Michael Jackson

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ Evan said, pointing to the singer. ‘I’m going to ruin you,’ he said. ‘You’re going down, Michael. You are going down.’

  Finally, Michael and Anthony were alone. ‘Oh, my God,’ Michael said after a few moments. He now looked drained and pale, as if in shock. He rose from his chair and gazed out the window. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said, again, tears now streaming down his face. ‘Oh, my God.’

  Unsuccessful Negotiations

  The ‘smoking gun’ letter by Beverly Hills psychiatrist Dr Mathis Abrams, which Evan Chandler had produced at the meeting with Michael Jackson, was solicited by Evan’s attorney, Barry Rothman. As it happened, Rothman had sought an expert’s opinion in order to establish what may have transpired between Michael and his client’s son Jordie. During a telephone conversation with Dr Abrams, Rothman explained the evidence he thought he had against Michael, presenting the scenario as a purely hypothetical situation. Though Abrams didn’t even meet with Evan, Jordie or Michael, his opinion of what had transpired would be devastating. After the telephone conversation with Barry Rothman Dr Abrams wrote the letter (dated 15 July 1993) in which he observed that, at least based on what the lawyer had described, it sounded as if something sexual had transpired between the parties. He also noted that if the incidents had occurred as explained by the lawyer, he would have no choice but to report the matter to the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services.

  After his father’s show-down with Michael, Jordie was more depressed than ever before in his young life. The thought that he might now have to testify against Michael was more than he could bear. Before he went to bed, he drew what looked like suicide art: a stick figure jumping off the roof of a five-storey building, and then landing in a bloody heap on the ground.

  The next morning, when Evan went into Jordie’s room to say goodbye to him before going to work, he found the chilling drawing on the floor. Jordie was still asleep. Evan wrote on the top of the paper: Don’t Let This Happen, underlining each word. He then put the drawing back where he found it. Turning to leave he changed his mind and decided to take the drawing. It would become evidence of Jordie’s state of mind.

  The next evening Evan and Barry Rothman met with Anthony Pellicano. ‘They put their cards on the table,’ recalled Anthony. ‘Twenty million. That’s what they wanted.’

  In fact, Evan wanted the total sum of twenty million dollars to be deposited in an interest-bearing account. Five million would then be paid out to Jordie in four instalments over a four-year period. ‘Maybe that amount of money will teach Michael Jackson not to abuse any more children,’ Evan explained to Anthony. It’ll pay for Jordie’s education, for psychiatric evaluation. Some will be donated for child abuse foundations. I’ll be able to retire and spend more time with my son and help him through this time. If not, then fine. We’ll have a trial and see how that goes.’

  Though Anthony felt sure Michael wouldn’t consider paying a single dime to the Chandlers, he was duty bound to pass the offer on to his client.

  Evan had already hand-written a letter to his attorney, Barry Rothman (dated 5 August), outlining his intention if Michael decided not to pay the twenty million. In the missive, he explained that one of the reasons he had hoped to avoid a trial was because he realized the devastating impact it would have on Michael’s career. ‘I believed that Michael was a kind, sensitive, compassionate person who made a mistake in judgement born out of an honest love for Jordie,’ he wrote. ‘I now know I was wrong.’

  Evan then recounted his version of the events that took place at the meeting with Jordie, Michael and Anthony Pellicano. He wrote that Jordie had acknowledged that he [Evan] had evidence that Michael had sexually assaulted him. (Anthony Pellicano, however, says that Jordie never said anything at that meeting about Michael having molested him.) ‘Michael responded with a cold, mocking smile that you often see on the face of criminals who proclaim their innocence even in the face of irrefutable proof of their guilt,’ Evan wrote. ‘It was a chilling sight. He showed no sign of remorse for his actions and he was completely indifferent to Jordie’s suffering.’

  Evan then opined that if Michael were to see a psychiatrist, it would surely be determined that he is a paedophile. Therefore, Evan wrote, he had no sympathy for Michael whatsoever, and no interest in protecting him from prosecution. In fact, he wrote, he now believed that Michael should be jailed to prevent him from sexually assaulting other minors. He added that he believed that Michael’s incarceration would be the inevitable result of any investigation by the District Attorney, and that if Jordie would need to be called as a witness, he would eagerly testify against Michael. Jordie would only have to tell the truth, Evan wrote, perhaps not taking into consideration the emotional ordeal such gut-wrenching testimony might exact on his son.

  ‘I would like you to continue to negotiate with Mr Pellicano,’ Evan concluded, ‘but if those negotiations are not successful then as your client I am instructing you to file a complaint against Michael Jackson for the sexual assault against my son.’ In a postscript, he wrote of the drawing he had found in Jordie’s bedroom. ‘I thought you should see it,’ he wrote. ‘I’m very frightened. One way or the other, please get this over with as quickly as possible.’ He enclosed a copy of Jordie’s drawing.

  When Anthony presented Evan’s offer to Michael, the reply was swift: ‘No way,’ he said. ‘We have a love that’s pure and eternally innocent. I’m not gonna ruin it by paying that man money. No way in hell.’

  On 13 August, Anthony offered Evan a counter-offer, with Michael’s approval: three film scripts over a three-year-period, each valued at $350,000, in a million-dollar-plus deal that would have attached to it the promise that a major studio would review any script Evan and Jordie may write as a follow up to their Mel Brooks movie. Not only did it sound speculative to Evan and Barry Rothman, it was also a small amount of money considering their original multimillion-dollar demand. ‘You guys aren’t even in the ball park,’ Evan told Anthony. ‘Pass.’ Then, oddly, Evan asked Anthony if Jordie could take possession of the computer Michael had purchased for him, and which he had set up at his Los Angeles hide-out. Anthony couldn’t believe Evan’s gall. Michael had never bought that computer for Jordie, he answered quickly (though it seems doubtful Anthony even knew what Evan was talking about) and Jordie. would never see it again, ‘so forget about it.’ Evan stormed out of the office.

  The next day, Barry Rothman proposed a counter-offer to Anthony Pellicano: a deal for three screenplays that would amount to about fifteen million dollars. Through Anthony, Michael declined the counter-offer. Then, inexplicably, Anthony came back with another offer so low he didn’t even expect Evan to take it: $350,000 for one film deal, to be paid directly out of Michael’s pocket. He had gone from an offer of three movies down to one… not the best of negotiating tactics, one might argue. Of course, Evan turned it down. He now felt that the discussions were being conducted in bad faith, and that there was little point in continuing them.

  With all battles now seemingly lost, the war was about to begin.

  Jordie Sees a Psychiatrist

  On 16 August 1993, after negotiations broke down between Evan Chandler and Anthony Pellicano, Michael Freeman (June’s attorney) alerted everyone that he was going to petition the court to demand that Evan return Jordie to his mother. June didn’t know what to make of the discussions between Evan and Anthony Pellicano. If Evan was certain Michael Jackson had molested Jordie, why was he trying to extract twenty million dollars from him instead of reporting him to the proper authorities? She began to question Evan’s motives; she wanted her son back. A court date was then set to determine who would have custody of Jordie.

  However, Evan did not want to return Jordie to June, no matter how a judge might rule. He felt sure that she would simply hand him right over to Michael Jackson. They would live happily ever after at Neverland, he feared, and he would never see his son again.

  Not knowing what course of
action to take, and feeling pressured to do something, Evan made an appointment for Jordie with Dr Mathis Abrams, the psychiatrist who provided the letter in which he speculated that, based on the hypothetical case proposed by the attorney, sexual abuse had occurred. He told the doctor that the case wasn’t imaginary, after all, and that it actually involved his own son and Michael Jackson. Evan realized that once Abrams met with Jordie, the real drama would most certainly begin. After all, the doctor would be required to file a report with the authorities, which would be the end of any confidentiality where the matter of Jordie and Michael was concerned. However, as he later would tell it, Evan felt pressured to protect his son, and if it meant sacrificing Michael Jackson then that was a small price to pay, especially since negotiations with him had ended so badly.

  At the hearing, on 17 August 1993, Evan’s attorney agreed that Jordie would be returned to June by seven o’clock that night. In fact he was stalling for time – he had no intention of returning Jordie to his ex-wife. At the very hour of the hearing, Jordie was meeting with the psychiatrist.

  During a gruelling, three-hour session with the doctor, Jordie told of many incidents of masturbation and oral sex with Michael Jackson. In fact, he claimed, he and Michael had been having sex for months.

  Just as expected, the psychiatrist reported everything Jordie said direcdy to the Department of Children’s Services. Within hours, the youngster was interviewed by a caseworker with the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services and an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.

  The caseworker’s eleven-page, hand-written report began with a description of how Evan and Michael met, when Michael’s car broke down. Jordie said that he and Michael became friends and that Michael would telephone him almost every day for ‘long conversations about video games’. The conversations continued, he said, even when Michael was on tour. In February (1993) and in succeeding weeks, Michael began seeing more of him and his mother, June. He bought toys for Jordie and took him, June and his half-sister, Lily, to Las Vegas. There, Jordie recalled, they watched The Exorcist. The film frightened Jordie, he said, and that night he slept in the same bed as Michael – a pattern, he said, that was repeated several times, including during visits to Neverland. During those initial encounters, however, sexual abuse was not alleged. According to the report, at first Michael would merely ‘cuddle and kiss him [Jordie] on the cheek’. However, on one occasion at the ranch while June slept in guest quarters and Michael and Jordie shared the same bed, the pop singer began to ‘rub up against me’.

  ‘Over time,’ claimed Jordie in the report, ‘Michael graduated to kissing me on the mouth. One time, he was kissing me and he put his tongue in my mouth. I said, “Don’t do that”. He started crying. I guess he tried to make me feel guilty.’ The report then alleged that Michael told the boy their relationship was ‘meant to be’ and was ‘in the cosmos’.

  According to the report, Michael’s relationship with Jordie became sexual when he took the family to Monaco, and then continued to be sexual from that time, onward. The details Jordie provided were graphic.

  Jordie also claimed that Michael had threatened that if he ever told anyone what had transpired between them, they would both be in trouble and he [Jordan] would be sent to Juvenile Hall, a young offenders’ institution. ‘Minor also said Mr Jackson told him about other boys he had done this with,’ wrote the investigator, ‘but did not go as far with them. Minor said Mr Jackson tried to make him hate his mother and father, so that he could only go with Mr Jackson.’ The report ended with Jordie’s wish to remain in his father’s custody, and his belief that his mother liked the ‘glitzy life’ that surrounded Michael.

  Later, when Jordie was interviewed by the police department, he relayed the same anecdotes of sexual encounters and also gave officers what he said was a detailed description of Michael’s genitalia.

  With such stunning disclosures of a sexual nature involving a star as world-famous, as controversial and as seemingly androgynous as Michael Jackson, there was no way the story would not emerge with some of the most sensational headlines in show-business history… It was just a matter of time.

  ‘Jordie will never forgive me…’

  The next day, 18 August 1993, Bert Fields and Anthony Pellicano gave Michael Jackson the stomach-churning news that the Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit had begun a criminal investigation of him. ‘Oh, my God,’ Michael asked, ‘is my life over?’

  ‘No,’ Bert answered. ‘We’ll defend it, Michael. And the odds are that we’ll win.’

  ‘And you know how it goes with you and the odds,’ Anthony added, optimistically.

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Michael, miserably.

  Anthony embraced Michael. ‘Man, you never lose,’ he said, according to his later recollection. ‘Look at your life, Michael. Look at who you are. You’re not gonna start losing now.’

  Michael began to sob. ‘I have worked so hard,’ he said. ‘All of my life, I’ve been working so hard. I can’t lose it all now, Anthony. I just can’t lose it all.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Bert injected. ‘I swear to you, you won’t.’

  That same day, June and Dave Schwartz were interviewed by the police. They weren’t so sure, they maintained, that Michael was guilty of abusing Jordie. They both felt that the youngster was so controlled by Evan, they didn’t know what to believe, they said. ‘I think I believe, maybe, half of it,’ she said, reluctantly. Now, June would lose custody of Jordie, at least for the time being. She was heartbroken by this decision made by Child Protection Services, even if it was said to be temporary, however there was nothing she could do about it. Anyway, Jordie had told the authorities he wanted to be with his father, which was persuasive.

  Later that day, Michael met with another one of his associates, a publicist who had to determine a course of action to take if the allegations were made it into the press. ‘I met him at the Los Angeles hide-out,’ recalled the representative. ‘He looked absolutely terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He wasn’t wearing his makeup, so his face seemed broken out, splotchy. He looked thin and sickly. He had on his pyjamas. “What am I going to do now?” he asked. “I can’t believe this is happening to me, Michael Jackson. Do you think the police will ask me questions about me and Jordie?”’

  The publicist told Michael that there was little doubt he would be questioned by the authorities, and soon. Michael began to cry. ‘But I can’t answer questions,’ he said through his tears. ‘I can’t talk about Jordie. Don’t you get it? He’s my soul mate. I won’t know what to say.’

  ‘Just tell the truth, Mike,’ suggested the publicist as he patted Michael on the shoulder.

  ‘But no one will believe me,’ Michael said, sounding defeated. ‘It’s my word against Evan’s. Poor Jordie,’ Michael added, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. ‘I can’t believe his father would do this. We were so close. Evan is so jealous of me, so, so jealous of me.’

  The publicist then asked how Michael wanted to handle the media when the allegations became news. ‘Oh, screw the media,’ Michael said, going from sadness to fury in a nanosecond. ‘I don’t care what they say about me. They’re gonna make stuff up, anyway. Screw them. Screw them all. It’s because of them that I’m in this trouble, anyway.’

  The publicist recalled being confused by Michael statement. ‘How is the media responsible?’ he asked.

  Michael began jabbing his finger at his associate as he spoke. ‘It’s because ofyou allowing the media to write these things about me that people think I would do this thing,’ he said, furiously. ‘It’s your fault. No. It’s their fault.’ Michael collapsed in a chair, looking bereft. ‘I have been trying to stop the rumours and for years and years and they’ve just been going on and on and on,’ he said. ‘The oxygen chamber. The Elephant Man. The plastic surgery. Now, this.’

  On 20 August 1993, Michael left for Bangkok on the second leg of his Dangerous tour
. How ironic for him to start again in a city known as the sex capital of the world.

  Michael was swamped with feelings about leaving Los Angeles. He could not fathom that Jordie would not be with him on the road. He had planned an exciting time for the two of them on continents all over the world, and the only reason to even go, in his view, would have been to be with his ‘soul mate’. Now, he would be going alone. Of course, he would be with about 250 people, all integral to the massive, multimillion-dollar production, from musicians and stage hands and dancers to bodyguards, secretaries and assistants. However, as far as Michael was concerned, he was alone if he was to be without Jordie.

  Also, he didn’t want to leave home because he simply wasn’t sure what would occur in America during his absence. Yet, he also couldn’t wait to go, just to get out of town and not have to deal with whatever terrible thing was about to happen. He felt he needed to escape from his life, if at all possible. As it would happen, Michael Jackson left town just in time because, the next day, all hell would break lose.

  The News is Out

  On Saturday 21 August 1993 a search warrant was issued for the police to gain access to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch at 5225 Figueroa Mountain Road in Los Olivos, Santa Barbara. The authorities hired a locksmith in order to gain access to all of the many rooms on the estate, including Michael’s private quarters. Moreover, the search warrant permitted the authorities to search Michael’s ‘hideout’ at 1101 Galaxy Way, #2247 in Century City, California, for evidence. Of course, anyone who thought the authorities would find anything incriminating during such searches would have been naive. Obviously, because of the chain of events that had led up to the day, Michael’s camp expected that a search warrant would be issued.