0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
“My name is Thomas Mesereau and I speak for Mr. Jackson. Okay.
I’m on his side. All right.
Not the government. I’m on Mr. Jackson’s side. Okay.
“I believe that the records from the ranch logs and the testimony from individuals involved here will show that from basically March the 2nd to March the 5th, that the defendant and the Arvizos were on the ranch together. That again, from March 9th until March 12th, when the Arvizos left for the last time, that the Jackson — Michael Jackson, the defendant in this case, was present.”
“Now, let’s look at what they’re trying to do. They have an alleged prior victim named Brett Barnes who tells us he never was touched improperly. They want to bring in four witnesses to talk about Brett Barnes. They don’t want to bring him in. Because the moment they bring him in, they’re done. So they want to bring in allegedly four honest witnesses – I guess they’re vouching for their credibility – to testify that Mr. Barnes was improperly touched. Who are their main witnesses? Their main witnesses sued Mr. Jackson in the mid ’90s… At numerous times during that six-month trial, the trial Judge made findings that the plaintiffs were lying, not being candid, changing their stories, even leaving the bench on a couple of occasions. And when the dust settled, the jury returned a verdict for Mr. Jackson, awarded Mr. Jackson damages, because the plaintiffs had stole from him. The Judge then awarded not only costs, but legal fees, and in the end Mr. Jackson obtained a judgment for over a million dollars against these lying plaintiffs. They want the Court to allow these lying plaintiffs to come in now again and try and testify to improper acts, when there is no alleged victim they intend to call. That’s just plain wrong. And if they suggest it wouldn’t be time-consuming to litigate that issue, all the Court has to do is look at the six-month trial and its length to know that’s not true, because they sold stories to tabloids, they were caught lying, and they had a big judgment against them.”
“First of all, Your Honor, I would note that in their motion, they mention someone named Bob Jones. And in very graphic — in a very graphic manner they told the Court that Mr. Jones had worked for Mr. Jackson for years, had traveled internationally with him, and would testify to all sorts of improprieties with children. We just were produced a police report by the prosecution where Mr. Jones flat out denies virtually everything they said in their motion. He has told the Santa Barbara Sheriffs, with counsel, that he never saw anything inappropriate happen when Mr. Jackson was in the company of any of these children.”
“Now, what happens if you allow third-party testimony about Mr. Chandler without allowing Mr. — forcing them, or ordering them, or requiring them to have Mr. Chandler, the alleged victim, testify? You then have people come in to say what they saw without any victim to confirm it. And what happened back in those days? In summary, this is what happened: Chandler’s parents had been divorced in 1986. The father had given up custody of the child. When these alleged events happened, the father jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to become a multimillionaire, and he fueled litigation. And all of a sudden, you had the parents suing Mr. Jackson, you had — the mother’s new husband then decided to sue Mr. Jackson for allegedly interfering with his business. He had an auto company, and he claimed that the publicity had interfered with his business. He wanted millions. After the settlement, the father then filed a new lawsuit against Mr. Jackson wanting 30 million more dollars. That was litigated and he lost. You have all sorts of collateral litigation, and eventually Mr. Chandler filed papers in Superior Court seeking legal emancipation from his parents. Where is the justice in this case of allowing parents to come in who collected lots of money because Mr. Jackson wanted to get this case behind him and pursue his music career? And indeed, all kinds of advisors were telling him to do that. You have parents playing each other off with the child and pursuing collateral litigation, all of that will obviously have to be explored, because the potential for financial interest, financial bias in a situation like that, is enormous, the motives for financial gain were enormous, and indeed, there was never any criminal prosecution despite Mr. Sneddon’s noble efforts to try and do one.”
“Then we come to Macaulay Culkin, who has repeatedly made statements that he’s a friend of Mr. Jackson and has never been molested. But they want to bring in evidence that he was molested. And they want to bring in witnesses who also were part of the gang that sued Mr. Jackson, and lost, with findings that they had lied and with enormous damages awarded against them.”
“Now, the fourth alleged victim is Jason Francia. Jason Francia and his mother were interviewed by the sheriffs and a deposition of the mother was taken. Money was paid to settle that case, again because Mr. Jackson didn’t want the press, didn’t want his family going through it, and wanted to pursue his music career. There never was a criminal prosecution, even though the alleged victim was interviewed by the Los Angeles District Attorney and the Santa Barbara District Attorney together. And after their interview with Jason Francia – which was so wishy-washy about what happened, they never decided to pursue a criminal case, because there wasn’t one. We have that taped interview – the mother, in a civil deposition in the Chandler litigation, began by saying she saw something and ended by saying she saw nothing. And indeed, stories were sold to tabloids, and money was paid to settle. He appears to be the only alleged victim they want to bring in. Five, Wade Robeson, who tells us nothing ever happened to him. And they don’t propose to bring him in as an alleged victim. They want to bring in the gang that basically has tried to accuse Mr. Jackson and get money from him for years, generally unsuccessfully, with the exception of Miss — Mr. Francia’s mother, and I’ve just talked about the problems in her sworn statement in discovery. The deposition is clear, she begins by saying, ‘I think I saw something.’ She ends by saying, ‘I didn’t see anything.’
“Six, Jimmy Safechuck, who we are informed says nothing happened. They don’t propose to call him as an alleged victim either, but they’ve got the same old gang again coming in to try and capitalize on the case, people who have been adjudged to be liars, and they are. People who asked for money from tabloids, who’ve asked for money from Mr. Jackson, et cetera.”
“Seven, Jonathan Spence, who we are informed says nothing happened and doesn’t intend to come in to support them at all. What do they want to do? Bring in the same crew again. Third-party witnesses with an axe to grind, all of whom have wanted money in the past, none of whom can substantiate that anything happened because the alleged victim says nothing happened.”
“The testimony that the prosecutor wants to introduce concerns seven alleged victims with only one scheduled to testify. This testimony has been presented to two criminal grand juries in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, neither of which ever returned an Indictment, and it’s been rejected by one civil jury in the longest civil trial in the history of this courthouse.”
“Michael Jackson’s got some big problems. And that’s besides being arrested for child molestation. Jackson has no idea that his current manager, Dieter Wiesner, the man who helped hire attorney Mark Geragos and is now calling the shots in the Jackson camp, is known for operating sex clubs and brothels at home in Germany.”
“These photos show Jackson in a bathroom at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Lake Las Vegas, Nev. They were taken at least eight days after the arrest. Jackson had returned to the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, moved to a nearby resort before finally ending up at the Ritz Carlton.”
“The Mirage was built by developer Steve Wynn and designed by Joel Bergman. Wynn was born Steven Alan Weinberg in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael, changed the family’s last name from “Weinberg” to “Wynn” when Steve was six months old “to avoid anti-Jewish discrimination” according to several sources.”
“The state of the investigation [of Jackson] is in suspension until somebody comes forward.”
“After conversations with Sheriff Jim Anderson, it was agreed that the BBC broadcast would be taped by the Sheriff’s Department. It is anticipated that it will be reviewed.”
“It’s way too personal. It’s way out of line. If he does any substantive parts of an investigation, he may become a witness in the case.”
“It lets these very talented defense attorneys take him apart before the jury and explain that it’s not his place to do that. He creates trouble in and out of the courtroom for himself by taking on that role.”
“They opened the case but at that point you had no victim. The child had not confided in anyone until June. So the mother didn’t know. The siblings didn’t know and the case was started only because of suspicions based upon Bashir’s [documentary]. Nobody had ever come forward at that point and specifically said that Michael Jackson had molested that child. Certainly, that child had not said that and did not say that until June. So in essence you really had no victim until June.”
“In pictures taken from the same party, Jackson and his children are allegedly pictured with the children of close friends Al and Nancy Malnik.The 76-year-old American millionaire has triplets Jarod, Spencer and Nathan, who are now 11. Mr Malnik had been friends with the singer for more than ten years and the singer stayed with him at the height of the child abuse scandals. Jackson is godfather to Spencer, who is understood to be featured in the pictures sitting on the steps of Mr Malnik’s Miami mansion with Paris.”
“The whole thing centered on Tommy Mottola setting him up,” Novel told me. “Mottola and him were at odds, and Jackson’s information was that Mottola and Malnik got together to fuck him. He said he believed Malnik was representing the Mob.”He said Jackson had special loathing for Malnik because he felt betrayed by him. When I told him that Malnik was saying that Jackson had made him executor of his estate, he was dubious.“He had split up with Malnik,” said Novel. “He never said anything about Malnik being executor of his will. And based on how pissed off Jackson was at him at the time, I wouldn’t believe it on a bet.”When asked what Jackson was like at the meeting, Novel didn’t hesitate: “He was afraid, very very afraid. He didn’t want to go to jail and didn’t think he would be treated very well there.”Was he fearful that he would be killed in prison?“Yeah, you can say that,” Novel said.But he also said that Jackson’s mental state was “excellent” and that the pop star was lucid and extremely intelligent. He didn’t believe Jackson was on any drugs during the meeting.I asked Novel if he believed Jackson’s theory about the conspiracy against him. He said that he thought Jackson was not guilty of the criminal charges and that he was probably set up, but he had no idea if Mottola was involved.“He thought that Mottola was Mob-connected and that Malnik was representing the Mob, but I can’t vouch for any of that shit,” Novel said. “I don’t have anything against Tommy Mottola and don’t know if what he thought was true or not. I don’t want to get on Mottola’s bad side. My sources in New York say he’s a dangerous guy.”
“Do you know this guy has a Mafia background?” a senior Sony executive quotes the CBS man as saying. “What are you doing tainting this wonderful company you just bought from us with a guy who has a background that would make the F.B.I. cringe?”Rattled, Sony contacted F.B.I. director William Sessions, requesting a quiet background check. The response was a qualified O.K. “The F.B.I. said, ‘No, this guy is not somebody who will start dealing with people we should worry about, but he has friends who do,’” says a former senior executive at Sony. “We said, ‘As long as he’s clean, we won’t worry.’ And that was the basis on which we didn’t.”
Opportunistic from the get-go, Mottola converted to Judaism as a young man in order to marry the daughter of tough ABC Records creator Sam Clark, yet has spent the rest of his life playing the mobster angle to whatever advantage he can. He named his first management company “Don Tommy”; as head of Warner Music, Michael Fuchs recalled to New York magazine that Mottola spoke of Morris Levy as a personal hero, and in fact Mottola was an investment partner of Levy’s up until Levy’s conviction. In the racketeering trial of Gambino family capo Greg De Palma, a former undercover FBI agent stated under oath that De Palma bragged of wining and dining with Mottola and his then-wife Mariah Carey.Vanity Fair reported that Colombo family boss-turned-FBI-informant Michael Franzese told journalist Frederic Dannen (author of best-selling industry exposé Hit Men), “Tommy, we knew he was a friend of ours.” Mottola makes light of these connections, dismissing it all (in certain company, at least) as sensationalism and hearsay, yet as long as these associations continue to work for him more often than against him, he seems content to perpetuate them.
“Had he been realistic and realized what the odds were that he would succeed to the extent that he has, he probably wouldn’t have tried at all,” says Shareef Malnik, owner of the landmark Miami Beach restaurant The Forge.Shareef’s father Al Malnik was a friend of Ratner’s paternal grandfather, developer Lee Ratner. Brett was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents, who are Cuban and Jewish. They all lived in a house a block away from The Forge. The elder Malnik mentored Ratner while he was a going to Hebrew Academy and then Beach High.“He grew up as my little brother,” Shareef says. He calls my dad Dad.
“The same thing that’s happening to Michael Jackson happened to me. One day Sneddon is going to wake up with a boot up his ass with a white glove in it, and it will be about time.”