I doubt the story about Jordie Chandler recanting his statement is true. Probably just an overzealous fan, creating a hoax with the intention of trying to clear MJ’s name. We’re kind of a rabid fan group. Like Buffy fans.

But it hasn’t been carried in any mainstream legitimate news outlet and sources can’t be confirmed, so who knows.

As to your early point, I do know, and agree with you that people are going to have their opinions, I only wish that people’s opinions were “informed” opinions. If someone truly has researched the case and still thinks MJ was a child molester, I think they’re a little bizarre, but okay, everybody has a right to an opinion no matter how goofy I think it is. The only thing that bugs me is when people just jump on a bandwagon of accusation and assume something is true without knowing enough about the situation to judge it.

Moderator - dairy and others do have valid points of view, they may not tally with yours, but debate and discussion is the idea of these threads, not mjfan

However, here is an interesting article I ran across. It says ‘unsubstantiated rumors…’ and that is all it may well be and possibly started by the whoevers defending Michael Jackson’s name. However, if the rumours turned out to be true then it says alot about a person who is willing to give up millions to stand up and say I lied.

http://www.slate.com/id/2222567/

Cheryl, The settlement was meant to keep them from spreading rumors going to the tabloids, etc. and just making it bigger and bigger. It would not have prevented them from testifying in court in a criminal proceeding. Criminal and civil court work differently and a civil suit that prevented someone from testifying in criminal court would be considered obstruction of justice.

Also while civil charges are brought by individuals criminal charges are brought by a DA. i.e. you can choose to press charges or not if someone commits a crime against you but it is up to the DA to choose whether or not to prosecute the case, no matter what you say or do. MJ pressed charges against the father of the first boy for extortion, but unsurprisingly the crooked DA didn’t pursue it.

And DESPITE the choice of the family not to testify, the DA spent millions of dollars, had two grand juries convene, interviewed 200 people and could find no coroborrating evidence. The case didn’t go to court because a grand jury, TWO grand juries wouldn’t and couldn’t indict without any evidence.

In the 2005 case, NONE of the witnesses for the prosecution were credible, IMO. The child wasn’t credible either. You want to point to the mother, but the accuser himself had been involved with scams and cons as well. Every employee that was interviewed that spoke against MJ was a disgruntled former employee set on revenge for being fired. Shouldn’t they have reported their suspicions to the police??? To protect kids? They didn’t. They sold stories to the tabloids instead. That’s not credible, IMO.

In addition, Macaulay Culkin was one of MJ’s closest child friends. Pedophiles are NOT selective. It is a progressive illness, they have hundreds of victims in their lifetime, it is well documented. Yet Culkin testified that MJ never touched him. How can that be if MJ was a pedophile? THat’s just not logical. Culkin and MJ even took vacations together, if any kid would be molested it would be Culkin if there was any veracity to the accusations at all. In addition Culkin maintained a friendship with MJ even into adulthood and was the godfather of one of his kids.

30 boys were interviewed who all said MJ never touched them. Bret Barnes and Corey Feldman said MJ never touched them.

It’s a bit of a stretch for me to believe MJ only molests a kid every ten years and the parents just happen to be criminals. Wouldn’t the odds be that he’d eventually molest a child with some decent parents?

You’re doing a bang up job of ignoring me. How’s that working out for you? Let me know when the ignoring part starts.

PLEASE DELETE COPY OF MJFANS POST - IT WAS THERE FOR K=MY REFERENCE ONLY - SORRY

Moderator - Its ok , its such a lengthy tome, it does save scrolling

You miss the point that of the three total children who ever accused MJ all of them are non-credible witnesses. The first back in 1993 was given sodium amytal, a powerful psychiatric and mind-altering drug. And despite repeated denials of anything wrong happening, he “suddenly” comes out with an accusation AFTER being separated from his mother and living with his criminal father for weeks, and after his father, a dentist, gave him the drug.

The second was badgered by police until he changed his story. (Part of the badgering included lying to the kid and telling him that MJ had touched other kids and they needed his help to protect them, namely to protect Macaulay Culkin, who later testified in court in 2005 that MJ had never touched him.) It wasn’t even strong enough testimony to get a grand jury to indict MJ. This was also around the time that a big child molestation panic was going around especially in California, and people were leading children and badgering them to make testimonies of abuse that never occurred.

The third and final child who caused the 2005 court case had LIED UNDER OATH previously when his mother brought up a FALSE ALLEGATION of sexual misconduct on JC PENNEY. The child was also involved in the lying over the sexual abuse charge. The mother contacted the civil attorney, Larry Feldman who had gotten the first family the money BEFORE ever accusing MJ of anything. Before she hooked up with the civil attorney, she and her entire family had spoken of how wonderful MJ was and all of them denied that anything inappropriate had happened.

In 1993 Tom Sneddon, the DA spent millions of dollars trying to get MJ indicted. He went before two grand juries but they dismissed it because there was no evidence. (All you really need to indict in the state of CA on child molestation charges is a witness, but since the family refused to get involved with the criminal case, and there was no other evidence of any kind, they couldn’t get an indictment.) They interviewed around 30 children, who said MJ had never touched them. All boys, all in the age range MJ would have supposedly been after. Additionally Mac Culkin and Corey Feldman both said MJ never touched them. They interviewed 200 witnesses trying to get someone to corroborate the testimony but found no one.

A shrink that was later involved in the 2005 case stated that MJ did not fit the profile of a pedophile but was himself a regressed ten year old.

So on the one hand, I’m expected to believe that MJ, the most famous man in the world is so magically covert that NO ONE ever saw him doing this awful crime, but at the same time, he’s so flamboyant and careless he’ll totally flaunt his tawdry involvement with children. I have to use Occam’s razor here and conclude that someone doesn’t BOTH try to hide AND try to display their criminal activity at the same time, and the only reason MJ would ever say something so openly that would cause eyebrows to raise, is that it really was innocent and only other people’s perverted minds twisted the situation into something else.

And the child and his family both refused to testify in criminal court. (Why should they? They already had MJ’s money.) I’m sorry but if someone molests your kids you want them behind bars. The civil suit in no way prevented the family from testifying and the civil suit SPECIFICALLY stated that MJ had not molested the child. The only claim they settled on was negligence, and MJ’s insurance company settled the claim, not MJ.

And in case you think that the parents just didn’t want to drag the child through the publicity of a court case that they might lose “because MJ was famous.” (I think with all the hysteria over child molestation and all the people willing to convict him, that it’s hard to believe a jury of 12 wouldn’t have, unless there just wasn’t any evidence in 2005 either.) Well the father took MJ to court again in 1996 wanting to sue him supposedly for breach of contract in the settlement because of the songs MJ wrote on the HIStory album. The father who still had the right to press criminal charges chose instead to sue MJ for 60 million dollars (estimated proceeds from the album) and wanted permission to do his own album called EVANstory (keep in mind Evan is the name of the father, not the allegedly molested boy.) So this was a guy who instead of fighting for justice for his child, wanted to sing songs about it and exploit him.

Pedophilia is a progressive disorder. It is well-documented that pedophiles have hundreds of victims in their lifetimes. So I’m expected to believe MJ just molests a kid once every ten years, and they happen to have criminal families? Are you kidding me?

Further, Tom Sneddon spent TEN years obsessing about MJ and trying to get the case re-opened. He was harboring a grudge. He has had charges filed against him 14 times for malicious prosecution. He had a website that actively sought out victims. It was like an open casting call for “MJ touched me in my naughty places.”

Then when the Martin Bashir smear documentary aired, he saw his opportunity. Coincidentally the kid who comes forward after ten years just HAPPENS to be the kid in this documentary who has been teased because Bashir makes him look like a kid who “slept with MJ.” (even though both the child and MJ said MJ slept on the floor.)

In 1993 part of the reason MJ’s people settled out of court was because the civil case would have come up before the criminal case which would have put MJ in double jeopardy and prevented a fair trial. After Sneddon’s case fell apart when the family refused to testify in criminal court, he changed the law so that a criminal case would have to come first in such a situation.

Remember the accusing family for the 2005 case was in contact with the civil attorney Larry Feldman from the 1993 case before pressing any kind of charges. Because of the change in laws, they HAD to pursue a criminal case first. Tom Sneddon set the mother up with a victim’s fund that would give her family money until after the criminal case in order to get her cooperation.

What makes this whole case even WEIRDER is… you would THINK since the Martin Bashir documentary is what made MJ look like a pedo in the first place, particularly with the accusing kid, that the molestation obviously happened BEFORE the documentary was filmed. But that’s not what the family said and it wasn’t what MJ was indicted on. Instead supposedly MJ had been around this child for 2 years and NEVER touched him until AFTER the documentary aired, when the world thought he was a child molester. So MJ just decides to start molesting this kid when he’s under the most public scrutiny and not a second before? That makes NO sense.

There was no foundation for this case at all. And the lack of corroborating witnesses, with the exception of disgruntled ex-employees, says a lot. (Also the disgruntled ex-employees we’re expected to believe didn’t feel the need to ever notify the police before any of this that MJ was hurting children.)

I call foul.

And anyone who can look at all of this and NOT see the frame job, who still assumes MJ was a child molester, is part of the witch hunt hysteria that accounts for all the false child abuse allegations out there. (Up to half of all child abuse allegations turn out to be false.) You should be very afraid because someone could accuse you someday. And child molestation is a crime that there is no defense for. Even if you’re innocent, the world thinks you are guilty and you are ruined. Just an accussation is enough to end you. Gee, much like a witch hunt.

mjfan - I have at no point said Mj wasna pedo, I said he was accused of it (the smiling face after the comment to Dr Eggman was to show it was an an ironic comment)

I dont know what he was (and neither do you!) but I DO know he behaved inapropriately at best with children and after having a ‘pedo’ shot accross his bows in 1993 most ’sane’ people would NEVER have another child seen near them again let alone put themselves in such a position as to be accused over and over again.

Stating that MJ was a regressed 10 year old is bizarre…what makes this an excuse for anything? He should never have been able to buy 3 kids if this is so…

However, in the 1993 Civil Suit brought the young man was not permitted under the Settlement reached in the Civil Suit to ever speak of the case again. He was given many millions in a trust that would stop instantly he ever spoke of the case again. In fact, both parties may never speak of that case. Thus, he was unable to participate or give testimony in any criminal charges that could have been brought against Michael Jackson and, thus, none could be brought.

In the 2005 case, it was the boys’ mother who blew the case for the prosecution. You may have forgotten how damning other witnesses’ testimonies were in that case. However, by the Defense being able to prove the mother’s past shady activities that was enough to put reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. Under the law if a juror has reasonable doubt they cannot convict a person. However, months later when some of the jurors were interviewed those interviewed admitted they felt Michael Jackson was guilty but could not convict him once the mother was discredited as a credible witness.

I’m sorry, I don’t know that reference.

This was written by the legal secretary of the original lawyer for the first family (A second different lawyer actually got them the civil suit, but this was the lawyer that got things started.)

It should be noted she has been called into court before to testify for things she’s written in the book and both Barry Rothman, that attorney, and Evan Chandler are lawsuit hungry. They could sue her for slander if it wasn’t true, and for breaching attorney/client privilege. (The attorney/client privilege thing doesn’t apply in cases of fraud.)

The other book I would recommend is: “Michael Jackson Conspiracy” by Aprhodite Jones. She was one of the media people who originally was against MJ in 2005 and trying to convict him in the court of public opinion. I’ve seen several clips on Youtube with her almost gleefully telling Bill O’Reilly how bad it looked for MJ. she admitted later she got caught up in the media circus and was very biased. The book’s forward is written by MJ’s lead defense counsel and she quotes directly from the court transcripts to give you a fly on the wall view of the case in summary.

That would be a starting point for digging into it for anyone interested. There are several other online resources as well as the actual 1993 settlement and the court transcripts for anyone REALLY interested in knowing details.

You make some very good points and, if true, the accusations do look a bit suspect.

I’ve never been particularly interested in MJ so I don’t know much about him.