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J@cko: First Accuser's Interview With Shrink Published
Monday, September 13, 2004
By Roger Friedman
The boy to whom Michael Jackson paid $23 million in 1994 in the settlement in a child-molestation lawsuit finally gets a chance to speak.
His uncle has posted an interview the 12-year-old had with a famous psychiatrist who specialized in false memory and child abuse.
The interview, conducted in 1993 with Dr. Richard A. Gardner (now deceased), is alarming beyond description.
It took place in the fall of that year, after the boy's relationship with Jackson had been discovered by his parents and terminated. By that time, a case was being prepared against Jackson and the wheels of justice were turning.
According to Ray Chandler, the boy's uncle and author of the book "All That Glitters," the family's attorney, Larry Feldman, sent the boy and his mother to see Gardner in New York "to see if he could poke holes in his story."
Ironically, Gardner had built a reputation for defending accused pedophiles against victims who invented stories about them. But in this case, Gardner was unable to shake the accuser's story.
There are some odd moments in the transcript when the boy does appear to be a little rehearsed or perhaps more articulate than one might think. But this could be attributed to having sat with countless lawyers and professionals prior to this interview.
What's most important is that the boy, whose name we still do not use as a matter of privacy, describes in detail with Dr. Gardner his sexual relationship with Michael Jackson, then a 35-year-old man.
Although the boy characterizes Jackson as "child-like," he also recounts Jackson's seduction of him, including several episodes when the pop star cried about the boy not acquiescing to him.
You may recall that in my November 1990 interview with Jackson I asked him why he wore sunglasses inside and at night.
"I cry a lot," the singer replied.
The interview with Dr. Gardner is graphic and certainly not for the faint of heart. Is it possible that this entire story was invented by the boy? I guess so, but if it was, he should receive the National Book Award for best first work of fiction. He would have to have been a sociopath, something Dr. Gardner did not find.
Of course, as I've written about this book since Friday (see the last couple of columns in the Fox411 archives), there is questionable motivation about why Ray Chandler has written it and whether his brother, bound by a confidentiality agreement with Jackson, might have helped him. (It would seem reasonable to assume this considering the access Ray Chandler has to sensitive documents.)
Nevertheless, the interview with Dr. Gardner is the most powerful evidence yet of Michael Jackson's sexual relationship with a minor.
In it, the boy — who is now 24 years old — relates that he became so involved with Jackson that he feared the singer would "dump" him. He also claimed that Jackson warned him if others found out about the relationship Jackson would go to jail and the boy would be sent to juvenile hall.
[Roger Friedman]
Monday, September 13, 2004
By Roger Friedman
The boy to whom Michael Jackson paid $23 million in 1994 in the settlement in a child-molestation lawsuit finally gets a chance to speak.
His uncle has posted an interview the 12-year-old had with a famous psychiatrist who specialized in false memory and child abuse.
The interview, conducted in 1993 with Dr. Richard A. Gardner (now deceased), is alarming beyond description.
It took place in the fall of that year, after the boy's relationship with Jackson had been discovered by his parents and terminated. By that time, a case was being prepared against Jackson and the wheels of justice were turning.
According to Ray Chandler, the boy's uncle and author of the book "All That Glitters," the family's attorney, Larry Feldman, sent the boy and his mother to see Gardner in New York "to see if he could poke holes in his story."
Ironically, Gardner had built a reputation for defending accused pedophiles against victims who invented stories about them. But in this case, Gardner was unable to shake the accuser's story.
There are some odd moments in the transcript when the boy does appear to be a little rehearsed or perhaps more articulate than one might think. But this could be attributed to having sat with countless lawyers and professionals prior to this interview.
What's most important is that the boy, whose name we still do not use as a matter of privacy, describes in detail with Dr. Gardner his sexual relationship with Michael Jackson, then a 35-year-old man.
Although the boy characterizes Jackson as "child-like," he also recounts Jackson's seduction of him, including several episodes when the pop star cried about the boy not acquiescing to him.
You may recall that in my November 1990 interview with Jackson I asked him why he wore sunglasses inside and at night.
"I cry a lot," the singer replied.
The interview with Dr. Gardner is graphic and certainly not for the faint of heart. Is it possible that this entire story was invented by the boy? I guess so, but if it was, he should receive the National Book Award for best first work of fiction. He would have to have been a sociopath, something Dr. Gardner did not find.
Of course, as I've written about this book since Friday (see the last couple of columns in the Fox411 archives), there is questionable motivation about why Ray Chandler has written it and whether his brother, bound by a confidentiality agreement with Jackson, might have helped him. (It would seem reasonable to assume this considering the access Ray Chandler has to sensitive documents.)
Nevertheless, the interview with Dr. Gardner is the most powerful evidence yet of Michael Jackson's sexual relationship with a minor.
In it, the boy — who is now 24 years old — relates that he became so involved with Jackson that he feared the singer would "dump" him. He also claimed that Jackson warned him if others found out about the relationship Jackson would go to jail and the boy would be sent to juvenile hall.
[Roger Friedman]
