Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  Now in his mid-twenties, Culkin appeared as relaxed on the witness stand as he had been in the meeting with Mesereau. He began his direct examination by saying that he was godfather to two of Michael Jackson’s children, then tried to describe for the jury the nature of the unique bond he shared with Prince and Paris’s father. There was a loneliness to the life of a child star that only other people who’d experienced it—people like him and Michael and Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Temple—could understand, Culkin explained: “We’re part of a unique group of people. [Michael had] been through that, so he understood what it was like to be put in that position I was in, to be thrust into it. Anyone who was a child performer, we keep an eye out for each other.”

  He’d been a guest at Neverland more than a dozen times between the ages of ten and fourteen, Culkin said, often accompanied by his younger brother, his two sisters, and his father and mother. He and the defendant remained friends to this day, and he had visited Michael as recently as a year earlier. When Mesereau turned to the matter at hand and described the allegations of former Neverland employees that they’d seen Michael Jackson touching him sexually, Culkin dismissed such stories with evident disdain.

  “What do you think of these allegations?” Mesereau asked.

  “I think they’re absolutely ridiculous,” Culkin answered. He hadn’t learned of these claims from the prosecution, Culkin told Mesereau, but from a cable television news program. “I just couldn’t believe it,” Culkin recalled. “I couldn’t believe that, first of all, these people were saying these things—let alone that it was out there, and people were thinking that kind of thing about me. And at the same time it was amazing to me that nobody approached me and asked me whether or not the allegations were true. They just kind of threw it out there, and they didn’t even double-check it, basically. I mean if they assumed that I knew the answer, what got me was they didn’t even ask.”

  “Are you saying that these prosecutors never tried to reach you to ask your position on this?” a wide-eyed Mesereau wondered.

  “No, they didn’t,” Culkin replied.

  “Are you aware that the prosecutors claim they are going to prove that you were molested by Michael Jackson?” asked Mesereau.

  “Excuse me?” asked Culkin, whose expression of incredulity communicated a good deal more than his words did.

  Mesereau called a couple dozen other witnesses, nearly all of them put on the stand to further discredit the Arvizos. The orthodontist and the dental assistant who had removed Gavin Arvizo’s braces at Jackson’s expense told the court that they saw no sign the Arvizos were being held against their will. They remembered Gavin Arvizo as an especially rude kid, the two said, one who rifled through drawers when their backs were turned, forcing them to throw out sterile items. Janet Arvizo insisted upon keeping her son’s ruined braces, they remembered, because she intended to use them as evidence in a claim against the doctor who had put them on.

  Chris Tucker’s ex-girlfriend Azja Pryor testified that Janet Arvizo not only wasn’t trying to escape from Michael Jackson, but complained repeatedly that Dieter Wiesner and Ronald Konitzer were keeping her family away from Michael. “They won’t let us around him because they know the children tug at his heartstrings,” Pryor remembered Janet telling her. A Neverland housekeeper backed Pryor’s story, testifying that Janet Arvizo had complained about being held hostage, but only by Dieter Wiesner and “two others” who were “interfering” in her relationship with Michael. Neverland’s housekeeping supervisor, Gayle Goforth, told the court that Janet Arvizo not only didn’t want to leave Neverland, but begged for a job on the ranch and was furious about being turned down.

  Neverland security chief Violet Silva testified that there was a directive issued that the Arvizo children not be allowed to leave the property, but said this was only because of their bad behavior and their mother’s lack of supervision. Gavin and Star were “reckless” kids, Silva said, who regularly drove off in ranch vehicles without permission. Neverland property manager Joe Marcus not only confirmed Silva’s testimony, but also told the court that he was the one who had issued that directive, because the Arvizo boys were stealing ranch vehicles whenever they got the chance, and he didn’t want them on public roads. Marcus scoffed at the notion the Arvizos were being held hostage, telling the court they could have left at any time. On the one occasion when Janet said she wanted to return home, Marcus said, he allowed a ranch employee to drive her and her family in one of Mr. Jackson’s Rolls-Royces. Marcus laughed when asked if this brief departure from Neverland could have been called an “escape.” The Arvizos always seemed “excited” to be at the ranch when he saw them there, Marcus said.

  A former security guard at Neverland described catching Gavin and Star in the wine cellar of the main house while Mr. Jackson was away from the ranch. The two had an open wine bottle, the guard said, from which “some of the contents were missing.” One of Neverland’s assistant chefs told the court about a time when Star Arvizo demanded that he mix liquor into a milk shake, and threatened to have him fired if he didn’t. The chef described Gavin Arvizo as an astoundingly obnoxious kid who said things like, “Give me the fucking Cheetos.” The chef said he had developed a “romantic relationship” with Davellin Arvizo, and that the girl never complained once about her family being held at the ranch against their will.

  The judge and the jury grew restless under an onslaught of character assassination testimony that grew increasingly redundant. Some of the witnesses Mesereau called to the stand, though, provided testimony that was both more singular and of greater consequence. Irene Peters, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services social worker who interviewed the Arvizo family in February 2003, testified that Gavin Arvizo “became upset” when she asked whether he had had a sexual relationship with Michael Jackson. “Everybody thinks Michael Jackson sexually abused me,” Peters recalled the boy telling her. “He never touched me.” Gavin also said that he never slept in the same bed with Michael Jackson, and described Mr. Jackson as someone who “was very kind to him” and behaved toward him like the father he had always wished for. Janet Arvizo had also described Mr. Jackson as a father to her children, “and she felt he was responsible for helping Gavin to survive his cancer,” Peters told the court. She found the Arvizos entirely convincing, Peters said, which was why she filed a report stating that the allegations of sexual abuse by Michael were “unfounded.”

  A forensic accountant was called to testify that the Arvizo family received $152,000 from the settlement of its lawsuit against JCPenney, and deposited $32,000 of the money in an account in the name of Janet Arvizo’s mother, then used some of the remaining money to buy a new vehicle. The Arvizos set off on a $7,000 shopping spree shortly after arriving at the Calabasas Inn in early 2003, the accountant testified, purchasing $4,800 worth of luggage and clothing in just two days and putting everything on Mr. Jackson’s bill. The accountant also testified that Janet Arvizo had deposited the welfare checks she received from Los Angeles County into her then-boyfriend’s account and used the money to pay their rent. After the accountant, an intake worker from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services was called to the stand and described in detail the fraud Janet Arvizo had committed in her application for welfare payments.

  An editor from the weekly Mid Valley News testified that she felt “duped” by Janet Arvizo into writing articles that raised money for her son Gavin’s medical treatments. She had accepted Janet’s claim that Gavin’s chemotherapy sessions were costing $12,000 apiece, the editor said, only to discover that the real cost was $1,200 per session. After the editor stepped down, Janet’s former sister-in-law took the stand to recall for the jury being so moved by the Mid Valley News articles that she had decided to start a blood drive for Gavin, but was rebuffed by Janet: “She told me that she didn’t need my fucking blood, that she needed money.”

  The coup de grâce was delivered by a “surprise witness” Mesereau had pr
omised the jury during his opening statement. Paralegal Mary Holzer took the stand to say that she had formerly worked at the law firm that represented the Arvizos in their lawsuit against JCPenney. In private conversation, Holzer testified, Janet confided that the injuries she was claiming had been caused by store security guards were actually inflicted by her husband on the night of the incident. When Holzer said she couldn’t suborn perjury, Janet responded by warning that her husband’s brother was in the Mexican mafia, “and that she knows where I live and they would come and kill me and my nine-year-old daughter.” She became truly frightened of Janet, Holzer said, when she accompanied the woman to a doctor’s appointment at which “she threw herself down on the ground, started kicking and screaming, carrying on that the doctors were the devil and the nurse was the devil and they were all out to get her.” Janet also told her that she had enrolled the kids in acting classes so they could become convincing liars, Holzer testified: “She said she wanted them to become good actors so she could tell them what to say.”

  As Mesereau had planned from the first, the attorney used two and a half hours of outtakes from the Martin Bashir documentary to let his client speak directly to the jury without facing cross-examination. The British journalist had begun the interviews by flattering Michael Jackson as “the greatest musical artist alive today,” then insisting that he wanted the world to know more about the international charity work the entertainer had done to help children all over the world. When Michael complained that the media reported only “negative things” about him, Bashir dismissed tabloid reporters as “scum,” then described the recent stories he had seen about Michael as “disgusting” and promised that he would never produce such “rubbish.”

  The utterly strange and unique amalgamation of grandiosity and naive yearning in Michael’s voice as he lamented the loneliness imposed upon him by stardom was mesmerizing. He never got to know what people were really like, he said, because “when people see Michael Jackson, they’re not themselves anymore.” In some ways, he felt more lonely when he was in a hotel room listening to the people outside chant his name than he did at any other time, Michael told Bashir a few moments later, and often cried during such experiences: “There’s all that love out there. But still, you really do feel trapped and lonely. And you can’t get out.” Every once in a while he went to a nightclub, Michael said, but the DJs always played his music and the fans began begging him to dance and the whole thing started to feel like he was working, not playing.

  Michael began to talk for the first time about a subject that related to the Arvizo accusations when he described the recoveries of several young cancer patients who’d visited Neverland. Just as he started to describe the curative powers of love and prayer, Bashir turned to his camera operator and said, “Cut.”

  Bashir ended the tape by telling Michael that making people aware of his dedication to children was what made this documentary so important: “People are scum, and there’s so much jealousy. The problem is, nobody actually comes here to see it. But I saw it here yesterday, the spiritual.” Several jurors said after the trial that if Bashir had been in the courtroom that day, they might have spit on him.

  Mesereau would say later that he believed the Bashir outtakes could have tipped the outcome of the trial from hung jury to outright acquittal. On the one hand, he remained certain that a hung jury was the worst outcome his client had to fear. On the other hand, the overwhelming public perception surrounding the trial was that Michael Jackson would soon be a California state prison inmate. Every doubt the attorney harbored about his ability to read a jury magnified and tortured his thoughts. “It’s a terrible thing when you see a client suffering and you want to reassure them with a sense of certainty you don’t have,” Mesereau admitted. “No one has it in that situation. You just can’t know.”

  The defense attorney at least had been able to deliver one last blow to Tom Sneddon on the final day of the trial. After the judge ruled that a videotape of Gavin Arvizo’s police interview from two years prior could be shown to the jury, Mesereau demanded that the Arvizo family return to Santa Maria to face further questioning. Sneddon and his team were happy to comply, putting the Arvizos up in a “secure location” near the courthouse where the prosecutors spent hours prepping Janet and Gavin for a return to the witness stand. This would be a welcome opportunity to rehabilitate their star witnesses, the prosecutors believed, to show the jury that these people were not the low-life grifters Mesereau had made them into during his cross-examinations. When Sneddon finished his rebuttal case, though, Mesereau answered with just three words: “The defense rests.”

  The cable news programs were reporting that Gavin Arvizo’s police interview had sealed the prosecution’s victory. The district attorney and his team had already scheduled what amounted to a celebration dinner for the following evening, so certain were they that Michael Jackson would be found guilty of at least some charges. Ron Zonen made the prosecution’s case to the jury, taking nearly two full hours to try to cement the conspiracy charges against Jackson before turning to the subject of child molestation. As Sneddon had done in his opening statement, Zonen returned in his final argument to the theme that Neverland Ranch was much like Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island: “They rode rides, went to the zoo, ate whatever they wanted—candy, ice cream, soda pop. There was only fun . . . And at night they entered into the world of the forbidden. Michael’s room was a veritable fortress with locks and codes that the boys were given . . . They learned about sexuality from someone only too willing to be their teacher . . . It began with discussions of masturbation and nudity. It began with simulating a sex act with a mannequin.”

  The Arvizos were a family with problems and issues, Zonen allowed, but “the lion on the Serengeti doesn’t go after the strongest antelope. The predator goes after the weakest.” Those of them bothered by Gavin Arvizo’s demeanor on the witness stand should bear in mind how difficult it must be for a teenage boy to testify about being sexually abused by one of the most famous people in the world, Zonen told the jurors: “It is intimidating . . . He had been molested by a man he once held in high regard.” Everyone in the courtroom knew that Janet Arvizo was less than a sterling character, Zonen conceded, but “for all her shortcomings, Janet, after learning Michael was giving her son alcohol, in thirty-six hours she had her children out of there.” The defense had argued from the beginning and no doubt would argue again that Janet Arvizo was essentially a con artist out to fleece a wealthy celebrity, Zonen said, but the evidence showed that up to this very day, “Janet never asked for one penny from Michael Jackson. She never desired anything from him and she doesn’t today.”

  Zonen’s argument finished with an attack on the credibility and character of Michael Jackson’s attorneys. Mark Geragos had accepted $180,000 from Michael Jackson during his first three weeks of representation, but couldn’t seem to recall a single conversation with his client when he was on the witness stand. And Mr. Mesereau, during his opening statement, had recited a long list of famous people who would be testifying as to Michael Jackson’s good character, Zonen observed. Yet almost none of those people had shown up in court.

  It was a sore spot with Mesereau, who had been bitterly disappointed by the refusal of the many celebrities Michael had called his friends to speak for him publicly. The defense attorney channeled both his frustration and his fury into an introduction to his final argument that recounted the criticisms that Zonen had aimed at him personally. “Whenever a prosecutor does that, you know they’re in trouble,” Mesereau told the jury. This wasn’t a popularity contest between lawyers, he added, it was a decision about the fate of a human being, about the application of justice under the law.

  The jurors had heard enough from and about the Arvizos to know they were a family of “con artists, actors, and liars,” Mesereau went on. Did any of them really doubt that a civil lawsuit would materialize when the criminal case was finished? “Everyone is looking for a big payday at the expense of Mich
ael Jackson,” he said. “There’s going to be great celebration in this group if he’s convicted of one single count in the case.” Examine the motives of all the major prosecution witnesses, Mesereau urged: “Aren’t they all after millions from Michael Jackson? Haven’t you seen one person after another come in this courtroom who have sued Michael Jackson? They’re all lined up.” And the Arvizos were at the front of the line. Larry Feldman had acknowledged that a criminal conviction in this case meant certain victory in the civil case that was sure to follow. The Arvizos and their attorney “want the taxpayers of this county to establish liability for them,” Mesereau told a jury of Santa Barbara County taxpayers. “For this to happen, you have to label [Michael Jackson] a convict. You have to label him a sex offender. You have to label him everything he is not.”

  Mesereau resorted to a visual display to emphasize what had always been the weakest link in the prosecution case, the contention that Michael Jackson had waited until the very moment that his relationship with Gavin Arvizo became the object of international media scrutiny to begin molesting the boy. Laying out charts and graphs to create a timeline of Jackson’s relationship with the Arvizo family, Mesereau pointed out how many other, far better opportunities Jackson had had to try to seduce Gavin Arvizo into a sexual relationship. That Michael had passed those opportunities by to seize upon one that was almost certain to result in his exposure could make no sense to anyone who had any.