned old tabloid articles and how people always bring up paternity.
Broker: Look at Tiger Woods’ kids. If you marry a blonde and you’re black the child’s hair is going to be a little lighter. I mean if you look at Tiger Wood’s kids they don’t look quote unquote black. It depends on who you marry –it’s all DNA I have relatives who are racially mixed and one kid will look white and the other black. All that matters is that he loved those kids. A lot of people don’t have fathers and however he brought them into this world is his business. And he left them with a lot of resources to live a good life.
He said that he hire the attorney I contacted because Hard Copy and others used the OK magazine he had because it was copyrighted. 50 different publications and shows used it.
Broker: Future conversations I want to make sure there’s a nondisclosure. You can use, “a source” –currently is not a problem but all the other information I have. I actually signed a nondisclosure but it ends when the person dies. It’s been so long I don’t think it’s going to be a problem anyway—there’s nothing against Michael Jackson that I have to say.
He talks about how child molestation is the worst thing you could be accused of short of Murder. The tabloid business is such a “scum bag” industry and how he didn’t like it. “Michael Jackson turned out to be a very nice guy to me personally and I think that it’s a shame what happened. A great entertainer that people just used for money.”
7/6/2005 Jordan accuses his father Evan of attacking him with a 12.5 pound dumbbell, choking him and spraying him in the face with Mace. Father and son were both residents of Liberty Towers—a luxury high rise located in New Jersey. But they were not living in the same condominium as widely reported. At least according to Jordan, who on 6/20/2005 purchased a condo in New York, listing an address different than his father’s.
Evan was originally charged with two counts of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, un-lawful possession of a weapon and possession of weapons for unlawful purposes.
The charges were later dropped to two counts of simple assault.Harassment, improper behavior (A person is guilty of a petty disorderly person’s offense, if with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof)
Jordan was issued a restraining order. I saw were Evan requested a court appointed attorney but don’t have paperwork for that. It bodes well with his brother Rays stating that he was” penniless” Jordan’s deposition date for this action was September 29, 2009. It’s unknown if he did indeed give a deposition in this case but it’s unlikely considering he was the complainant and all charges were later dismissed.
7/24/2005 Evan goes after Jordan’s money
I came across a deposition order filed in New York in December 2006 for Burton Goldstein. A top rated Park Avenue accountant. The order was filed for a New Jersey action, Evan Chandler v. Jordan Chandler. Upon further investigation I learned from the chancellor’s office in Jersey City that Evan filed the case on July 24, 2005 concerning a constructive trust. The case was dismissed with prejudice on March 21, 2007.
Evan Chandler’s will:
Names friend Alan Margulies as Executor of his estate leaving him any and all assets. Along with and all awards and/or settlements received by his estate. Chandler specifically names two lawsuits involving Novartis pharmaceutical and his physicians who prescribed him the cancer treatment drug Zometa/Aredia, for which he suffered side effects.
“I direct that I be cremated and that no family or next of kin be advised of my death.”
“For reasons best known between us, I purposefully make no provisions in this, my last will and testament, for any of my children or their issue.” He makes no provision for any family members and specifically states that, “no next of kin be granted or given any powers over my estate or my remains.”
Marion Spence and her son Jonathan became family friends in the mid-80’s. Meeting the Jackson’s, “when my son would play baseball and he [Michael] used to be there with some of his family at the baseball game. Because his brothers children would be playing baseball at the same time. So we got to know them very well and got to know Michael very well,” Marion said.
Elaborating further Marion stated, “We used to go to Havenhurst– to the family house on Havenhurst and Latoya would be there and Janet would be there and Tito, his brother, had a house up in Big Bear and we were invited up there for a weekend. The whole family was nice with us. Very, very nice –his mother would call and say Hi and how’s everything and when are we going to see Jonathan.”
Marion would tell me that although they never toured with the superstar, she and her son did spend a considerable amount of time with Michael, “We went to concerts, we went to Neverland which was wonderful –with Michael. He would send a car for us and we would spend the day together by the pool. Have dinner there in the evening and it was just wonderful. It was just like being in a hotel. We would stay in one of his houses on the estate. He was just a very generous, kind, loving person. I absolutely adored him everybody, I mean I don’t know anybody who didn’t. He was just very nice and I would never say anything wrong about Michael because there just isn’t anything to say. His mother was very nice. His family was very nice to us.”
“Jonathon used to go to Elizabeth’s [Taylor] house with Michael. And Sophia Loren’s house–she lived out here in West Lake or Calabasas and Michael went and they played with her two sons and she would make them spaghetti.” Michael would stop by the Spence family home to visit. Bringing along his chimpanzee Bubbles. “I have photographs of him giving him his banana up in the driveway. When I knew Bubbles he was very playful—Michael loved his animals,” Marion said.
Clearly irritated that anyone would suggest wrongdoing on Michael’s part Marion said, “Michael had a load of kids sleeping in his bed all at the same time. There wasn’t anything funny going on there. He just liked to be around kids and toys. Michael was such a good person. He wouldn’t hurt a fly or anybody or anything. Michael was very kind hearted. The media harps on the tragic because that’s what people want to hear. They’re not interested on the good things too much. Anything that’s a scandal, they’re into it, but really they got the wrong person when they thought about Michael.” Her family did indeed have a long-term friendship with the superstar, confirmed that her son Jonathan was married at Neverland years later.
Flo Anthony
“Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne Wade on What’s Happening, told me in the early ’80s that MJ had Lupus. I believe Jermaine told him. I found out when everyone else did about the vitiligo,” said family friend Flo Anthony
“He was a grown man when she [Diana Ross] married Arne Naess and thought she should have given a chance. In fact, when she married everyone was scared to tell MJ. Kidada Jones was a little girl then, and, she ended up being the one who told him,” she said.
Flo Anthony, a close Jackson family friend, gave further insight into Houston’s relationships with the Jackson’s:“I’ve always heard that MJ and Whitney had crushes on each other, but, she had a long-term affair with Jermaine. They even lived together for a summer in New Jersey, so, I doubt if anything was really happening with her and MJ. She also had dinner with him [Michael] at Neverland. He served fried chicken.”
Paul Hernandez
Before screenwriter Paul Hernandez had success with his 2005 Disney film Sky High, he was an aspiring writer new to Los Angeles. Being a comic book fan with aspirations of working in that field, he took on a job at Golden Apple. “It’s a huge store on Melrose,” he explains. “Not only do they have comic books and action figures, but the place really is over the top — movie props, incredibly rare and cool items.” It was common for the store to be frequented by celebrities such as Mark Hamill, John Singleton and Samuel L. Jackson. Yet, Paul was advised one morning that an unnamed celebrity was coming in and to “be cool.”
Later that same day a black SUV pulled up and out popped Michael Jackson, an assistant, and Jordan Chandler. Hernandez was tasked to assist Michael as he browsed the store and said, “Michael was a huge Spiderman fan” and that “Jordan was into the Flash comics and the Flash action figures.” Michael went on to purchase multiples of certain items because “he used them in gift bags for the children that visited Neverland and would ask me, ‘There’s nothing violent, nothing sexual in any of these?’ To ensure that children visiting Neverland weren’t given anything inappropriate.
“It must be something to wake up or get up in the middle of the night and that’s your backyard,” Paul asked, recalling the images of Michael’s home during his live Oprah interview that aired a few months prior. But Michael said, “No, it’s something when you wake up and you see all these children that are never going to get a chance to ride another ride and they’re happy for one day.” Paul told us, “I remember that distinctly because I thought he’s not running this for himself, he’s running this for other people.”
There is an adult book section within the Golden Apple, Paul explained and “Jordan had wandered back there and I said, ‘You really don’t want to go over there — there’s nothing really good over there,’” Hernandez recalled. “Michael then asked, ‘What’s over there?’ and I said, ‘Well it’s like the adult books, the X-rated books.’
Michael said, ‘Jordan, don’t go near that section– that’s where the bad books are.’ I remember he did say ‘bad books,’’ recalled Hernandez, but “Jordan giggled…he acted like he was moving over there and [Michael] said, ‘I’m serious Jordan, if you go near there I’m not going to buy you anything.’ And [Jordan] said, ‘No, no, okay, okay.’”
Michael was a fan of comics and pointed out multiple items that he had interest in. “I remember the comic book I was showing him was called The World’s Finest and when Michael leaned over to pick up a copy I could see behind his ear, it was his left ear. He had scars from the burns, and I recognized what they were because I was burned,” said Hernandez. “When he leaned back up I didn’t catch myself from doing it — I’ll talk to anyone who was burned because I have problems sometimes so I said, ‘Do you still have problems from the burns you got during the Pepsi commercial?’ He turned and looked at me and I said, ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way, I was burned,’ and I leaned down immediately, to let him know why I was asking, and I pulled up my pant leg.”
Michael exclaimed when he saw the burn scars on Paul’s leg and asked, “How did that happen?” and “I told him that both of my legs were burned and that when I was two,” said Paul, who went on to tell him about his horrific childhood incident. Michael “was just devastated — and you could just tell in his face he was just like, ‘Oh my Gosh,’ and he kept saying that over and over again.” Michael told Paul, “I didn’t have it half that bad when it happened to me. At the time I just thought it’s the end of the world and I thought, ‘I can’t believe this, my hair is gone.’ But when I started meeting burn patients I realized I had nothing to cry about, I was lucky.” Michael “talked to me about how he really doesn’t worry about it when he’s wearing a hat and he’s out in public. But on stage he would have to wear I guess little wigs and stuff and when he did spins and things like that he didn’t want people to see he was still scarred up there,” Paul recalled and pointed to this conversation with the superstar as being a particularly poignant moment.
“I have to mention, too, is he wasn’t wearing gloves so you could see the vitiligo on his hands. You could see the spots were his skin was different pigmentation. It reminded me a lot of my uncle because my uncle had it on his arms and it looked like that. The same type pattern and shape. I didn’t think about it when I talked to him.” The two men were talking about superheroes when Paul asked, “Would you ever be in a comic book movie?” (“And this is of course before comic book movies were en vogue,” Paul explained to us.) With that question Michael exclaimed, “Oh yeah I would love to play a superhero!” as he elaborated further, “I think you carry that stuff with you — you know, like moments in movies. When we’re young and we can’t make up our minds what’s right and wrong, it’s always good to have powerful imagery that you’ve seen or you’ve read that sort of guide you in the right direction.” In complete agreement with Jackson on the topic, Paul recalls, “We started talking about black heroes. Now there’s more, but back then you had Black Panther and Black — unfortunately all these guys have that name before it.” Michael went on to say that “he created a character called MidKnight and it was something that he really wanted to do,” said Paul. But, “I think what he said was that they could never get the story to where he approved of it.”
Hernandez stated that this encounter was shortly after,” Michael had just done a short radio interview with Rick Dees to promote his new album” on June 5th 1993. He asked Michael about it because at the end of the interview– Rick asked him, what can people expect from your new album? Are there any secrets? Michael responded (in a high-pitched voice) oh, I have to go Rick… I love you… I love you Rick. Paul asked him, was that really you? Michael just started laughing… so Paul started laughing and Michael says jokingly maybe I should put a song called “I love you Rick” on my next album.
As Michael and Jordan perused the store, “they acted like kids sometimes…like brothers. I remember he would kind put his arm around Jordan and give him noogies and stuff like that, and it was more like somebody who was just looking after a kid, who was just trying to show them a new world.” Hernandez, who now has children of his own, elaborated further by stating, “You can just see in [kids’] eyes like, ‘Wow! I didn’t know this existed!’ and you’re kind of like, ‘Come check this out! Come check that out!’ And that’s kind of how they were. It wasn’t anything weird…and anyway when we were talking about all the superhero movie stuff he was saying how it was good to have memories burned into your subconscious level, these great things you’ve seen as a kid. And it’s true we all carry that.” Before departing the store, “Jordan had gathered up the toys that he had wanted and it wasn’t too much stuff. It was like a little pile of books and anything we stopped on or [Michael] said, ‘Oh, that would be cool to have.’ Jordan would say, ‘Can I get one of those?’ And I remembered Michael corrected him a few times. Like when someone would come up and ask him something. Jordan would go, ‘Yeah,’ and Michael would say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and he would say, ‘Tell them thank you,’ or ‘Tell them please.’ You know, like a father does.”
At this point the demands from Evan had begun and if Michael Jackson had just given into those demands right then, none of what would later happen would transpire. It was Jackson’s refusal to give Evan anything that would hold him hostage to everything else that would unfold – a “plan” Evan tells Schwartz that was under way, and having already been “rehearsed” on what to say the last time he’d seen him, it would seem the plan had been something that had been almost immediate from meeting Michael.
Frank Cascio would reveal, “When I was older, Michael would tell me that Jordy’s father had wanted Michael to invest in a film he wanted to make. Michael initially liked the idea, but his advisers were against it. They dismissed Jordy’s father rather thoughtlessly, and Michael, not one for confrontation, blew him off, too. Michael thought that this, more than anything else, had set Evan Chandler off.”
Artist David Nordahl was at the time working on projects for Jackson within that company and he confirmed Chandler’s demands of his friend had been motivated by his zeal to become a screenwriter: “Sony had given [Jackson] $40 million to start this production company and that little boy’s dad, who considered himself to be show business material because he had written part of a script… 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. That’s where the $20 million figure came from. He wanted half of that Sony money.”
Chandler might have felt that he was capable of writing quality screenplays but others in Tinseltown thought differently.
“There was a screenplay that was passed to me by my friend Richard Jefferies a long time ago, and it’s a horrible screenplay,” says screenwriter Paul Hernandez. “He said you’ve got to read this!…and I can’t remember the title of it but it was about a rock star that OD’d on heroin. Basically the whole movie is this girl finds him and washes him up and she’s a big 80’s fan and she wants him to come back and be as great as he once was. They’re fighting throughout the whole script, and it was really boring. I remember laughing because he finally makes it back — she stuck by him, he cheated on her and all this crazy stuff. He’s finally about to get another shot and it’s this huge concert — it’s his comeback tour. She goes backstage to get him and he’s got this needle hanging out of his arm, he OD’d,” Hernandez laughed hysterically recalling the script. “We all laughed about this script because she walks in and his sunglasses are broken and he never takes his sunglasses off. She takes his sunglasses off to hold him and say ‘Charlie’ or something and there’s no comeback, no nothing . [Chandler] wrote that, Jordan Chandler’s dad wrote that script. I couldn’t get over the fact that he wrote that script and it’s kind of famous around town for being a bad script,” said Hernandez, still laughing.
The Strip Search
There were multiple descriptions of Michael’s genitalia given by Jordan Chandler. The first one was given on September 1, 1993 to Assistant District Attorney Lauren Weiss. Another description dated October 24, 1993 was allegedly given by Jordan to his father Evan. Shockingly, the words “my theory” were written on the document which was supposed to be a description, not a theory. In Ray Chandler’s book All that Glitters he states that Jordan gave an additional description to attorney Larry Feldman on December 14, 1993. It’s interesting that the Chandlers acknowledge that there were additional descriptions given by Jordan.
After the police arrived at Neverland on December 20, it took lawyers an hour to persuade Jackson to leave his bedroom. He was warned that if he refused to cooperate, he’d be arrested and taken away in handcuffs. Michael reluctantly exited his bedroom wearing a robe and was strip searched. His genitalia and body was photographed and videotaped by authorities to compare them with the description Jordan gave of Jackson’s private parts. The singer was described as being angry and hostile over the humiliating search. One of the doctors produced a ruler, at which point Jackson’s doctor intervened. “That’s it,” he said firmly. “Mike, get dressed.”
Present at that search were: Jackson’s head of security Bill Bray, his lawyers Johnnie Cochran Jr. and Howard Weitzman, his personal physician from the Dangerous World 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 the Santa Barbara Police Department), photographer Gary Spiegel, Detective Sicard (for the 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 the two detectives, Dr. Forecast, and Jackson’s lawyers were in another room.
None of Jordan Chandler’s description matched, however. He had consistently said that Michael was circumcised, but he was wrong. Michael Jackson was not circumcised, as was determined by the doctors during the search and mentioned in his autopsy report in 2009. Jordan also incorrectly described the color and location of a spot on Michael’s skin. Michael Jackson had spoken about his skin disorder during his interview with Oprah Winfrey in February 1993, and those close to him had already seen the marks on his skin. Jordan Chandler had made a wrong guess, and Tom Sneddon would later try to cover that mistake by talking about a light background with a dark spot. Jordan’s original description made to police woman Deborah Linden suddenly “disappeared” after the search. In addition, an article entitled “Telltale Splotch” on The Smoking Gun website mysteriously disappeared during the 2005 trial. To the dissatisfaction of Thomas Sneddon, the authorities had to leave Jackson’s house empty-handed after the search. The description didn’t match, and as a result they could not arrest him on probable cause.
According to screenwriter Paul Hernandez, he was associated with a high profile celebrity attorney who had seen evidence in the case. “He knew people working on the case, and they had made a list of things, everything they had taken out of there [Neverland] and he didn’t see the photo’s — he’d read the descriptions of it. But he knew some of the people that were actually raiding Santa Barbara because that’s where he lived. He told me because he knew I had met Michael and was always talking about him being innocent when it first started happening.”
But that attorney questioned Michael’s innocence, “trying to egg me on,” said Paul. The attorney was a “big blowhard kinda guy,” who would describe Michael as being “weird with suspicious motive for wanting to do what he does.” But after consistently razzing Paul and saying, “Your guy’s [Michael] going to jail,” the attorney’s opinion later miraculously changed. “We were at Bel-Air Country Club,” said Paul, who was seated with a family member, actor Johnny Yune, and the attorney. The attorney said, “I don’t think your guy did anything — the things don’t match up.” When Paul questioned why his opinion changed the attorney said, “I spent the weekend at my house and I talked to some friends of mine. None of the descriptions that that kid gave matched up. The kid said Michael was circumcised — he wasn’t circumcised — that he had certain spots and markings — those didn’t exist.” and he said they were worried — the police officers and them were actually concerned that Michael could actually sue them on good grounds because nothing matched.”
Thomas Meseraeu
Why did the DA go for a grand Jury rather than a preliminary hearing?
That was a strategic decision that only he could answer your question about. I have my views on why he did that. First of all when you charge someone with a felony in California. You have to go by way of grand jury indictment or you file what is called information which is a criminal complaint which will entitle the defendant to a preliminary hearing. Now, both a preliminary hearing and a grand jury are what are called screening devises in the sense that the prosecution has to present enough evidence to prove there is enough to go forward. In a grand jury room you have no judge and you have no defense attorney. You only have the prosecutor and the grand Jury. The prosecutor calls witnesses there never cross examined and the grand jury hears enough evidence to ya know if they agree with the prosecutor return an indictment. It’s a very easy process to get a criminal case going because as I said before you’re in a grand jury room. There’s no judge controlling the proceeding. There’s no judge deciding what evidence is admissible or not admissible and there’s no defense attorney cross examining to test whether the evidence is credible or not. So and also a grand jury is a private proceeding, it’s behind closed doors. It’s not a public proceeding. In a preliminary hearing you have a hearing in open court before a judge. The prosecution has to present enough evidence to convince the judge that there’s a reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed. Ah….the other term that is often used is probable cause. So there is probable cause that a crime was committed and if the prosecution does that the case keeps going forward. Now if Sneddon had gone in front of a judge for a preliminary hearing it would have been a public proceeding and the witnesses would have been subjected to cross examination by a defense attorney. By going with a grand jury he avoided a public proceeding and avoided cross examination by a defense attorney of these witnesses. There two separate and very different ways to go forward with a criminal case. I think at some point he must have decided –I don’t want these witnesses tested by a defense attorney in open court. I want to see them myself. I don’t want a judge controlling what I ask and I think we have more to gain by the defense not being able to go after witnesses at that stage. That sounds to me like it’s what he probably did.
Why was Sandusky’s grand jury transcript officially released and Michael’s wasn’t? Instead it was leaked ahead of the trial.
Well portions of the transcripts of Michael’s grand jury were leaked. They were appearing in the media and it was very upsetting. They were not released and they were being reported in the media. They certainly were being leaked.
Do you know who leaked them?
No, I have no idea. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Now what happened in Michael’s case was this. You had a grand jury transcript. I made a motion that was granted and the motion I made was –I asked the judge to not allow these transcripts to be publicly released until the naturally arose during the course of the trial. In other words what I said to the judge was look..We have a very poisoned media out there, their very bias against Michael Jackson. He hasn’t even had a chance to appear in court and defend himself. I said the witnesses that appeared before the grand jury were never tested, never cross examined for credibility. They’ve given some very salacious, very disturbing testimony but again, has not been tested and it will prejudice the defense if you release them to the public and we would like them to not be released. We would like them to be basically suppressed until there used in the course of the trial and the judge granted my motion. Now what happened was while the grand jury was meeting information was being leaked because the press was reporting it, which was disturbing. But just as disturbing as that if not more so was that- on the first day of jury selection ABC Good Morning America started showing transcripts. So somebody took all the transcripts and either sold them or leaked them to them. In an obvious attempt to prejudice the defense because that was the first day the jurors were arriving to the court house to be selected. So it was an obvious effort to prejudice the jury pool against us.
Asked about his statements during a seminar in 2005 — About having mothers in the jury pool.
I had a jury consultant who makes her living by doing studies and phone surveys, focus groups, mock trials that kind of thing. To try and advise attorneys how to pick a jury and I have never thought very highly of jury consultants. I think a trial lawyers greatest strength is his or her intuition and intuition comes from experience, It comes from just the way you look at the world and I’ve always thought my intuition as to what jurists to pick –is far superior to any so called objective jury consultant. Jury consultants in America are usually social psychologists or people with a degree in sociology or the social sciences who like to do phone surveys and then plug in a lot of data into a model and they will match age and occupation and race and religion and the part of town you live in etcetera and they’ll correlate all this information to try and come up with the ideal defense juror and the ideal prosecution juror. They will also try to isolate what issue seems to be the most important to each type of ideal juror and to make a long story short. Some studies were done and it was recommended to me that I avoided women and I avoid mothers particularly and without wasting too much time I told the jury consultant. I want women and I want mothers.
Is there a reason why you went against that?
Yes, it had to do with my instinct and my experience in trying cases. First of all I’m defending a very eccentric creative male okay. He doesn’t dress like many men dress. He’s very eccentric, he’s very off beat, he’s very different, he’s a very artistic creative spirit, he dances to his own drummer okay and I have found that women generally speaking are much more accepting and tolerant of that kind of male then many men are. Cause men can be very harshly judgmental, they can be very defensive about what a man supposed to look like, what a man’s supposed to do. In addition when I have defended men who were gay or men whose sexuality was being challenged and I knew these prosecutors were going to be attacking his sexuality. I have always felt that, generally speaking, women are much less judgmental of men whose sexuality is being attacked. Um, much less concerned about whether a man is heterosexual or gay or Bi or whatever you want to call the man. As opposed to heterosexual males who again are insecure about their sexuality, very judgmental of other men and let’s face it they were attacking Michael Jackson’s sexuality in the most harsh and nasty ways possible. They were saying his sexual proclivity was little boys. Zonen asked some questions suggesting he was gay, suggesting he was asexual. They weren’t sure I think in the end what they were attacking but they were trying to vilify him in any way that they could.
And I also felt that because of the way I was going to present the case. I was going to show that Michael Jackson is a protector of children, he’s a champion of children and that would appeal to mothers. So they are saying he was a man that monsterized kids and I was saying he was a man who protected children. One of whose goals was to see that the world paid more attention to our children. Children on every continent, children of every income group, children of every race –of every religion. So putting all of that together I felt again generally speaking I’m not talking about an individual, there were some women I removed. I wanted women rather than men, um..Mothers were fine and we ended up with a majority of women on the jury
Was Sneddon happy with that?
That’s a very interesting question you raised because there’s another major facet to what I’m discussing and that’s the issue of race because we were in a county that was very conservative has very few African Americans and of course that was of great concern to Michael and his family. It was not of great concern to me because the more I got to know Michael Jackson the more I realized he brings all races together he doesn’t divide them. Prominent black family, white children, a Latino child, loved on every continent. He once made a statement that he wanted to adopt a child from every continent and if you were in his home at Neverland you saw paintings of Michael and you would see lines of children from every continent and every ethnic group, every religion, dressed in their native costume following him. So he saw himself as someone who brings all races together. You look at his music “doesn’t matter if your black or white” for example. So my feeling was that when I presented Michael Jackson the human being that he would appeal to anybody of any race and race was not something we really wanted to get involved in. But here’s what I’m getting at –to answer your question. I looked at the other side of the room and I had three white males as prosecutors okay and they had a white male jury consultant and I studied all of these people. Particularly the prosecutors from the time I got in the case and these prosecutors to me were arrogant they were elitist and they felt there was no way they could lose the case and they were walking on air from the moment I meet them they thought they were going to be movie stars on a world stage and they know nothing about the African American community which I have been involved in a lot in my career so my feeling was this – I looked at them, I studied them, I felt them, and I really felt that in their mind they couldn’t loose and that Mesereau knew that and that Mesereau’s only goal was to get a black on the jury who would hang the jury — That’s what I thought their thoughts were. Now did I know for sure? No, I wasn’t inside their brains but that’s what I thought. So what happened we start picking a jury and a black women appears on the first jury panel and they promptly remove her okay and I objected and went to side bar were we talk to the judge and I raise constitutional objection said their removing her because of her race and my objection was denied. Then to my surprise a second black woman appeared on the jury, they promptly removed her, okay. I went to side bar –raised constitutional objection again and they were denied. Then a young black male appeared in the group of alternates. Now, when I say appeared in the group of alternates he wasn’t in the first twelve but he could potentially come up in the ranks depending on how people use their objections. Now, I would have had to use virtually all of my objections to get him on the jury panel and I looked at the prosecutors and I saw that they were just thinking to themselves, Mesereau will do anything to get a black person on the jury, okay. So they started accepting the panel– meaning they would accept the first twelve as the group as far as they were concerned that could comprise the jury without using all of their objections and they kept doing that because they wanted me to use up all my objections to get this one person on the jury. Then they would have all of these objections saved so they could probably run around and remove anyone they wanted for a long period of time and I suspect some of these women they would have removed because there was a bunch of senior citizen white males coming up through the ranks too that I suspect they wanted, well actually, I don’t suspect it, I know it’s true because after the trial I ended up talking to their jury consultant. Who felt they really had misjudged me and how to pick a jury. But never the less, I ended up with half of my challenges remaining accepting the jury as constituted and I saw their jaws drop. I think I had called their bluff and I think they misjudged the way I was looking at gender and race….am I making any sense?
I have a question about Janet, the mother, was there was a sense that Janet had come off badly during the trial. Did you have any sense of how badly she would be before the trial?
Yes, I knew she would be a disaster. I knew she would be an absolute disaster remember we had a pretrial hearing. On this question of whether or not the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s should have broken into prior council’s investigators office and I had a belief that Janet would be disaster for a number of reasons. But it almost didn’t happen because of some incompetent Lawyers who were associated with Michael Jackson. When I started learning about her. I quickly realized that she had committed what looked like welfare fraud and perjury because she settled a case with JC Penney which was based on lies, as you well know. Then filed an emergency application for welfare assistance not long after that. And did not include that settlement in her application which she was asked to do because the applications asks —have you receive any money through lawsuits or settlements blah,blah,blah. So, I wanted to make sure she took the stand. There were some very poor lawyers around Michael Jackson and believe me I can probably can guess who they were. But nevertheless, who wanted to be heroes and had very limited mentalities and I instructed these people, do not report her to the authorities because if you report her to the authorities she may not testify. Under California law you can insert your Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and not testify if you think you’re being criminally investigated or might be criminally charged. But these dumb ass lawyers wanted to be heroes for Michael Jackson and they reported her thinking the case will go away if we report her. Which is just insanity and for a while I found out she refused to testify because of what these other attorneys had done. These are people with limited mentalities limited scope and just um, there were some repercussions to that. You may recall I was not allowed to examine her from her perjured welfare applications where she lied repeatedly–Because of what these lawyers had done and one was fired immediately –and the other person I had a talking too and really got a piece of my mind because my lawyer partner Susan Yu who was the most important lawyer in the case as far as I’m concerned. We were the ones really looking through the evidence and figuring out how to win the case and we knew we wanted her on the witness stand. We didn’t want anything done that would discourage her. Now, she ended up taking the witness stand but I was not allowed to examine her from those perjured welfare applications because of what these other idiots did. She was allowed to assert her Fifth Amendment rights on those issues. The judge told the jury’s she wasn’t going to answer certain questions on issues like that, which didn’t look good either. But nevertheless it wasn’t nearly as damaging as it would’ve been had I been able to cross examine her from her fraudulent welfare applications.
One thing you have to understand when you’re in a case like this so many people are jockeying for publicity, their jockeying for Michael’s attention and the only lawyer I really trusted was Susan Yu. She’s the only one I work closely with. She had a duplex not far from my duplex our assistance had their duplexes in the same area. We had one duplex that we called “the war room” that had about 4000 binders of documents and computers everywhere. We kept things very secretive about what we going to do. We also had a local law firm working with us that did, as far as I was concerned, a lot of routine work that in my opinion was not going to make the difference between winning or losing. I needed them to do the stuff that was less important– so Susan and I could strategize the case. Which is what we did every single day and I told Michael and Randy when I first met Michael down in Florida, I said there’s only one lawyer I insist be on this team and that’s Susan Yu— I said, I won’t do it without her. She’s absolutely brilliant. Nobody’s going to know the facts like her. No one’s going to know the documents like her. She brings a different perspective, than me, to a lot of these issues and we worked very well together—and they both knew about Susan and knew about her reputation as a lawyer and they said we absolutely agree with you. So she’s the only one I worked closely with. We did have local council -they did file motions and do things–there was a lot of resentment towards us by that firm because they were up there and no one considered them to be lead Council but I was always being second-guessed by somebody. I still hear about lawyers who flew to Neverland during the trial to meet with Michael about trying to get involved– and you’re just fighting a million battles in case like that not just in the courtroom …your political battles to get your point across and to remain In the position you’re in and it’s not an easy process.
Why was Oxman still there? Because it didn’t seem like he was helping the case at all?
No comment
There were 70 sheriffs and DAs personality at Neverland…..
There may have been more but it was approximately 70
They were there for 13 hours and only had three hours of tape?
A…yes, that’s how I recall it
I found that curious and the fact that Diane Dimond was there, that they released a press release …
I think she was the only media representative aloud, I believe.
Well, I think they informed her before they went I’m Assuming? Because she showed up that morning.
No, I think she was the only one that they permitted. I think that was one of her claims to fame. I could be wrong on that. But I think she….
No, I remember she was just across the road from there as it was happening…
Well, she and Sneddon had a good relationship as I recall.
Yes, a very intense relationship as it seems,lol …
One-time Susan Yu had to call Gordon Auchincloss about a particular matter and he answered the phone, Hi Diane. — She said no…It’s not Diane, its Susan Yu.
The DA kept making comments like –Michael Jackson’s new boyfriend . Why would the DA say something like that if this kids really a victim? They were trying to turn the whole thing into a love affair it was disgusting
These were nasty allegations. Ya know, accusing of somebody of child molestation in America is probably worse than murder. The most horrid allocation you can make against someone and the way they tried this case was very nasty.
Didn’t Star and Gavin both claim that they witnessed Michael naked briefly but with Gavin –or was it Star, they had to keep bringing up this incident. Like he didn’t even remember it, I would think he saw someone parading around without clothes on you would remember it. Is there a reason why this description was given?
I can’t give you reason. They just brought out whatever evidence they thought would help them win. And of course I was challenging all of their evidence and challenging every witness and I’ve never seen so many witnesses lacking credibility in my life to tell you the truth. Practically every day I would go home saying –my God these witnesses are ridiculous.
How do you feel about the way people keep disregarding his not guilty verdict?
It’s very sad because a reputation is worth its weight in gold and you can’t put a price on a good reputation. This was the closest thing to full vindication that you can find in the American justice system this was 14 not guiltys, 10 felony and four a lesser included misdemeanors. Meaning they wouldn’t even convict him on a misdemeanor count. So you can’t get a stronger declaration of innocence in the American justice system than he got. It’s very sad that a lot of people refuse to take into account the evidence or lack thereof than these jury verdicts. This was a very conviction oriented part of California in this courthouse the conviction rate is overwhelming. You get very conservative jurors, a lot of them from the neighboring Air Force Base and they went not guilty 14 times.
I want to ask you a question about Stacy Brown, remember him? Bob Jones’s —
Oh, god forbid–
He claims that after the trial that– you told someone that Michael had forgiven him
I never told anyone that
had forgiven Bob Jones for his book
oh, that he had forgiven Bob Jones for his book? I never told anyone that.
Stacy Brown also claimed that he ran into Michael the day before his testimony and that Michael threatened him
I don’t recall anything like that. Listen, I have very little respect for Stacy Brown.
He claimed he ran into Michael at a bookstore with the kids and he threatened him by handing him a Bible
I wasn’t there I don’t know what happened but I have no respect for Stacy Brown. I was told, I don’t know if it’s true, that Stacy Brown was with Zonen– When Zonen called Gavin Arviso to let him know that Michael had been acquitted. I was told that but I don’t know ..
Did you know that Jordan refused to testify as early as October 2004 according to the FBI memos? Did you try to contact him?
I certainly never tried to contact him and I don’t think my investigators try to contact him. We did contact some people and some people contacted us who claimed that he had told them that it never happened– that the molestation never happened. But I certainly never tried to reach him and no investigator I know try to reach him. Now is a possible someone did during the course of the investigation, I suppose it’s possible but I don’t recall that happening
so the people you had spoken to that were associated with him, they were just school friends?
There were a number of people that called me and also our investigators tracked down a few witnesses one of them was in New York and there were people who claimed to have know him at school and they claimed he had told them that it had never happened
It seems that he remained friends with Safechuck — didn’t he get married at Neverland? (Spence was married at NL)
I don’t remember. I don’t even member making the statement… it’s been a while. I think they were friends.
I think it was that dodgy Filipino couple Quindoy’s
as I recall Safechuck denied it. I think there were credibility problems with the Quindoy’s if they were coming in —arguments over getting proper wages and things like that as I recall
Well the Quindoy’s.. they flew down to speek to them in 93 or 94
You should know this —after the trial, I was asked to speak to the grand jury Association of Southern California. It’s an association of former grand jurors and I gave a talk at lunch about the case and after it a woman came up to me and she said, Mr.Mesereau I want you to know I’m a very conservative person. I’m very pro-law and order and I was on the grand jury in 1993 that investigated these Chandler allegations, and she said, there were major problems with those witnesses. They were very suspicious of these claims. And as you know there was no indictment and 93 two grand jury’s Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. She was on the Los Angeles one. And they tried to claim they were just investigative juries that was a convenient way of trying to argue your way around it I see some people say they weren’t trying to indict that’s a lie. But she said I’m a very conservative person. I’m very pro-law enforcement normally. But she said these witnesses were very suspicious to me, they didn’t seem credible.
The LeMarques were pretty shady– they were in cahoots with Paul Barresi
Oh yeah, you’re bringing up names I haven’t thought of in many years.
Barresi had connection with Schaffel.
Barresi keep trying to call me during the trial and I would return any of his calls.
Well, Barresi was the one who called the press in 2000/ 2001. About Michael and who Mark Schaffel really was…Barresi said he went to Marty Singer or Siegel (MJ attorneys) and the PI Eric Mason– About Schaffel
There was a report that Barresi secretly recorded Mason
Then there’s Schaffel, Barresi – travel agent montgomery -connections in Brazil
Oh, yeah. I haven’t thought about some of these people in a long time. He actually came up to me one time. I was having lunch in Century City near my office and wanted to talk and I refuse. Then I would get messages from him and I never returned them.
Is it true that Sneddon change the law regarding 1108 evidence so third-party witnesses were allowed to testify
When he was president of the District attorneys Association he did push through a number of amendments to make it easier for prosecutors to bring in this kind of evidence and a lot of it is left to the discretion of the judge. I was frankly very surprised that judge allowed them to bring in third-party testimony about boys allegedly being molested without having to bring and the boys themselves. I was quite surprised he was willing to do that. But a lot of it is left to the discretion of the judge.
none of it helped the case– it just solidified how ridiculous the case was, it backfire completely
Well, I was told after it, that this —the former president of the criminal courts Bar Association of Los Angeles told me this was the first time in a felony child molest case that someone had been acquitted on all counts when the brought in that kind of evidence.
It seems that some of the experts were a waste. They had someone from the Secret Service. Someone from the company that manufactured their new fingerprint machine. None of them tested evidence, yet they testified
There was a very unexpected surprise raid of Neverland while I was representing Michael. Randy called me. I had to jump on a helicopter and went right to Neverland and they were looking for DNA. They had an accident reconstruction expert in his bedroom doing all sorts of measurements and calculations and they also had a computer graphics expert doing some investigation as well and they never called either of those experts at the trial either.
what were they looking for?
I think they were trying to find any evidence that would suggest that –if Star was walking up the stairway that he could see what was going on in Michael’s bedroom. I think you looking for anything that might help their case.
Some fans felt that Michael should have tried to prove his heterosexuality by having girlfriends testify
There was no need for that. I mean, the trial was about whether he molested a child. It wasn’t about what his sexuality was. Michael, I can tell you was always very adamant that he was heterosexual, always
The media always try to portray him as gay or asexual
How about all these magazines that he collected…. I think they spoke for themselves.
Have any journalists told you that they had changed their minds about Michael
Well obviously Aphrodite Jones …she had a major, ya know, change. When I first met her about a year later — I happened to bump into her at a art exhibit in Beverly Hills. She told me she was having a change of heart and I didn’t totally believe her and then she started sending me some drafts of her book in the drafts suggested she really was having a change of heart
She was talking to fans during the trial and telling them that, I didn’t know if there was anyone else?
I can’t think of anyone at this point. People aren’t willing to admit they were wrong either. Have you talked to Maureen Orth?
No, good Lord –I was told by — friend of Diane Dimond
Yeah,they used to sit together all the time. There was a sketch artist who sat with them a couple times– who told me that every time I got up to cross examine she said Maureen Orth would go,” I hate him, I hate him!”
I don’t understand why she would fixate on you– why was she fixated on Michael
She just wanted a conviction I guess for whatever reason
Howard Bloom Phone conversation May 2, 2013
Howard: It seems to me the more you can collaborate with each other–the more you can drum up a mailing list. A mailing list of people that are interested in Michael Jackson and if you build that you might begin the beginning of a movement because Michael –to try not to get gushy about it but, Michael was the closest to a saint I could imagine on planet earth. As a matter of fact, I never, ever imagined a person like him could exist in my life …and Paula I worked with a lot of very famous people. With Prince and Bob Marley and Bette Midler, ACDC and Aerosmith, Kiss and Queen. I work these days with…I’m not doing public relations anymore my background is really science and that’s why I was in this pop culture business to begin with. But I work with people like Buzz Aldrin the second man on the moon and Edgar Mitchell the sixth man on the moon. Most people are just regular humans, nice humans, very very smart humans, humans that you could admire for many of their qualities. But Michael was beyond anything that any of these other people that I know were famous and powerful. I mean, I spent time with Henry Kissinger and Nancy Kissinger about six months ago, seven months ago. Michael was not—he was beyond human and beyond human and beyond human in the best of all possible ways. His love of the people he considered to be his charge in life, his particular responsibility in life–his kids (children of the world) he lived and died for them. In fact, he did lay down his life for them.
Paula: Wow, the whole thing is just…
Howard: Well, it’s hard for me to explain yeah know. How in the world do you meet somebody who strikes you as beyond the human norm in every conceivable way—you never imagine it. So if it happens how do you describe it? So if there was ever anyone to be admired on planet earth during my time it was Michael for his utter commitment –it wasn’t just a utter commitment, commitment sound like a grim, harsh and unfriendly word –um, he had a quality of awe and wonder that went beyond anything I had ever seen before and that’s very special for me because as a scientist. At the age of ten when I got glommed into science and science became my religion. The first two rules, the laws of science that I learned and those two rules are the truth at any price including the price of your life and look at things right under your nose like as if you’d never seen them before and proceed from there, look at things around that you and everybody around take for granted and proceed from there…and Michael lived the truth at any price including the price of your life every day. Even though that truth for him involved giving people surprise and he was – I mean the second source rule for science is courage and law. Science is amazement, astonishment, surprise and Michael was given a capacity for astonishment, aw and surprise beyond anything I had ever experienced or imagined experiencing in another human being and he felt it was his absolute obligation since god had given him that gift and to give that gift to as many of his fellow human beings as possible and in particular his kids. I don’t mean his children I mean kids.
Paul: Children of the world
Howard: Yeah, so that was his life. That was his entire life Paula, it wasn’t a sideline it wasn’t something he did during certain hours of the day. It was something he did every waking and sleeping hour. That was his life.
Paul: yeah, I think there was an article –and I know that you’re not particularly fond of Frank Dileo, but I think he made a comment to the effect—Michael told him that his work with the children, he considered that his first and foremost job not the singing, dancing –record sales.
Howard: The singing and dancing was there to convey the quality of aw, wonder and surprise. Now, Frank Dileo is one of the stupidest men on planet earth and I loathe the fact that a man of that incredible lack of intelligent could be around Michael and that he could be used. He was being used as a patsy by very smart very powerful people. Frank’s idiocy drove me crazy
Paula: Frank was being used? Or They were using Frank to get to Michael?
Howard: People were using Frank to control Michael. Frank wasn’t the only one they were using, lol –Nooo, these are very smart people Paula. They weren’t just using one man they were using a whole set up around Michael to control Michael and Frank was just a part of it. And it was tremendously advantageous to have somebody so flamboyantly dumb. But Frank once said to me, “I’m not supposed to tell you this but every night before Michael goes on stage. He has us find two kids who are dying of cancer and want anything more in the world to meet Michael Jackson. He meets with those kids in whatever town he’s in, just before he goes on stage and spends 45 minutes with them.”
Paula: I’ve heard that before and…
Howard: Well for Frank to tell me that was extraordinarily kind and it was something I really, really needed to know. Because Michael became so fucking special.
Paula: He went and visited with children at children’s hospitals when he was on tour.
Howard: He took his responsibility—it wasn’t that he took his responsibility to children seriously. I think what was going on and I think you heard this in the interview from drop box. I think what was going on was this– Michael had no childhood. He was a performer from the time he could walk, talk and sing. At the age of five he was performing at the Apollo Theater, he was performing before kings and queens—literally. He never had a chance to have a childhood he went directly to adulthood, do not pass go. Well in studies with laboratory rats it’s demonstrated that the same way you could have sleep deprivation –keep a lab rat or a human up for five or six days straight. When you let them go and do what they want they’ll catch up on all the sleep that they missed while suffering from sleep deprivation. There’s something called play depravation with rats. If you keep baby rats from play that’s an indispensable part of childhood. Once they’re out of your control, you’re not stopping them from playing anymore, even if there adults they’ll put in all the time playing that they missed and Michael had no childhood and I think that childhood was bottled up inside of him Much like the way play was bottled up in the rats –( his other phone rings) —
Paula: Um,I…(cut me off)
anyway—I think because Michael had no childhood his identification with children was very profound and I saw that love –and again you probably heard that on the tape –are you still there?
Paula: Yeah, I’m still here I’m listening.
Howard: Okay because the phone is doing strange things after that other phone call. He took his kids very seriously. They were his life they were absolutely his life. Again, it went back to the basic principle of Michael Jackson’s life …I’ve been given an enormous gift, a stunning gift. So, I have to give an equally stunning gift. The ability to be stunned that’s the gift I have to give.
Paula: (MJ said he didn’t have it so bad when visiting severely burned children–almost sounded therapeutic for him in a way) Michael had a strange way (bad choice in words) of looking at these kids that had diseases and disabilities—As if – as bad as my childhood was, these children have it worst then me.
Howard. He and I never talked about his childhood. I would imagine that he would not refer to his childhood as bad. Look, how many humans get to sit back stage or stand back stage while James Brown is performing at the Apollo Theater during one of his most extraordinary and explosive performances.
Paula: Well, I think his relationship with his father wasn’t exactly the greatest. I’ve heard other individuals, Sam and Dave –the musical group. They said the father used to lock him in closets and was very verbally and physically abusive to him.
Howard: Wow, Michael never got into any of that, so I don’t know anything about that. Except –there was a reception that was in California, I’m not sure. It was at a reception to help kick off the Victory tour and all of the father’s backers were there. Meaning all of the mafia style guys that the father was forced to rely on because blacks in his day were forced to do that –that was the only source of money for black managers, black entertainers and then I walked up to their father and was introduced and I stared into his eyes and this is the only time in my life this has ever happened to me. I swear I saw the fires of hell in his eyes.
Paula: That man has a terrible aura about him.
Howard: So, at that moment I realized that I could never work with this man. When the brothers wanted me to work with Janet, because they considered me that family publicist, I spent three hours with Janet. It was amazing but she said her father was managing her and I said I can’t work with you if your father is managing you and she kept saying I’m leaving my father, I’m getting new management. We talked on the phone over and over again but it never happened. She never left him and I could not imagine working with him. I knew I would get screwed and I knew I would never get paid but …..I just couldn’t imagine it.
Paula: Well, Frank and the father were both friends with that indie guy…um, Joe Isgro. I’m not sure if I’m saying his name right.
Howard: I don’t know I’m not familiar with the name.
Paula: Did you ever read that book…It’s called “Hit Men” There is a book out actually it came out in the early 90’s.
Howard: Is that by um, um…who is it by?
Paula: Fredric…hold on…Fredric Dannen
Howard: I worked with Tommy Motola who had a reputation for being mafia connected but I don’t think he ever, ever was ….. and working with black acts you ran across mafia figures and the reason was back when the Jackson’s were getting started — Look their dad is brilliant, there’s something brilliant about their dad with what he accomplished. Amazing, amazing amazing things and he accomplished them at a time when black persons, male or female, weren’t taken seriously as a business person and because they were not taken seriously as business people they could not get money from legitimate sources. There were sources however that would source them, the mafia. So, it wasn’t just Joe who was tossed into the hands of the mafia I have another client who when she was 16 years old —First of all she was black, secondly she was female. When she was on the rise when she was a teenager nobody would fund a black person in business or more importantly women were not allowed anywhere near a control room. They were not allowed to produce records period. And this 16-year-old had the audacity to write her own song, go into the studio, be her own producer –that was unheard of. The only people who would back her were the mafia and she continued to succeed for decade after decade after decade with project after project after project but who were the people behind her financially. Always the mafia and not because that was her choice but because that was the only choice when she was on the rise. Her name was Sylvia Robinson and her initial hit was with a duet, she created it herself, called Mickey and Sylvia. That was her song- she produced it –the song was called “Love is Strange.” It was a hit and she went on in the 70’s I think it was to…she was middle aged by then to release two albums on Butta records with Park Katz(sp) the president of Butta records and they both went platinum. Middle aged black women who aren’t already up there and known getting double platinum records or platinum that’s ridiculous, that’s impossible that doesn’t happen and she came to me in 1981 and she discovered this new musical form and nobody wanted to have anything to do with it .She thought it was valid and she wanted me to work with it and demonstrate it was valid and I love working with outlaw propositions with things that are valid that the people despise and the new thing that she had found was called rap music. I was told by a record executive that I liked and respected who knew how to do things in the corporate way. He knew how to dress in the corporate way, he knew how to ride the corporate ladder and he said look Bloom I like you and you work very hard to achieve what you achieve and you gained a major stature in this business but this music that you’re becoming associated with –its shit. You know its shit, I know its shit. Not only is it shit –it’s only going to last six months and when it blows up in six months, you’ll be left with shit all over your face. Save your reputation, get out of it. The music he was talking about was rap music
Paula: Michael didn’t think it would last either
Howard: That was 1981 right– Rap should have disappeared a long time ago right. But that was the general attitude. So, when Sylvia asked me to go to bat for her of course I went to bat for her. But none the less Michael still needed people to go to bat for him. When I first said yes to the brothers — you heard the story if you listened to that drop box tape—I went to say no to them…
Paula: Who was the person who initially called you, do you remember?
Howard: Oh god, um …it was the two managers Larry…what was Larry’s last name. Larry worked with Kenny Logins and I’ve looked for him and I haven’t been able to find him because I owe him a debt of gratitude because we worked very closely together. Larry Larson that was his name and they had another one who was extensively one of their managers, I can’t remember his name they were both very nice people
Paula: And they were working with the brothers?
Howard: They were working with the brothers but very nice people are not necessarily able to cut it up against the type of people who were, who were…how would you put it. They had Michael in a perceptual prison and they didn’t care if the headlines on him turned negative because they could make money with positive headlines and negative headlines. They didn’t give a crap they didn’t understand him or want to understand him because it would get in the way of their making money off of him and getting power by being associated with him. At least that’s my opinion
Paula: Wow, the whole thing is just very, very sad. Michael got rid of his old management and took on Dileo and as much as I think Dileo could come across as a little obnoxious and pompous. I think at times he did really like Michael but allowed his mob friends or other shady people control what was going on. At least that’s what it sounds like
Howard: It wasn’t mafia people. It was normally very above board reasonably well known very powerful people in the industry. It wasn’t mafia it was people who were smarter than the mafia, lol
Paula: Oh, so it was people within the record industry.
Howard: it was one of the smartest people I have ever known who I believe was behind it. Um, smart it depends on your moral compass.
Paula: Branca brought in um…I’m trying to find an excerpt in this book because you brought up Branca too.
Howard: He was part of the process that was used.
Paula: He (Branca) brought in Irving Azoff from MCA. He brought him in as a consultant on the Victory tour.
Howard: That’s right except that it wasn’t so much Branca that brought in Irving meaning he was Irving’s person. Irving was the guy behind everything
Paula: Oh, so you think Irving was behind what was going on?
Howard: (Talking about being hired by the Jacksons)
In my opinion because it was an exacting story. I walk into a room with the Jackson’s at the Helmsley palace determined to say yes (I think he meant to say no) and the instant the door opens I got an eighth on an inch glimpse with their backs literally up against the wall. I realized these guys were in serious trouble and if they were in serious trouble, they needed me and I wasn’t going to say no. That I was going to say yes and it took me 15 years of thinking it through, processing it to realize what the Jackson’s body language was telling me and why I was saying yes instead of no. It wasn’t just that the Jackson’s were in trouble their brothers fucking soul was at stake and I had to needed to enter a game to save Michael’s soul. It was dungeons and dragons and I lost the game and Michael spent 25 years of a 50-year life being crucified and I really wish Paula that I had not lose that game. So, there’s an obligation that’s unfulfilled here and it’s to redeem Michael after his time so that he lasts for a long time to come. That’s not necessarily a mission I have time for, I have my own career.
Paula: Believe me I understand.
Howard: It’s an unfulfilled mission so if you guys are able to pull it off — I’ll help you
Paula: I think some people have turn around but I think it may take a little while.
Howard: People started turning around long before anybody realized it. I’ve been flown to Moscow, Amsterdam, Paris, Kuala Lumpur, Sol Korea, and Shangdu China because of my own work and when I was in Amsterdam I was amazed. I walked down the street, the doors to the shops were open it was spring, every single shop was playing Michael Jackson on its sound system. I was sick in bed for 15 years and separated from the rest of humanity and when I finally became healthy again and got able to get out of my house. I started working at a place called the Tea lounge this great big café and every time I meet people in their 20’s or 30’s and mentioned Michael Jackson. It was at a time, 2003, when we were not supposed to like Michael Jackson. Every one of them said how they had grown up on Michael Jackson — Michael was an indispensable part of their lives. Michael and Prince so there is a positive sense of Michael Jackson, there is a sense that Michael Jackson was not what he was being portrayed to be, there is a sense that Michael was something beyond what they can express. Lurking in the hearts of hundreds of millions of human beings and if you can tell them why they were right …you will catch a wave.
Paula: I think a lot of it (negativity) was a pack mentality caused by the press.
Howard: No, it was different.
Howard: Here’s the basic thing Michael when he sold 36 million albums became huge. He was selling two times greater than the previous greatest ever who was Peter Frampton, who sold 18 million albums. He was an amazing phenomenon and of course his celebrity had been building ever since he was five years old. So he had 20 years or more of celebrity behind him and he became so enormous that one day the Boston Herald American –there were two newspapers in Boston at that time. The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald America and the Boston Herald America’s publisher decided to do something trashy. At least considered trashy in journalistic terms at the time. They decided to put Michael Jackson on the cover and his journalists, his reporters went up in arms. The idea of putting a celebrity on the cover of a newspaper! News is news celebrity stuff is trash we do not run trash in a legitimate newspaper. Well, that day the Boston Herald American which normally sold something like 20 thousand copies less than the Boston Globe sold 35 thousand copies more than the Boston Globe. So the publisher came in the next day — took his music critic and said you I’m giving you your own office, I’m giving you your own secretary from now on you have to give me a Michael Jackson story every single day and when the Boston Globe saw that. Somebody went into their music critic and said you — you now have your own office and own secretary. You have to give me a Michael Jackson story every single day. The same thing happened all over the country because Michael represented sales and the result was –when we did our opening press conference for the tour in New York and our opening press conference for the tour in LA. We had 3,150 press people! in my previous experience if we had 10 press people at a press conference it was a big deal. 3,150 that was inconceivable. That was the level of press that the president gets and they had produce a story every day. Well, if they can’t find a positive story but are feed a negative story run with the negative story. Plus, negative stories sell more papers than positive stories. If it bleeds it leads and that’s what set Michael up for crucifixion. So the press bares a great deal of guilt
Paula: Oh, they do.
Howard: And it should be made to know it one day…because you can’t get away with killing people.
Paula: There are a few that we are going to go after. Diane Dimond… (Cuts me off)
Howard: You should start with– oh what’s his name not Michael Goldman it’s um, a nice Jewish name Michael Goldberg. Start with Michael Goldberg he started the process, he was pushed– he was given inside information with which to begin the crucifixion by somebody trying to manipulate Michael Jackson.
Paula: Who do you think that was?
Howard: Um, his name is and again this is a guess. He name was Larry Solters.
Paula: OOOHHH…
Howard: And he was the right-hand man to guess who?
Paula: Irving
Howard: Irving
Paula: His son worked for Irving too. his son Larry?
Howard: Yeah, Larry not the father Lee Solters. I suspect Larry was the one who leaked these contracts to um…the first nail in Michael’s wrist came from Don King. Somebody managed to give a spin to Rolling Stone on how to perceive the fact that Don King was promoting the tour.
Paula: The father brought Don King in because he liked to have other black…
Howard: yes, the father brought Don King in exactly.
Paula: And Michael called him a crook.
Howard: Don King was his (Joe’s) kind of person and remember Don King was a great promoter. Don King had taken a dying sport, boxing, and he made it exciting and brought it to a whole new generation of fans. He accomplished remarkable things but what Rolling Stone zeroed in on was –October 1983 or something like that maybe 1982. What Rolling Stone zeroed in on was that Don King had been sent to jail for manslaughter. That Don King had killed someone and they focused on that and by focusing on that they began the process of making the Jackson tour look bad. They began a press habit of looking for negative stories. You know the press is a very reflective lot if you manage to drive home a certain reflective response to something. They will stick with that reflective response without ever re-examining it. Without ever asking, is this true or not? So that started the negative press but the next thing was very deliberate somebody leaked contracts to Michael Goldberg.
Paula: Michael worked for Rolling Stone (31.30)
Howard: Yes, he was an investigative reporter for Rolling Stone. Somebody knew that if you started a ball rolling at Rolling Stone you could get it rolling at AP at UPI at ABC, NBS, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington post–they knew how the press worked. They knew if they got the lead sheep in the heard the rest of the sheep would follow. The lead sheep at that point was Rolling Stone when it came to music and they leaked the contracts and they leaked an interpretation of the contracts and the interpretation was –the Jackson’s are broke, the only way of making money to sustain their life style is to make as much money as they possibly can off this last tour with their brother and as a consequence when everybody else is charging 12.50 for a ticket they were planning to charging 18.50 a ticket. They don’t care about screwing the public and they’re not hiring anybody we know to work on this tour. So this tour is going to be amateur reel and because it’s going to be so big it going to be catastrophic The lighting stands 70 feet high are going to fall on the heads of the crowd and kill people, the stage is going to collapse and kill people, security is going to be amateur and kill people it’s going to be the deadliest concert tour in history. That was the angle they leaked and as I told the girls from German when your lawyers draw up contracts…have you ever had a lawyer draw up a contract?
Paula: Yes
Howard: The sweetest lawyers in the world will give you contracts that sound like they were written by rabid Doberman pinchers. That attack your partner, that try to corner him or her—that are hideous and then your job as the client is to do your best to reign in your attorney. Which is exactly what the Jacksons did with the contacts. They would look at the contracts that their attorneys sent them and would say this is not fair, this is not fair to the promoter and they would get changes in the contracts. I suspect the contracts that were leaked to Michael Goldberg were the very first contacts when the lawyers were really going crazy like what I was talking about.
Paula: well, they had separate attorney’s…Michael and the brothers
Howard: But they had contracts that were going to the promoters and were the whole kit and caboodle with the Jackson’s
Paula: Okay, and do you know who drafted them, was it Branca?
Howard: Peter Pertono was involved in some respect. I’m not sure in what respect, he’s a very sweet guy but as I said the sweetest attorney’s in the world will write the most rabid contract’s you’ve ever seen and you have to calm them down, which you do. So, if you leak those rabid contracts to the press those tend to support your thesis that the Jackson’s are in it to ripping people off. There’s a reason the Jackson’s were charging 18.50 a ticket and no one was allowed to tell the press why because Michael gets amazement out of just about everything he sees and he wanted kids to have that quality of absolute surprise and amazement. So, he didn’t want them to know anything about this tour. He wanted them to have the lowest possible expectations. So that when they saw what he was doing they’d be stunned…stunning, astonishing, giving people amazement that was Michael’s job in life.
Paula: So, a lot of it went to special effects and the staging
Howard: yeah and he had 110 people signed to work on this tour. They were all highly professional they were beyond that. They were highly creative and they all had to sign non-disclosure agreements. That’s why nobody could find who was doing the lighting, the sound, the stage and it opened the way for this rampage of outrageous stories about how this tour was going to kill people. Who was the lead sheep starting these stories? Rolling Stone, Michael Goldberg and Dave Marsh.
Paula: Rolling Stone had never been nice towards him. Did you see the newest book that came out by Randall Sullivan? He was a Rolling Stone writer.
Howard: But the point was, pay attention, it was Dave Marsh and Michael Goldberg now who knows that a) Dave Marsh and Michael Goldberg were like pebbles on top of a hill placed precisely so that you could start an avalanche. Who knows that kind of thing and who knows Dave Marsh and Michael Goldberg. Who has those inside relationships? Paula: The record labels… Howard: with these top guys whose father who was probably the finest publicist of his age. The father was, Lee Solters, an extraordinary publicist–one of the best ever.
Paula: I only have a small blurb about him in that book I told you about and it said he was a PR man for Irving.
Howard: It said he was a PR guy for Irving –Lee or Larry?
Paula: Larry
Howard: He was the right-hand man for Irving.
Paula: and apparently he tackled a camera man for NBC who was doing a story on Indie promoters called “The New Payola” and mob men. There was some connection to Dileo.
Howard: Interesting. That’s a dangerous thing and I wouldn’t you know… Irving is brilliant. Irving is fucking brilliant
Paula: How come Yetnikoff didn’t know anything?
Howard: I would imagine he (Irving) had any kind of contact he needs to accomplish his goals
Paula: And why was he so intent on making Michael look bad …to bring up his own record sales?
Howard: No, I think that causing trouble by– causing trouble which he did with Larry because I think Larry had the relationship with Dave marsh and with Michael Goldberg, Larry Solters. By using Larry to cause trouble he set up a situation where John Branca could walk into a room with Michael and say Michael look you’ve got serious trouble here and there’s only one guy who knows how to handle trouble like this …and guess who the one guy would be? Irving and that’s how he got his 750,000 consulting fee. In my opinion
Paula: okay, now I get you
Howard: Once the pebble was rolled down the hill who cared about the avalanche.
Paula: How come Yetnikoff didn’t know anything about this or was he too messed up to care? Because I know he had a problem with drugs and alcohol towards the end. Howard: Who? Yetnikoff, Walter
Howard: Oh, Walter well I never knew Walter. I would imagine especially, I’ve heard of his book I haven’t read it but I would imagine Walter was part of the cocaine brigade I know that he and Tommy Mottola were very good friends. I know they were rivals, I know if Tommy got a five million dollar this– Walter had to get a ten million dollar that – and if Walter got a 10 million dollar this Tommy had to get a 15 million dollar something or other. But I don’t know, I really don’t know what Walters relationship was with Irving I have no idea.
Paula: From what I’m reading it seems they were friendly and the only person that Walter really didn’t care for was David Geffen.
Howard: Oh, that could be, that could be. I would imagine that David ran in an entirely different crowd. He was gay and he was more Broadway oriented and stuff like that. But one way or another these games were being played around Michael with his life and nobody cared. Certainly, Irving didn’t care and I get the impression for some reason the more trouble there was in Michael’s life the happier Irving was—I don’t know exactly why that would be but when Michael died John Branca did a press conference and at 3 months after Michaels death, 4 months after Michaels death. I don’t have the exact figure and said Michael’s estate has just doubled in value so Michael’s death was worth money
Paula: I mention that the German girl are in contact with some of the same people we are. I was told that he went on tour too early after his burn and it had gotten infected (41.49)
Howard: (infections) This was on the tour?
Paula: Yeah, she said he went on the tour too early and had infections.
Howard: Well, I didn’t know about any health problems on the Victory tour at all. Everybody was kept in the healthiest of possible conditions. They take the top two floors, they take two different hotels and one hotel you’d have the touring crew –In another hotel you’d have people like me people who worked with the Jacksons directly and they take their top two floors of the best hotel at any given city. They had their own cook and their own cook was making organic food which was very important because when your operating on tour hours a grocery is not available. So, when you’re finally free to eat having your own cook is very good. So, everything is very healthy, the atmosphere was very healthy, everyone was terrific.
Paula: He was vegetarian for while two. Was he very spiritual? And into holistic medicines?
Howard: I don’t know. He didn’t talk about that what we talked about was his kids. We talked about the kids for whom he was performing. We talk about incidents together and one was when they were picking their album cover and the story of that is in that tapes from the German girls and the second major incident was when I got a called at four o’ clock in the afternoon in New York saying Michael’s about to cancel his tour. You have to be here at 11 o’clock tonight, Michael’s about to cancel his tour and you’re the only one to listen to and they used me to make sure that Michael did not cancel his tour because it was true because at that point apparently I was the only Michael would listen to and the story is in that tape. I mean it’s basically –Michael believes with absolutely every bone of his body and every cell of his being that his job is to bring surprise and astonishment to his kids and he won’t let anything fuck with that. And I believe that every cell of my body that I’m working for you and your Michael Jackson I have to make sure you succeed in doing what you were wanting to do and if you made a decision is going to screw you, a decision that’s going to take you away from those kids then I am going to oppose you with every cell of my being and I’m going to save you because that’s what you hired me for. So you have two people with absolute determination going up against each other on different sides of an argument and I won. But I didn’t win; I won on Michael’s behalf. I kept him from making a big mistake that would do him a lot of harm. Basically it was like having two Moses is up against each other, each one parting the Red Sea in a different direction and that’s how I got to see there’s this line in the interview about…uh, Paula I could see it was as if Michael’s ribs were opening like gates of gold and I could see 10 thousand of his kids inside of him. I saw how powerfully he felt about those kids. It was one of those things I will never ever forget
Paula: It really takes a lot of strength of heart to do what he did and I remember…
Howard: and he had it, he had it. Boy did he have it! He was amazing! I can tell you this with my own experience right now. I’m about to turn 70 in two months. I was my own artist I write books. One of those books, a genius award winner praised my latest book. A critic said, is this a great book like Newton’s Principia and Charles Darwin’s Origins of The Species. So some extraordinary things have been said about me. I’ve been called the anti-Newton and Charles Darwin of the 21st century. I’m about to turn 70 — I actually reached a peak as to the amount of push-ups I can do in a row 280, that’s ridiculous. So why I’m able to do 280 push-ups at the age of nearly 70 and what does that do with Michael Jackson. I am able to do them because I’m doing things that I love and the things that I think are most important to humanity, period. Michael was that way too he’s so far beyond me it’s ridiculous and if you’re doing what you know needs to be done it gives you energy and when you get feedback look at all the feedback Michael got from his audience. People didn’t start to turn on him until Irving started manipulating things. Until Irving turned the press negative and once the press gets a habit keeps that habit forever… and the habit was being negative on Michael and if you ever get the press to admit a mistake it will be a miracle. But I hope it happens because they killed a man for 25 years they were murdering him ….by instigation from Irving. The man who killed Michael Jackson was Irving Azoff not his doctor.
Paula: Now I’m depressed
Howard: Well, it was a hideous– hideous thing to see. And the reason for resurrecting Michael is because Michael had more to offer humanity than anybody else I’ve ever seen in my life and still does and again in the German interview I tried to tell the girls from Germany once you set a new standard things that were formally impossible for people will come easy back when I was a kid no one had ever run a mile in under four minutes and it was thought impossible for a human ever to run a mile in under four minutes and then a guy named Roger Bannister had a whole team of people began analyzing every bit of his stride every little movement of his ankles and his feet to figure out how absolutely maximize his energies and he reached the four-minute mile. The impossible barrier he’d broken it. Once he broke it all kinds of people began to break it for 2.5 million years we humans have been on this planet without being able to break the four-minute mile but once one person did – It raise the standard and other people began living up to that standard. Michael was that kind of standard. The kind of standard for amazement, commitment, honesty, courage, care about his fellow human beings– most of all for astonishment and the value of life… and if we can get that across somehow will elevate the bar for all humanity the way Roger Bannister elevated it for runners… and if we die without having absolved Michael — without having demonstrated what he really was, we will have robbed humanity… does that make any sense?
Howard: Well listen to that whole tape ( German fans interview) because it’s got a lot of information in. It’s one of the most extraordinary interviews I’ve ever done.
Paula: It seems that the brothers were divided when they started out on that tour…
Howard: No, they weren’t divided. What had happened was Jermaine had going off on his own. He was dedicated to his own career but that was the only division. The brothers were very united.
Paula: Okay, because the information was that Michael didn’t want to go on tour with them initially.
Howard: I don’t know. Um, it’s hard for me to say. I know when we had our confrontation over canceling the tour or not canceling the tour… it wasn’t a confrontation I don’t know how to describe it. In a sense it was a collaboration… wait I’m dropping things here, hold on bare with me…um, so there we are we’re sitting in this trailer outside a big studio lot in LA where the brothers are rehearsing for the tour. And they are rehearsing at a studio lot because the stage was so huge that was about the only place he could find room for it and Michael and I were sitting there and Michael explains why he wants to cancel his tour and he says look– and in his own way he says, I owe my audience the most amazing performance I could absolutely give them. I owe them the most astonishing experience I can possibly give them. Those are my kids that’s what I owe them and my brother Jackie is the best choreographer, best dancer I’ve ever seen in my life. That is what Michael tells me about one of his brothers… and my brother Jackie has just come down with a bone splint in his knee and without him the show will not be the most amazing show that people have ever seen in their lives and I will not go out and cheat my kids. I will not go out until I can give them the absolute best so I want to wait a couple of weeks or a couple of months until my brother Jackie’s knee is better. What does that tell you about how he felt at least about his brother Jackie? Michael was a very discerning critic of dance. He grew up idolizing Fred Astaire, he grew up watching James Brown, he grew up fusing their movements, he grew up creating his own form of dance… if he says that his brother is the best dancer and best choreographer he’s ever seen in his life that’s not just a random statement. It means he believes that. I don’t know how he felt about the other brothers we never discussed it.
Paula: I thought Jackie’s Leg was broken… that his wife hit him with a car?
Howard: No, No it was just a bone splint. At the same time another one of my other artists came down with the same thing. It’s common in athletes and people that use their knees a lot
Paula: Just out of curiosity… I always felt that he was friends with Prince. There was this big thing in the press for the longest time about…
Howard: No, No
Paula: that they were rivals? (54.40)
Howard: I was with Prince at that point since 1981, people tried to pry me away from Michael –look I was a danger and they used me when I had my close relationship with Michael but then they wanted me out of the picture as rapidly as possible. Because I was a danger I could see what was going on. It was taking me time to figure it –it took me six months to figure it out but that’s a risk and they wanted Michael surrounded by John Branca who was a puppet and Frank Dileo who was an idiot and not by Howard Bloom was trying to figure out what was going wrong and stopping it. I had already gotten a gag order on Don King. I’m fairly fearless look Don King could kill people. Going for a gag order on Don King that can be dangerous. Who cares if it’s the right thing to do, is the right thing to do period. They didn’t want a person like that around…. and um, what was I telling you– what was the question?
Paula: Did he get along with Prince?
Howard: Yeah, so at one point there was a meeting that was taking place, God knows, at a top floor of the Helmsley Palace or something like that or CBS and they convinced Michael or worked to convince Michael that I was a plant, I was a spy sent by Prince to undermine him so Prince could be the number one artist in the world. That’s ridiculous Prince wanted to be Prince he didn’t want to be Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson didn’t want to be Prince but they did manage to work up some paranoia on Michael’s part and the brothers’ part about that. When I was with them they didn’t know each other they’d never meet and Prince was brand-new he was just obtaining his stardom and Michael had been there for a long time.
Paula: There’s footage of them performing together with James Brown. I guess it’s the early 80s
Howard: That footage cannot be early 80s. It couldn’t have been any earlier than 1985
Paula: Okay, because they always portrayed those two as always sort of having this rivalry going on and they didn’t like each other. I kinda thought that was made up in the press a little bit.
Howard: they did not have a rivalry it was manufactured. People were using that to manipulate Michael that’s all.
Paula: were you ever able to tell Michael what was going on? Or you left without him knowing
Howard: No, I had lost sufficient contact by then. The brothers told me about it.
Paula: So, Irving had you pushed out I guess
Howard: Oh yeah. By the end of the summer they had me banned from the tour. On one occasion I did go against Michael. I very seldom went against my artists I always fought on behalf of their desires not just their interests but in this case Michael’s desire was self-defeating. It is very important for a black artist to maintain a black base. When a base feels like it’s been abandoned it turns on you and that can be very, very bad for your career so one thing I worked very hard at was to make sure that the black base knew that the Jackson’s care about them and the Jackson’s did. When they were writing their contracts with promoters, they wanted some money to go to starving kids in Africa and they wanted at least 100 seats set aside for kids that were too poor to be able to afford tickets. That was just the Jackson’s that was their way of doing and thinking and feeling period. It was 20 years after the civil rights movement had succeeded and a lot of blacks still were not registered to vote and the NAACP had a voting driver and they wanted to set up booths outside of each of the Jackson’s dates that was a perfect way to cement… first of all it was a good thing to do just out of sheer human goodness, it was the right to do just out of sheer human rightness but also it was a way of cementing a connection with the black base. So I said yes without consulting anybody and then people worked on Michael because he was a Jehovah’s Witness and because voting is apparently not allowed among Jehovah’s witnesses and they tried to get him to turn against me on that but he didn’t. He went to… the NAACP was having a convention in LA and without any difficulty Michael agreed to go to that convention to be with Benjamin Hooks who was the legendary head of the NAACP. Michael didn’t give me any trouble about it. We were in the van together going to this thing even though it defied his religious principles but you could work… I mean if you wanted to set up an enemy between people and you wanted to alienate Michael from somebody like me — you could work on little things like that and God knows what other things you could make up. Remember these people are not honest they had no obligation to honesty whatsoever. They only had an obligation to their own self interests.
Paula: It had to be hard for him to know who to trust. It seems like he trusted a lot of the wrong people
Howard: Well, Michael was like… okay, when I was a little kid my role model was Albert Einstein and Albert Einstein when he was in Princeton New Jersey they basically built an Institute for advanced study around him and when he was in Princeton Albert used to walk out of the house get two blocks away from the house on his way up to Princeton and all of a sudden his wife would come running up behind them shouting Albert! Albert! You forgot something. And in her hands would be his pants, his shirt and his shoes because Einstein had walked out of the house in his pajamas. Why did he walk out of the house in his pajamas? Because Einstein was trying to solve the problem of God’s own language in the universe the geometry of the universe and it took his whole brain. He didn’t had the cells left over that you and I have to remember to put on his pants. Michael was like that is whole brain was dedicated to astonishing his kids and he didn’t have the brain stuff left over for making judgments about what were good business people and who were not good business people. So he had terrible taste in business people — absolutely appalling taste in business people. Unfortunately, that was part of his undoing– you’re right he trusted the wrong people.
Larry Larson was a good person who is working with the brothers but he was a good person who didn’t have the kind of scope that Irving has. Look Irving now owns the, he basically owns the American concert booking business. Which is the most important part of the music business and remains very profitable today. He basically owns, I think, the biggest merchandising company in the music industry. He owns Ticketmaster. Of course he has his management firm which is where he started out. I don’t know what, he was in charge of Universal…….I haven’t followed him closely so what I’m saying could have sloppy error’s in it. But he was in charge of Universal music and Universal music has basically gobbled up everything in sight. Irving is the king of the music industry and part of his brilliance is his silence. Part of his brilliance is he stays in the shadows so you can see what he’s doing and he certainly stayed in the shadows with Michael. He simply manipulated people around Michael in order to get to Michael.
Paula: Oh, do you have any inkling as to why Dileo was fired?
Howard: When was he fired?
Paula: he was fired after you left in 1989– at the end of the Bad tour
Howard: Oh, I have no idea. I have no idea at all
Paula: because they were different rumors going around. Michael was secretly taped by a woman named Glenda Stein…
Howard: What was the name? Stein
Paula: Stein was her last name first name Glenda
Howard: Oh Glenda – not Linda.
Paula: Her husband and children befriended Michael and apparently at one point the husband thought she was having an affair with him. And secretly recorded a bunch of conversations she was having with Michael –and sold him down the road. But Dileo’s name came up and he said that he got rid of Dileo because he was too controlling.
Howard: That’s weird. Dileo is self-bumbling, how could he control anything.
Paula: I spoke with somebody else, who is a journalist, who’s very pro-Michael and she’s friends with people at Motown and she said Michael got rid of him because it had something to do with ticket sales. She said I don’t think he was stealing it had something to do with ticket sales but didn’t remember exactly what it was.
Howard: Well there was a rumor that… I believe this is on the Jackson tour it certainly on some tour. It was big because people were taking big blocks of tickets like Don King was taking big blocks of tickets and that was one of the ways they were making money – was through taking big lots of tickets. But remember I was banished from the tour in something like August and whatever year it was – 1983. So, I lost my direct contact with Michael and eventually lost contact with the Jackson’s when it that was all over. God knows what they think of me, I don’t know. We were close as possibly could be. Randy and I–I don’t know what hanging out is, I’m a scientist nerd— I don’t do human things but I suspect what I was did with Randy would’ve been called “hanging out” and I loved them and I was utterly committed to them but we lost contact and then in 1988 I got sick. I needed to go back to my science anyway I needed to get on to be an author. But I get very very sick and for 15 years was in bed
Paula: oh well, how are you now by the way? ( 106.5)
Howard: I’m well 280 push-ups. I walk 3 miles a day and I travel to Amsterdam and Moscow and Paris and places like that so I think I’m better than I’ve ever been in my life ever. But the fact is I lost contact with all of the people in the music industry that I had known. All of them, which is very strange considering how intense I was– how intensely committed I was to them and how much I love them and I love them for letting me into their world. It wasn’t my world, my world was Einstein and Big Bang theory and the steady state theory and Quarks and stuff like that. So at any rate I don’t have any contact with them anymore. I briefly opened re-opened contact with the person I’d given to them as their photographer Harrison Funk on Facebook, but I don’t have the time I have my own career to build and it takes a lot of time. I’m working– I have a vision for the next hundred years of life that I’m debuting at the national space society’s annual meeting and it’s been officially adopted as a visual expression of something they’ve work on for 12 years. Their vision for space exploration or for space settlement. I’ll be meeting at the convention with Dr.APJ Kalam. He’s the 11th president of India, he’s a rocket scientist, he’s put their entire program on the map and he has said that one of my book is a visionary creation and I’ll be meeting with Bob Walter (?) with whom I’ve been working with and sort of kidnap me to work in the space industry and I was on Saudi television yesterday doing commentary on Geo-political affairs. So I have my own career and I have to be my own Michael Jackson (lol)…to the best of my limited abilities
Paula: (lol) Better you than me I’m not good at the sciences
Howard: So I’ve been out of touch with them and haven’t had time to pursue them and I do love them and I’ll love them until I’m shoveled underground. But there’s no time for me to chase them
Paula: you mentioned a woman that was on tour with him. He described her as a gorgeous woman with children (109.15)
Howard: very much in the role you just outlined. Where the person whose kid and family became close to Michael and who suspected the wife was having an affair with him. Michael had someone like that on tour with him. A married woman who was in her 40s and very good looking. I mean not glamorous but a very handsome looking woman and she had the room right next to Michael’s and her family had somehow given her permission to go out on the road with him and he found it very comforting to have her
Paula: how many children did she have?
Howard: I don’t know I have no idea
Paula: do you remember her name? Or what she looks like?
Howard: No, not at all.
Paula: I’m trying to figure out who was because we know most of the families that he was friendly with. I don’t think it was Glenda because in my opinion she wasn’t all that attractive
Howard: well this woman was attractive. She wasn’t gorgeous but she didn’t make herself out to be that’s not how she did her makeup and her hair. She did her makeup and her hair to be respectable but upbeat and good looking
Paula: Was she a black woman or a white woman?
Howard: She was white.
Paula: I can think of who it would have been.
Howard: I can’t either
Paula: Emmanuel Lewis would have been around but obviously…
Howard: I don’t remember seeing Emmanuelle Lewis on the road at all. I would have seen him because I was on those top two floors what’s where I was housed too
Paula: What about Bill Bray?
Howard: who?
Paula: Bill Bray –do you know who any of the security people were?
Howard: No, I don’t know. I haven’t heard the name.
Paula: Bill Bray was his head of security for years and years and years. He passed in…ah, it was right after the trial and Michael was devastated over it. I just wasn’t sure if…
Howard: No, I spent time with his security people but didn’t know them by name. We had this one incident that was amazing one day. The Jacksons were in New York they were going to play at the Meadowlands and I got a call saying you have to be over here at the hotel immediately something is going on. And it turns out that the hotel– all of the hotels were always staked out by the paparazzi because all the paparazzi were trying to get pictures of Michael and the Jacksons countered this by leaving from the laundry exit instead of the regular exit and leaving in a van. Now these days vans are common as superstar vehicles. Those days no superstar would be caught dead in a van. So vans looked like they were laundry. The paparazzi a guy from the daily news and his partner had decided to stake out the laundry exit. So they struck gold, they noticed –they saw the van and realized it was the Jackson’s they chased him all the way across town to 11th Ave. 11th Avenue is a divided highway—um, when the Jacksons were driving down 11th Avenue it was like a scene out of cops and robber’s television show. The car with the two Daily News reporters kept trying to catch up with the Jacksons to head them off to do one of those maneuvers were you go horizontal straight across the road. Where you use your car as a roadblock so they were trying to do that to the Jacksons and the Jacksons van kept pulling ahead so it was impossible for the photographers to get ahead of them. Finally the photographers took their vehicle jumped the barrier went into the lane going in the opposite direction. Paula they could have killed an entire family, it was a Sunday afternoon if they had had a head-on collision they could have killed a family– and then jumped back again across the divide to cut the Jacksons off now the Jacksons received hundreds of death threats, constantly. Their security guards were constantly going through the death threats and keeping them from Michael so they wouldn’t upset him. So they had no idea, the security guys, had no idea who this was and what the motivation was and whether this might possibly be one of those people who made death threats, who were interested in killing Michael. So they got out of their van with tire irons in their hands and the photographers reached into their car– got out of their car and when they saw the tire iron reached into their car and pulled a pistol and they were chased off by the security guys. They immediately called into their office and said they had been threatened by Jackson security guards, they had been beaten up by the Jackson security guards. Once the press gets into a certain kind of story they repeated over and over and over again and stories about the Jacksons bullying people, the Jackson’s security guards bullying people was very saleable at the time so I got together all the people who’d been involved at the hotel. I got the whole story down to every last detail and track down the …I guess it was the New York Post, Daily News I can’t remember. But I tracked down the publisher of the paper I found him on a golf course and I told him look you are about to run a story that says the Jacksons security guards beat up your photographers but here is what actually happened. Your photographers were carrying a gun illegally, one of them was out on parole for carrying a gun in the past they were intimidating the Jacksons, they were threatening to destroy the lives of their fellow human beings to get a picture and if you feel obligated to run this headline which isn’t true, which is totally fallacious. I will be obligated to run the truth which will make your paper look horrible absolutely horrible. And the publisher backed down and the story never ran. So that’s the kind of predation on the Jacksons once that first newspaper in Boston sold 35,000 copies more than its competitor by putting Michael on the cover. Michael was set up by vampires. Irving was one of them—in my humble opinion. I had to use detective work to figure out what was going on, my own detective work
Paula: Rolling Stone journalist David Marsh seemed to have it in for Michael…
Howard: David Marsh and Michael Goldberg were the two guy’s .Who apparently, it looks like Larry Solters was giving them information in order to pull all of this off
Paula: David Marsh wrote a book about Michael in ’84 or ’85 talking about his down fall
Howard: David Marsh wrote a book about Michael! What a ghoul. Dave Marsh is a monster. I have a hard time picking my words monster is not an accurate word. The guys is a bastard…I worked with him very closely he got me fired from a job. I’d never been fired in my life. That’s the only time I’ve ever been fired– so that he could get his girlfriend into the job. You don’t do that with people’s lives um, but you do, some people do. I did forgive him and later when Tipper Gore and Susan Baker and the senators wives started to attach rock and roll using ammunition they had gotten from the right wing religious fundamentalists Dave and I both hate censorship so we made up. We got together for lunch, made up and worked together for years but what Dave was doing to Michael Jackson was appalling.
Paula: do you think he was just looking for headlines or someone was paying him?
Howard: Nobody had to pay him no. You couldn’t manipulate journalists that way thank goodness they were impervious to that. He was looking for headlines and he got it. Look, he was on ABC TV morning news so was I. He went on first with all his allegations about the lighting system falling down and the stage collapsing, the security being incompetent, gangs killing people –he made his case. And when they had me on and I made the opposite case… I didn’t know about those 110 people Michael had hired because Michael didn’t want me to know. He wanted to surprise his audience
Paula: Did you read that new book by Randall Sullivan—he was another Rolling Stone writer
Howard: No, I read books about um…science stuff
Paula: I tell him a little bit about Randall’s book. No vitiligo, prosthetic nose …BS, BS
Howard: Michael was so, in his presentation in everyday life– He was so normal it was ridicules. The first time I had meet him we were at Marlon’s pool house—“we” meaning myself and the brothers. There was a big billiard table in the middle of the room and arcade games around the side of the room it was probably a 40 by 40 foot room or 30 by 30, something like that. And then Michael appeared outside the screen door and so I went over and I put my hand out. He was about to walk through the door and I said hi, I’m Howard and expected him to shriek back like a bubble baby in horror from the touch of other humans but that didn’t happen at all. Not a bit, he put out his hand he shook my hand it was not a terribly firm handshake. But it was not a limp hand shake either it was just in the normal range. Soft and normal range and said Hi I’m Michael. That was it, it was so normal it was ridicules. There was nothing weird about him at all. Extraordinary yes but not weird. Not pretentious just a human.
Carol Lamere – Lunch – Marina Del Ray 2014
Carol told us that Karen Faye had a mannequin commissioned in her likeness, as a gift to Michael.
Recording starts,
Carol: he was funny cause he would sit and undress it.
Dee: He would what?
Carol: undress it. (Carol asks to see the photo we had of her again) Let me see my picture again…no I have that
Dee: and what would he say when he would undress it, would he make fun of her? She always clung to him like a monkey, I always said. Every picture I see she is always all…..
Carol: It depends on whether…when he let her go when he was in the Middle East with the Prince, he got tired of it ‘cause she started talking to the press.
Carol: That’s one of his shirts, the red shirt.
Dee: Yeah…
Paula: Why would she (inaudible)
Dee: That’s when uh…
Carol: I don’t look like that now do I?
Paula: You look pretty close
Dee: You look pretty close…yeah (Laura kisses her ass LOL), because when you got out of the car…I knew it was you.
Carol: I just don’t have my black hair
Dee: you don’t have your black hair….well that’s ‘cause you’re a hairdresser. You always change the color of your hair.
Carol: No I don’t!
Dee: You don’t much?
Carol: No I don’t! I’ve always worn it foiled with blonde
Dee: I’ve thought about it, but then I thought well I wont like it, it will be too hard to pull. My hair is very dark.
Paula: He seemed like a flirt though, cause there’s video of him on the Stranger in Moscow video.
Carol: Oh
Dee: Yeah, he’s pulling on Janet’s bra
Paula: Yeah. He’s pulling on her bra straps in that video
Carol: Michael used to do a lot of things. He’d lift up your dress to get flashed.
Paula: Was that Janet that he’d do that too or just everybody
Dee: Everybody
Carol: Janet, ‘cause she always wore a thong.
Dee: Ohhhh
Paula: Mmmmm
Carol: He got me with toilet paper, cause I’ve always been a little shy. I’m trying to see if I can get in to something (messing with phone)
Paula: This is what that aaaahhh, jerk attributed to you…Friedman.
Paula and Dee: Roger Friedman
Carol: Who’s Roger Friedman?
Paula: He’s a jerk (LOL)
Dee: He was on Fox 411, he had a column –fox news and then they fired him.
Carol: I honestly think Karen was calling them too. (? Michael didn’t tell me that but she was?)
Dee: Really…
Carol: She didn’t like me because when I was younger I was pretty cute. And I was different than them. I’ve never been one to kiss his ass either. And she would shovel up….and she was the one baiting everybody in the room. I didn’t stay with them I stayed in the “A” group and she was in the “B” group. So of course, she never, she always got me fired…so finally I would just would quit myself. Let me see if I have any pictures of my son. Let me hear, what they said about me?
I did not make her, my son was laughing. And her saying I made her…she was living in my house. Dee, I supported her I bought her clothes. I used to do the (inadible someones name Wynn and Juicy Couture I guess fashion shoots) they were my clients…I got her clothes from them.
Dee: Oh man
Carol: and yes she had to do housework, just like my kids did.
Dee: But of course she should
Carol: But you know what was funny? If she, you know she would never bathe she would turn the water on and pretend she was bathing.
Dee: That’s bizzare
Carol: I always wondered if she had scars or something from what her Mother did to her
Dee: I had a Foster Daughter and I had to teach her life skills like that. Not necessarily bathing but like how to do certain things, cause she had never been taught by her Mother. So when her Mother passed and, and I had two years to teach her how to shake someone’s hand when you introduce yourself and be a normal person.
Paula: Well my Son was like that with the bathing when I first got him home, (inaudible)…my Son was 7 when we first adopted him out of the orphanage. And he wasn’t used to taking showers, let alone with warm water and soap. But she was what? 16? 15? When she was with you? She was a teenager.
Dee: They might not have had places where they had running water, so maybe they had no clue,
Carol: They lived in a bar
Dee: See
Carol: One time
Dee: Wow, that’s really sad
Carol: But she was a con, she was a con artist because you could look up JC Penny’s or Sear’s
Dee: Yeah
Carol: She made money off of that
Dee: That lawsuit?
Carol: and they did steal. The brother told me and then she told me. Let me see if I can find this picture.
Paula: Yeah, well she was with you for a year right?
Carol: For a while, but I think they thought they were gonna get me too
Dee: Woo, you lucked out of that huh?
Carol: See, cause when they used to be at the dance school…they always would hang around me.
Paula: What would they do, ask you for money?
Dee: Did they know what you did then?
Carol: I don’t know if they did then….but they always hung around me. And the little boy Star always had a crush on me. (long pause) He liked women from the time he was a little kid. Whatever happened to him?
Paula: They’re all in Atlanta. I don’t know where Janet is. From what I hear they are still married but…
Carol: I..we gotta find David’s number, cause he would do this.
Paula: He would be a great one to talk to
Carol: He was so bummed out on all the things that were said about him
Paula: I’d be happy to talk to him
Carol: I’ve forgotten his number it’s in some other phone
Paula: Oh, I
Carol: it was 6 something
Paula: We found some numbers that may
Carol: Maybe we do need some Guacamole
Dee: Whatever you want hon
Carol: (points at Dee) You remind me of….um when I was with Melanie Brown with the Spice Girls her assistants name was Janet O’Neil,
Dee: Huh uh
Carol: and you look like her. The only difference is that she’s English. Cause I think we’re gonna hire her.
Dee: Oh yeah? Cool
Carol: That boats fun to go out on and I don’t like water. See the boat they’re going out on?
Dee: Yeah
Carol: It takes them all around
Dee: I’ll show you a picture of me back in the day, when I was an entertainer.
Carol: What did you do?
Dee: Sing and dance
Carol: Did you do broadway? (lmao)
Dee: No, um we had a top 40 show band. I’ve sang since I was a little little girl with my Dad, and then
Carol: Do you remember Dale-Dale Bozzio from Missing Persons?
Dee: Yes!!!
Carol: She was one of my clients, I did all her hairdos
Dee: (gets excited) Oh I LOVED HER
Carol: She’s doing a show over here
Dee: What is she doing now? I know she had some issues there for a while.
Carol: The drugs?
Dee: Yeah
Carol: I know you are gonna think I’m crazy but I need the extra dressing. It’s always the dressing I love
Dee: No, but I loved her, and you know what how many people have ripped her off now.
Carol: She was amazing
Dee: Gaga, um whats her name um…
Carol: Cindy Lauper
Dee: Well yeah but…whats her name? Um from Orange County…whats her name from Orange County, um…
Carol: We’re doing guacamole
Dee: with all the boys in the band um…and has the clothing line….I can see her face….Gwen Stefani. TOTALLY ripped her off. TOTALLY ripped her off. Everything about her. Her singing her look.
Paula: (inaudible)
Dee: Dale Bozzio
Carol: I used to put all the hair on her
Dee: Everything, everything
Carol: and then she got into the heroin, we were doing a video. And they took it out on me cause she was down on the floor.
Dee: Awww Bless her heart (shows Carol picture) You can date it by my hair
Carol: Oh Wow,
Dee: That’s my Brother there with me
Carol: I think you look great
Dee: Thank you, I loved it…I miss the 80’s.
Carol: That’s kinda where Sky is leaning.
Dee: Its coming back. I noticed the clothes and everything all have that edge to it now.
Paula: All these (inaudible)
Carol: Well she can, she can sing. Her first “L”…”EP” they shelved because she refused to sing the songs
Dee: She didn’t want to sing them night after night huh?
Carol: She didn’t want to do the album, she was very (inaudible)
Paula: Can you find her music online?
Carol: Yeah
Dee: Is she on iTunes or
Carol: Yeah
Dee: Ok we’ll look for it
Carol: You’ll actually like her, for once she made her music personal
(noise)
Dee: Is she still signed to them or is she trying to find another
Carol: No, she isn’t signed to anything. (inaudible) every way in the world on her. She used to sing for Michael. Sing gospel for him.
Dee: Awww
Carol: What salad did you get.
Paula: (inaudible)
Dee: So, what was the real deal with him and Debbie? Friends? Friends with Benefits?
Carol: Debbie really liked him as a person.
Dee: Yeah
Carol: But things got bad, I don’t think I want you to write this.
Dee: That’s OK
Carol: When we were in um…the Middle East, all the sudden she started demanding more money….we got cheese right here…and she was ummm…He paid her to have those kids.
Dee: Right
Carol: and uh, He gave her plenty of money for raising em. But she went through that money.
Dee: With the horses and all that?
Carol: Buying that ranch, uh huh and he had to come up with a half a million. (hard to understand here “One of the friends/Prince of ____ “) gave it to him.
Dee: Wow
Carol: She went from being to doing breeding
Dee: That’s too bad
Carol: isn’t this soup good
Paula: Delicious, the soup…the Prince really liked him didn’t he?
Carol: Huh?
Paula: The Prince really liked him a lot?
Carol: Oh he loved Michael
Paula: Why did he dislike a Grace so much?
Carol: Cause Grace was very jealous. We believe she was stealing the money. Cause they would leave suitcases filled with it.
D: Was she in love with him?
Carol: YOU CANT TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF
D: No
Paula: It’s alright
Carol: Some money I walked across with…..um no when they were saying he was going to marry her, he told me…he liked Grace don’t let ‘em fool ya. Its just when things got really bad, he felt like he was stuck with her and you know one time I seen him and he was so ssss
D: Was it because of the kids?
Carol: He was so sad. He was so sad.
D: So did he like Ireland?
Carol: He liked Ireland, but he was in a dump. You know in Ireland they have rules where you cant change stuff. You know what I’m saying?
Dee: So if he bought property he couldn’t fix it up?
Carol: No he couldn’t. The first time I went to Ireland he stayed with, whats that famous beer? Guinness?
D: Yeah
C: He stayed with that family and it was fine but the 2nd time I came out he was in this big like house. He was cold, he didn’t have anybody in there cooking or they would only come in there once a day like a maid service.
D: Did Lisa go over there and see him?
C: Not that I know of
D: Ok
C: That Raymone came out there I think. She sued her/the girlfriend
P: What, I don’t understand why he kept her on, cause he had fired her.
C: You know, Michael was desperate when the drugs were bad. He was strung out on drugs.
D: Even over there?
C: You become desperate…Oh yeah, you become very desperate. (inaudlble due to background noise, just a couple of words) you guys
P: Do you think it was because of the trial?
C: Hmm?
P: Do you think it was exploited because of the trial, or was it a problem he had before that? Do you think it escalated because of everything he had been through or did it exist before that?
C: I think the drugs started when um when Michael’s um had his first surgery. Cause they put him right back on the road.
In 1995 I was working for NBC News on the OJ Simpson story. “The murders were ‘94 and trial ‘95,” a network journalist named Lydia told me. “Victor was in LA and used to visit the Burbank studios, “she said. Explaining that shows like, “Hard Copy had deep pockets and the networks don’t pay.” Victor Gutierrez always used to come around with,” stuff on Michael and at that time nobody cared because OJ was the story. It was always somebody guard or employee that came out of the woodwork.”
But the networks refusal to buy his stories didn’t deter Gutierrez– who admittedly made a bulk of his income selling stories on Jackson. All he needed was a sensational story to capture some attention, even if he invented one about a phantom video tape. “I know at the time he sold that story he (Victor) needed money. He never thought it would backfire like that because people had been saying horrible things for years and never got sued. Victor made the claim about Michael and his nephew. And I’m surprised that Splash news service didn’t come into play. I think he tried to sell that video tape to,” tabloid brokers as well. See nobody would touch it– so he went off the radar and the next I heard was Diane Dimond reported it,” she said laughing.
Another journalist named Lisa Marlowe, who had previously worked with Diane Dimond on stories regarding Jackson, stated in court documents that Dimond approached her one day to ask whether she had heard a story about a video depicting Jackson with a little boy. Marlowe said that she had not heard about the story but said that it sounded like “BS.”
Marlowe then said, “Don’t tell me this came from Victor,” to which Dimond did not respond. Marlowe though that it sounded like a set-up and warned Dimond that “unless you’ve got it sitting in your office, I would leave it.” Dimond did not heed her warning however and on January 9, 1995, while using Victor Gutierrez as a source, reported a false story during an interview on “The Ken and Barkley Company” of KABC-AM radio. She said that a videotape existed of Michael Jackson engaging in unlawful conduct with a minor. She also said that Gutierrez had met with the child’s mother in a hotel room to view the tape. Dimond further stated that investigators were looking for the tape, and that the investigation on Jackson was reopened.
Right after the show, Jackson’s lawyer Howard Weitzman sent the following letter to Paramount Pictures:
I learned earlier today that Diane Dimond, one of Paramount’s Hard Copy reporters, was on KABC talk radio this morning and indicated that an untrue and defamatory story about an alleged videotape depicting Michael Jackson engaging in sexual relations with a minor was true, and that she believed such a tape existed. I understand that Ms. Dimond also made claims that the Los Angeles and/or Santa Barbara District Attorneys’ offices are reopening their criminal investigation of Mr. Jackson, based on the purported existence of this videotape. Please be informed that Ms. Dimond’s claims regarding the existence of such a videotape are untrue and defamatory, as are her claims regarding the reopening of any criminal investigation concerning Mr. Jackson.
Weitzman also called Hard Copy to warn them that they were repeating a false report. But Hard Copy ran with the false report the same night, and so did two British tabloids. After that, Howard Weitzman said, “This week several tabloid shows and magazines, along with certain individuals, publicly alleged a videotape existed of Michael Jackson engaging in unlawful conduct. No such tapes exist.”
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, issued a statement after the false tabloid report: “We have not reopened the investigation. We have heard about the alleged tape. We have not seen it and we don’t have it. Prosecutors were not involved in a search for such a video.”
An AP article at the time stated, “Michael Jackson has ordered his lawyers to sue newspapers, TV shows and anyone else spreading ‘vicious lies and rumors’ claiming there was a videotaped sexual encounter between him and a 13-year-old boy.” But that did little to deter some of the tabloid media from running with the story.
The London Sun and Today newspapers carried reports about the purported 27-minute black-and-white video. The story was carried for two consecutive days on TV’s Hard Copy and other shows. The reports said one of the entertainer’s own security cameras captured a sexually explicit Christmas holiday encounter between Jackson and the teenager, whose name wasn’t disclosed. The reports were based on allegations by Victor Gutierrez, a free-lance writer who says he saw the tape. He said it was given to the boy’s mother, who now wanted to sell it back to Jackson.
Radio Transcripts
Q: “It is an x-rated tape?”
Dimond: “It is . . . yes.”
Q: “Of Michael Jackson?”
Dimond: “Truly explicit.”
Q: “It’s what? Michael Jackson and little boy. Are you 100% sure that this tape exists?”
Dimond: “I am as sure as I can possibly be.“
Q: “You have not seen it?”
Dimond: “I have not seen it but one of my best sources on the Michael Jackson story has seen it.”
Q: “Who … you have no doubts about.”
Dimond: “I have never had a doubt about this person, ever. I know the District Attorneys’ Office is looking for it because they are calling up reporters saying ‘Have you seen it.’ . . . Do you know where we can get it?”
Dimond: “You know, I remember way back when, more than a year ago, we interviewed the head of the pedo[ph]ile unit at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia and he said you know the down fall of pedo[ph]iles is that they love to keep a memento of their victims. Or, they love to take pictures or take videos. We don’t know why, but they do this. It is for their own self gratification later but it always comes back to bite them.”
Dimond: “And, I have to tell you, if my source is correct, who has seen this tape,and again, he always has been. The acts that are being performed on that tape are exactly what the accuser a year ago said Michael Jackson did to him.”
“Enough is enough!” Jackson said in a statement. “I will no longer stand by and watch reckless members of the media try to destroy my reputation. I intend to protect myself and my family.” There was no reaction from the London tabloids, and Hard Copy senior correspondent Diane Dimond said she “stood by her reports.” Michael Jackson filed a $100 million lawsuit against everyone involved for slander on January 12, 1995. “The plaintiff is compelled to defend himself because Dimond, Hard Copy and the other defendants appear more concerned with their ratings than they are with the accuracy of their broadcast or the harm caused their victims.”
Interestingly, Dimond mentioned a trip to Quantico because according to defense attorney Thomas Mesereau “The prosecutors were traveling back and forth across the country. To Quantico Virginia and working with the FBI expert on pedophilia and child molestation. A well known expert, highly regarded in his field…I was prepared to cross examine him if he testified and they decided not to call him in the criminal trial in 2005.”
Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon, in an unusual move for a prosecutor, involved himself in the lawsuit to save his friend Dimond. Sneddon had nothing to do with this case because it was outside his jurisdiction. The case belonged to the Los Angeles District Attorney and LAPD, and Sandi Gibbons had already refuted the tabloid reporter. The following are excerpts from Tom Sneddon’s declaration:
In or about December 1994, I received information that a video tape existed depicting Michael Jackson engaged in sexual conduct with a minor child. The information received included the fact that the Victor Gutierrez, a journalist who I understand reports on Michael Jackson’s activities and who is writing a book about his life, has seen the video tape. Sometime during the month of December,Ms.Dimond contacted me to inquire about reports that our office was looking for the video tape or investigating new allegations of molestation against Mr. Jackson. I informed her that I was not at liberty to comment upon such reports.
In response to the reports which we received regarding the video tape, I contacted deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. We discussed steps to investigate whether or not the tape existed and since all of the players were in the Los Angeles County area, it was decided that Lauren would ask an LA District Attorney’s investigator to attempt to investigate the existence of the tape and procure it if possible. Ultimately, after some efforts by the investigator, I was informed that we could not locate the video tape or definitively prove its existence or the acts that it purported to depict. It is my recollection and believe that this did not occur until after the “Hard Copy” broadcast in question.
Lauren Weis’s Declaration:
Diane Dimond was saved from the lawsuit because the court ruled that no malice was proved on her part. That she only stated her opinion and did not present the false story as a fact. She escaped justice by hiding behind the Shield Law, which allowed her to put the burden of responsibility onto the shoulders of her “best source,” Victor Gutierrez. Jackson appealed the judge’s ruling, but the California Court of Appeal affirmed the summary judgment, citing Sneddon’s declaration extensively in its November 1998 decision.
Jack Gonterman, an investigator working for the LA county DA’s office also gave a declaration. He stated that “shortly before January 5, 1995, Lauren Weis, Deputy District Attorney, instructed me to interview Victor Gutierrez regarding the possible existence of a videotape of Michael Jackson molesting a minor child. On January 5, 1995, I interviewed Victor Gutierrez regarding his knowledge, if any, of the alleged videotape. Shortly thereafter, I discontinued any further effort in the matter.”
Curiously, Sneddon’s declaration stated that he contacted the Los Angeles DA without discussing specifics with Dimond. The LA county investigator interviewed Dimond’s “best source” on January 5th for approximately an hour.. Gonterman interviewed Kevin Smith (Splash News) based on one of Victor’s answers, who knew absolutely nothing about a tape. The investigator quickly dismissed the story because it could not withstand any scrutiny. Even so, Hard Copy decided to run the story four days later on January 9th. Victor Gutierrez made a personal appearance on Hard Copy and spoke of what he had supposedly seen on the tape. “Victor Gutierrez has reported on Michael Jackson for the last decade and has a book about to be published regarding the entertainer’s relationship with various boys,” said Dimond. “Gutierrez has talked with this young boy’s mother.” Gutierrez claimed the mother in his story was Margaret Maldonado, Jermaine Jackson’s ex-wife.
“The story was an outrageous lie,” said Maldonado. “Not one part of it was true. I’d never met the man. There was no tape. Michael never paid me for my silence. He had never molested Jeremy. Period.” She would also appear in court to discredit Gutierrez and say that when she was approached with the story, she told reporters it was untrue. Gutierrez had said that he met Maldonado and showed her the videotape in a room at the Century Plaza Hotel. He told the courts that he paid for the room with his personal credit card. But it was revealed in court that the Century Plaza had no record of Mr. Gutierrez ever being there, let alone presenting a credit card and charging a room.
Astonishingly, while the Jackson lawsuit was pending against her, Diane Dimond aired another story about a phantom victim on April 27, 1995. Hard Copy producers flew her to Canada for a story about a Canadian street kid that claimed he had been molested by Jackson. He was able to offer a detailed story and the detective that questioned him over the phone said he sounded believable.
The boy claimed he met Michael Jackson at a Canadian video arcade and that he was supposed to spend the weekend with a friend. But when Jackson invited him to visit Neverland instead, the boy decided to fly off in a private jet with the entertainer. The 15-year-old described in detail the people in Jackson’s entourage, the layout of the ranch, and even Jacksons’ family home at Encino. Later he would draw detailed maps of both Jackson’s homes. This could be another alleged victim of Michael Jackson’s equate to big ratings for the show.
Curiously, the child never appeared with his adult friend, fictitiously named John Templeton, who was assisting him throughout his communications with Hard Copy. The boy was ultimately brought to Canadian authorities for questioning. “We took it very seriously and contacted the sheriff’s department in county (Santa Barbara) because that’s where it allegedly happened,” Detective Campbell told me. Eventually, the child confessed that the allegation was an elaborate scam. He had been coached to lie by a man named Rodney Allen, who had sent multiple letters to Hard Copy making it seem as if different people were writing about being “victims.” The 15-year-old was arrested, and Rodney Allen was later arrested and convicted of pedophilia.
Ironicaly, Victor Gutierrez met Lydia at the police station during interviews and according to her, “The LAPD interviewed a lot of journalists to see what they knew .” She told police that whatever she knew was in her stories and she never heard anything damaging. She continued by saying,” Victor’s information, his story was unclear–NAMBLA–It didn’t add up.” Her initial take was that he had to have known or meet Jackson at some point because his persecution of him “was not normal.” Victor later told her one story about a wealthy family that he was friends with living in Westwood, CA. Victor claimed that Michael molested their child and the family came to him for help. Knowing that there was something amiss with his story Lydia asked ” Why don’t they go to the police since there’s an ongoing case?” Victor responded “They don’t want money their wealthy, they just want him exposed.” Victor must have sensed that Lydia questioned his story and in a strange twist asked her to drive with him past a local arcade . He specifically asked her not to stop as he pointed out what seemed to be a random child as they drove past. “I never understood his motivation,” she said and,”though it was strange.”
One has to wonder how Rodney Allen was able to coach the boy in identifying Michael’s employees and drawing detailed maps of both Neverland and Havenhurst without having meet these individuals or visiting these locations. “I assumed that Rodney spent time at site…I don’t know for sure but was going on the information that Dimond provided,” said detective Campbell. According to Campbell, Hard Copy “put a fair amount of money into it. And I suggested they do a story about how celebrities are sometimes falsely accused, this way they at least had a show.” The program didn’t have the international scandal that they were anticipating but the image of an objective journalist was something Dimond very much needed at the time. When the courts were looking into her motives of malice in the suit filed by Jackson. She needed a vivid illustration of how “unbiased” and “lacking malice” she and Hard Copy in general were towards Jackson.
During Michael’s 2005 trial defense attorney Susan Yu filed a motion asking the prosecution to provide the defense with all the documents enumerated in the evidence list with regard to the 1993 investigation. The list the prosecution turned over included a fax listed as item 8336 involving Rodney Allen at the time of the Chandler allegations. We do not know the contents of the fax but District Attorney Tom Sneddon stated during the 2005 trial that, “Rodney Allen will not be a part of THIS case.” Sneddon was likely annoyed at being repeatedly duped by Allen. “My information was that [Sneddon] traveled to Australia and Canada. That was in the Mid 90’s — and couldn’t find anyone,” said attorney Thomas Mesereau.
Dimond’s source, whom she “never had a doubt about.” Gutierrez had interviewed and sold stories on behalf of employees at Neverland, many of which appeared on Hard Copy or in tabloid print. It would stand to reason that he could easily obtain photos and other information from them. It’s plausible that Gutierrez, a Chilean national living in California, and Allen, a Canadian pedophile, had interacted. Gutierrez openly admits to attending an international NAMBLA conference in 1986. Currently, Rodney Allen is serving a life sentence in Canada for pedophilia. In 1999, Allen met and became friendly with a group of five fourteen-year-old boys. These boys often came to Mr. Allen’s apartment because he let them drink alcohol and smoke. Mr. Allen told the boys that he was a member of the FBI, a fictitious claim that Victor Gutierrez had also made (along with his claim that he was employed by the LAPD). Subsequently, I called the LAPD to check on Victor’s claims and was told that, “you have to be a sworn officer to work for the LAPD,” and the personnel office checked saying that Victor Gutierrez, “was never employed by the LADP.”
I must state that Rodney Allen is rumored to be mentally delayed and has a propensity to embellish stories. He wasn’t only contacting Hard Copy and the District Attorney’s office, he was also posting detailed information on public internet sites. Along with his detailed knowledge of Jackson’s home, which he relayed to the child in the center of the Hard Copy story. He posted various home addresses and phone numbers for members of the Chandler in the mid-90’s which have been confirmed.
I also wrote to Rodney Allen in prison and merely stated that a friend named “Victor” (no last name) encouraged the correspondence. Allen wrote back confirming that he knew Victor Gutierrez and even stated, “I would really like to hear from him. It is funny how he pops into my life every now and then and changes my life so much.” In his letter he sounded eager to regain contact with his old friend Gutierrez and stated that he had, “found out who really terminated Michael Jackson’s life,” as well as, “the new address for O.J. [Simpson] in Nevada.”
In future correspondence Allen warned me about,“Victor and his scams to get my money –for his own personal use,” and called Gutierrez,” sneaky and underhanded.” Additionally he confirming a 1999 internet post that read in part, ” I was to be paid a large amount of money when things shuttle down, I was promised by Victor Gutierrez and Evan Chandler that it would be paid. But they didn’t pay me. Michael never touched him [Jordan] and sexually hurt him. Michael paid out the money to close the chapter on this scandal.”
Allen went on to write that he stayed with Gutierrez in LA –paying the landlord $500 during his month long stay. “Victor owed his land lord 8 months back rent,” he said. Confirming the NBC journalist statement that Gutierrez was broke and, “needed money.” Allen also claimed that at Gutierrez’s request he removed, “ toy trains, book negatives” and paintings of Michael,” from Victor’s home and shipping them to Canada for safe keeping.
He further stated that he accompanied Victor to Chicago for a book exhibition in 1995 to help promote Gutierrez’s book. Victor faxed him a letter asking him to, “ send a hard copy to NAMBLA requesting that they list the book Michael Jackson was My Lover in their books.”
Gutierrez was accustomed to making up stories and perpetrating elaborate schemes, as became apparent in court documents filed in Jackson’s suit against him. A tabloid broker named Ken Wells availed himself to Michael’s legal team in 1997 claiming to have information relevant to another litigation then pending in Santa Maria, California involving Mr. Jackson and Evan Chandler.Wells had discussed, among other things, meeting Gutierrez during the course of his work as a broker. Specifically, Wells said that a source of his (whom he refused to identify) claimed to have explicit photos of Michael Jackson and a child. Mr. Wells then began negotiations, through a third party and Gutierrez, whereby Wells would obtain the supposed photographs and give them to Gutierrez to sell to various tabloid media publications. When Wells’ source never produced the photographs, Wells ended his negotiations. But on July 2, 1997, Gutierrez and his attorney, Goldman, went to Wells’ home unannounced to discuss production of the phantom photographs. During their discussion Gutierrez bragged to Wells, telling him all about his connections in the tabloid business and that he had sold many stories, some of which had been “BS” and simply made up. According to Wells, Gutierrez said that money in the tabloid business was easy, even for false stories. Wells asked Gutierrez about the videotape at issue in this case. According to Wells, Gutierrez said that “the judge told me to produce the tape and I couldn’t produce it.” Wells asked Gutierrez whether he had ever had or seen the tape and, according to Wells, Gutierrez smiled and said, “Well, you know how that is. You know how these things are.” Wells stated that he believed Gutierrez was telling him, without saying so explicitly, that he had lied about the existence of the tape. Throughout the meeting Wells stated that Gutierrez and his attorney requested that he obtain the supposed photographs of Mr. Jackson, with Mr. Gutierrez saying that he needed the photographs to help him with this case, and even if the pictures were fake, he could still make money selling them—with the money being placed in a trust account handled by the attorney.
I contacted Ken Wells, who is no longer in the tabloid business, who stated “ I’ve seen what other people have done to capitalize on his name and a lot of false things have been said. The way I look at it, because of being in the tabloid business years ago is, if you don’t see proof it’s probably not there. People will say anything about a celebrity to make money. I don’t want to be involved in something that’s false. I’ve meet Michael Jackson a couple of times and the guy was not a child molester. I don’t care what anyone says and if they think he is they need to bring some kind of proof. Nobody has brought any kind of proof in all these years.”
In a further attempt to generate stories and pressure the singer into dropping the suit, Gutierrez’s attorney requested that Jackson:
“Identify the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all male persons who are not blood relatives who, when they were a minor, slept with you overnight in your bed at any time from January 1, 1984 through the present date…At a minimum, Victor Gutierrez, without even approaching the minor, may discover that the disclosed minor is the same minor who he allegedly saw in the videotape. He should be entitled to introduce this circumstantial evidence — sleeping with a minor tends to establish sexual conduct with a minor — and request that the decision maker draw any appropriate inferences there from. Alternatively, Victor Gutierrez may approach the disclosed minor, the minor may admit to sexual conduct with MJ, or to be naked with MJ, etc., and Victor Gutierrez may recognize the disclosed minor to be the same minor who he saw in the videotape. This case may then be over!”
So Gutierrez wanted to identify the child from the videotape he’d seen. Except he already claimed the minor was Jeremy Jackson and claimed Margaret Maldonado had shown him the videotape herself. Court TV media submitted a media request in 1997 with Victor favoring the request. But much to Gutierrez’s dismay, Jackson would not be making a personal appearance in court. In a declaration submitted by the entertainer he stated that he had not lived in California since 1993 and was currently on tour. He would, however, be submitting a videotaped deposition. Contradicting Gutierrez’s later claims of a face to face court showdown with the entertainer.
In actuality— Gutierrez was asked in a 1996 deposition if he had ever met Michael Jackson in person. He replied,” yes, just once at Dr.Arnie Klein’s office.” He then admitted to attorney’s that he hadn’t been formally introduced to the superstar. He claimed to have seen the singer because, “I was following him,” in 1995. Speaking to Michael as he arrived, at the entrance to Dr.Klein’s office building. “I approached Michael, and I said — I took a picture first because I was interested in what he was going to do at the doctor’s office. With the Vitiligo. Or something like that. He entered the building and he [Jackson] said, “Gary, take the camera. Take his camera.” Gutierrez stated that this incident occurred when Jackson was without security and the presents of Jackson’s driver Gary Hearne, Debbie Rowe, other media photographers. He goes on to say, after Jackson singles him out amongst the other photographers present —before shouting, “Jordy wants to speak to you.”
Question: then what happened?
Answer: he said, “Gary, take his camera.” And Gary was — he didn’t know what to do. He just said “take it.” He said something like the F camera something like that.
Question: Michael said “take the F-ing camera,” is that what you’re saying?
Answer: yes
—————————————–
Question: Did Mr. Hearn threaten you in any way and the course of this conversation?
Answer: He tried to force to get the camera from me.
Question: when you say tried to force to get the camera from you, what did he do?
Answer: grabbed my hand trying to get the camera.
Question: then what happened?
Answer: when we were like forcing, and when he stood back, and Michael said, “Come on. Get the camera.” Then David came down and they took Michael up to Arnie Klein’s office.
Question: did you give up your camera?
Answer: no
Question: you didn’t lose the camera?
Answer: no
Question: did you call the police for any reason?
Answer: no
Many of Gutierrez’s motions mentioned the shield law and trade secrets. One even stated, “Victor Gutierrez has sold his stories about MJ to numerous television and print media. He is currently writing a book about MJ. He has continues to derive a substantial portion of his livelihood from writing about MJ.” But with Gutierrez unable to hide behind the shield law or his claims of trade secrets, he apparently became increasingly desperate; the following are portions of two declarations filed by Jackson’s attorneys:
During the course of this case I have often interacted with defendant Victor Gutierrez’s counsel, Robert Goldman, in connection with discovery matters and informal attempts at settlement. During one such conversation on September 11, 1997, Mr. Goldman stated if there is a trial in this case, there will be publicity adverse to Mr. Jackson. Mr. Goldman said that Mr. Gutierrez states that he intended to hold up next to his face a copy of his book entitled Michael Jackson Was My Lover every time Mr. Gutierrez is interviewed on television in connection with this case.
During the September 26 conference, Mr. Goldman’s said that his client, Mr. Gutierrez, had instructed him to give Mr. Jackson the “message” that he (Gutierrez) might attempt to exploit any press covering the trial by advertising his book on the 1993 allegations entitled Michael Jackson Was My Lover, The Secret Diary of Jordie Chandler. Mr. Goldman stated his client, Gutierrez, wanted to know my response to this possibility. I told Mr. Goldman that this “message” appeared to be a veiled threat designed to attempt to persuade Jackson not to proceed to trial. Mr. Goldman’s response was that the “message” was simply something that his client asked him to convey.
On the Friday before the trial was to begin, Gutierrez filed for bankruptcy. He sent notice to the courts on Monday, October 27, 1997, but his desperate efforts didn’t halt the court proceedings. His bankruptcy was not to be mentioned at trial. Gutierrez failed to appear in court, stating that he was living with family in his native Chile and couldn’t afford to buy a ticket back to the US to appear for trial.
I spoke to Michael’s private investigator, Eric Mason, who laughingly said at one point during the trial Gutierrez’s attorney took the stand and cross examined himself. One can only assume that he filed the following handwritten note with the courts in disgust.
Proposed instructions RE: Victor Gutierrez
Mr. Gutierrez is required to be here, but he has chosen not to be here, and you may draw whatever inference you may from his non-appearance.
In the end, the jury took less than two hours to render a verdict and Victor Gutierrez was ordered to pay $2.7 million to Michael Jackson for defamation. “Jurors told us that they not only wanted to compensate Mr. Jackson and punish Victor Gutierrez, but to send a message that they are tired of tabloids lying about celebrities for money,”Jackson’s attorney Zia Modabber told the Associated Press.
In 1995, five former Neverland employees followed the example of the Hayvenhurst security guards. Dubbed the “Neverland 5,” Kassim Abdool, Ralph Chacon, Adrian McManus, Sandy Domz and Melanie Bagnall filed a $16 million lawsuit against Michael Jackson, with Michael P. Ring as their attorney. They alleged they were harassed and threatened by security and fired or forced to quit in 1994. Melanie Bagnall even alleged she was sexually harassed by a guard named Andrew Merritt (in the trial Merritt was not found liable of sexually harassing her). The judge refused Court TV’s request to televise the trial. The plaintiffs had sold their stories to the tabloids instead of going to the police. The civil case went to trial in September 1996, along with Michael Jackson’s cross-complaint. The singer’s countersuit said two of the former workers stole sketches, personal notes, hats, toys and candy from the ranch and sold some items to tabloids. Michael Ring was fined $28,350 for hiding evidence from Jackson’s lawyers during pre-trial fact-finding in March 1997. He was fined $10,000 previously for concealing facts. The trial lasted six months, and the plaintiffs were sanctioned approximately $66,000 for lying in court and contradicting their own testimony. Judge Zel Canter in one instance left the bench saying he was disgusted. On March 1, 1996, Michael Jackson was deposed for the case, and a three minute video was released by News of the World tabloid in 2009. On March 18, 1997, the jury rejected the wrongful termination lawsuit and awarded Jackson $60,000 in damages. The plaintiffs were also ordered to pay a $1.4 million judgment in attorney fees and court costs to Michael Jackson.
At least two of the employees declared bankruptcy, and when they later testified in the 2005 trial they admitted that their attorney advised them to sell salacious stories to tabloids by using a media broker so they could pay their legal expenses. Maid Adrian McManus admitted that she knew nothing about Jackson’s sex life with Presley but nevertheless signed contracts to sell fictional stories. Howard Weitzman said after the ruling: “Michael Jackson is thankful for the court’s ruling. He has consistently maintained that he has not engaged in wrongful conduct with any minors. The stories told by these guards on various tabloid shows, for which they were paid, were false.”
The Neverland employees downplayed their role in selling stories on the stand and disavowed Gutierrez, who stated during his deposition in the “Neverland 5” case that he was moving to Chile to start a new life. He also stated that he had just bought a home in Chile. When asked whether the home was nice, Mr. Gutierrez said, “The home has 21 bedrooms.” Notably, during Gutierrez‘s case with Jackson, which was running simultaneously, he cried poverty.
To show further malice in his suit against Gutierrez ,Michael had strategically selected four quotes from Victor’s book that did not refer or relate to the 1993 allegations. In August 1997, while being sued by Jackson, Gutierrez filed a motion to modify the scope of discovery to include discovery into the 1993 child molestation allegations against Michael Jackson in a thinly veiled attempt to generate more tabloid stories and publicity. Gutierrez stated that he believed that Evan Chandler and Jordan Chandler had knowledge about the subject matter of the foregoing quotes. In particular, Gutierrez sought to take the depositions of Evan and Jordan Chandler, parties to the 1993 public allegations. Gutierrez argued that the alleged truth of those 1993 allegations, and his reporting of them, tended to negate any inference of malice. Gutierrez stated that his book was “based on the diary written by Jordan and Evan Chandler, and upon my own independent investigation about Jordan Chandler’s relationship with Jackson.” This was the third time Gutierrez had changed his story about who had actually written the diary.
But the four quotes in question were malicious. Gutierrez attributed the following grotesque quotes to Kassim Abdool, Adrian McManus and Melanie Bagnall in his book:
Jackson’s personal guards used their pistols and automatic rifles to threaten other employees and guards and at times forced them to have sex. ~ Abdool
This female fan of Jackson’s had crossed the gate of the ranch. When I detained her, I did not have handcuffs to hold her until the police arrived, so I had to tie her hands with a telephone cord. ~Bagnall
The poor guy [Jackson] couldn’t make it to the bathroom, and it got to the point that he didn’t even care. If he had to go, he did it right there, wherever he was. Poor Adrian was the one who suffered, but at times we would help her pick up the dirtied clothes and clean the floor. Michael would put tampons in his ass to stop the diarrhea. ~ Abdool
I was talking with Michael about something not so important when he told me that he had to go to the bathroom. He didn’t take two steps when he defecated right there in front of me. It was diarrhea that ran down to his shoes. It was a shame. The guards that saw it went into another room to have a laugh.~McManus
Evan and Jordan Chandler did not give depositions in the case. They would both, however, submit declarations to the courts stating that they knew absolutely nothing about either the making of the quotes or their content. Evan stated that he didn’t know or recall ever speaking to Abdool, McManus or Bagnall. Jordan stated the same with the exception of McManus, with whom he only recalled exchanging pleasantries. Most notable about the Chandler’s declaration is what they didn’t say—they didn’t say they didn’t know or hadn’t spoken to Gutierrez.
Book reviews have described Gutierrez’s book as “a pedophile’s opus” or simply “disgusting” for its graphic detail and seemingly positive attitude towards the sexual abuse of minors. Victor said that his book was based on Jordan’s Chandlers diary that was given to him by someone within the Chandler’s home. Gutierrez has changed his story about the origins of the phantom diary several times. The more obvious questions one would ask are — is it likely that a child would write in such graphic detail? Furthermore, Jordan Chandler didn’t have a diary according to a Jackson investigator. He did have, “ a notebook that he wrote his film ideas and stories in since he was going to film school.” Based on the rumor of the existence of a diary, investigators in later years hunted that notebook down (not a diary), only to find out that the “stupid thing” as he called it –had no value.
Gutierrez said in his book “For me it was confusing, not knowing whether to refer to the boys as victims or ex-lovers.” Victor also published the inaccurate description of Michael dated 10/24/93 clearly marked “theory.” Disturbingly, it also includes the description of another “cute” young boy and gives graphic details about sex games between the three — something that was never claimed by the Chandlers and was vehemently denied by the other child in court.
In an interview for the German paper Die Tageszeitung, Gutierrez said he had heard for the first time at a NAMBLA meeting that “Michael is one of us.” He says, “Jackson was treated like an idol there, as a hope for social acceptance.” He goes on to say, “In a hundred years maybe such relationships will be socially accepted.” The story reminds him of Oscar Wilde and his young lover Bosi,’ he says. As Gutierrez, a homosexual himself was looking for a publisher for his book in 1995 he heard people say he glamorizes pedophilia. He released a Spanish version of his book in Chile and shipped the English version to small book shops in LA himself. Michael Jackson never sued him for his book. His employees buy up all copies those they get hold of,” said Gutierrez.
But Jackson employees did not, “buy up,” copies of the book like Gutierrez claimed. In actuality in May 1999 the sheriff’s department confiscated all copies of the book pursuant to a court ordered levy.
Declaration Of Steven Cochran
That reads in-part:
I am also counsel for Mr. Jackson in another matter, Evan Chandler v. Michael Joseph Jackson Case No. SM097360. That basically alleges breach of contract. Portions of that action have been ordered to arbitration under the jams/Endispute Comprehensive rules and procedures. Jackson has filed a cross-complaint in that action which alleges that Chandler and his son breached the same contract by divulging certain information to Victor Gutierrez.
I was not able to find a dollar amount awarded to Jackson for court costs and attoneys fee’s in the Chandler v Jackson case (Sawyer interview) Nor the outcome of his cross complaint.
All of the media reports, and current books for that matter, have the circumstances surrounding Chandler’s funeral incorrect. Reporters are often too quick to report stories as,“fact,” rather than doing their due diligence and checking their stories –particularly when the story has a connection to Michael Jackson. I guess a stamped envelope and a thirty dollar fee to the Hudson county surrogates court was too difficult for some.
Evan chandler, who was suffering from cancer, died on November 5, 2009 from a self inflicted gunshot wound. His body was found by staff at Liberty towers –a luxury apartment complex in Jersey city, New Jersey. http://www.libertytowersapts.com/
“I direct that I be cremated and that no family or next of kin be advised of my death until well after my funeral arrangements have been completed and my remains have been disposed.”
“I have three children: Jordan Chandler, Nicholas Chandler and Emmanuelle Chandler. For reasons best known between us, I purposefully make no provisions in this, my Last Will and Testament, for any of my children or their issue.”
“I also have two siblings and other next of kin and I purposefully make no provision for any of them in this my Last Will and Testament. I further direct that no next of kin be granted or given any power over my estate or remains.”
Where abouts of his two youngest children, “unknown,” –yet he knows the address of Jordan’s attoney.
Check original story post for additional documents
Turning the Table on the Chandler Allegations 