Is Michael Jackson Guilty?

By Jason Vines

Michael Jackson has established himself as one of the most successful musical artists in history. His album Thriller—which won a record eight Grammies—remains the bestselling album of all-time, having sold over 51 million copies worldwide. Jackson’s enormously popular videos for “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller” eliminated MTV’s reluctance to broadcast videos from black artists. Also, TV Guide, BET, and MTV determined “Thriller” to be the best music video ever made.

Jackson’s later albums also experienced phenomenal success. Bad, from 1987, was the second bestselling album of the 1980’s, and it was the first album to have six number one singles. In addition, Jackson’s Bad concert tour was the most successful tour ever. A few years later, Michael Jackson’s Dangerous became the bestselling album of 1992, and Jackson’s 1993 half-time performance at Super Bowl XXVII was at the time the highest rated show in television history.

That year of 1993 was when the media’s dogs pounced on Michael Jackson and tore his reputation to pieces.

Almost everyone alive at the time would remember what happened. A young boy named Jordy Chandler accused Michael Jackson of molesting him, and not even 24 hours after the media discovered this, they had spread the allegation all across the globe. Tabloid writers and legitimate journalists alike competed fiercely amongst themselves to write or to air the most sensational stories about Jackson. Before long, the media had pronounced Jackson guilty of child molestation and had branded him a pedophile and a pervert.

At first glance, the media’s case against Michael Jackson appears strong. Jordy Chandler had provided to police descriptions both of Jackson’s body parts and of the acts he said Jackson had performed upon him. Also, former housekeepers and security guards who had worked at Jackson’s home, Neverland Ranch, asserted that they had witnessed Michael Jackson performing illicit acts with many young children. Finally, Jackson settled with the Chandler family out of court, an act many people interpreted as an attempt by Jackson to bribe the Chandlers to silence themselves about the molestation.

Upon close scrutiny, though, the case against Michael Jackson collapses faster than a $10 tent hit by a $2 million missile. Jordy Chandler’s famous descriptions of Jackson’s body turned out to be incorrect. A dispatch from Reuters news service on January 27, 1994, revealed that when the police examined and photographed every micrometer of Jackson’s body in an attempt to corroborate what Jordy had said, the police found that none of Jackson’s features matched Jordy’s descriptions.

As for the boy’s stories about his risqué encounters with Jackson, the circumstances under which those stories arose rob them of all credibility. Before Jordy Chandler said anything about molestation, the boy’s father, Evan Chandler, an aspiring screenwriter, became angry at Michael Jackson for not helping him with his career in Hollywood. Therefore, as he revealed in a secretly recorded telephone conversation, Chandler launched a plan to destroy Michael Jackson, as he revealed in a secretly recorded telephone conversation exposed by GQ magazine in October 1994.

According to Chandler in this conversation, “This guy [his attorney, Barry Rothman] is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. And I’ve given him full authority to do that.” Later in the conversation, Chandler added, “If I go through with this, I win big-time. There’s no way I lose. I’ve checked that inside out. I will get everything I want, and they will be destroyed forever… Michael’s career will be over… It will be a massacre if I don’t get what I want.”

Chandler’s plan was to accuse Michael Jackson of child molestation, but unfortunately for Chandler, Jordy refused to implicate Jackson in any way whatsoever. To solve that problem, Chandler took his son to dental anesthesiologist Mark Tobiner. Tobiner injected into Jordy the barbiturate sodium Amytal, under the influence of which a person is highly impressionable; the effect is similar to hypnosis. With sodium Amytal swimming through his system, Jordy said for the first time that Jackson had molested him.

Finally armed with this crucial tidbit, Chandler brought Jordy to psychiatrist Mathis Abrams, to whom Jordy repeated his allegations of Michael Jackson’s misconduct. Abrams contacted the Department of Children’s Services, which in turn called the police. Five days after the police began to investigate Jordy’s claims, the media discovered the allegations against Jackson.

A short time later, former Jackson employees emerged into the spotlight, saying they had seen Michael Jackson molesting children other than Jordy. Something worth noting is that all of these employees had been fired, so they had reason not to like Michael Jackson. Also, these employees received money for their stories from tabloids such as The Globe and Hard Copy. When these people were in a courtroom, however, where they had to tell the truth on pain of imprisonment, none of them could say they had seen Jackson perform any untoward acts on even a single young boy.

Of course, if the case against Michael Jackson was full of holes, then that begs the question of why Jackson settled with the Chandler family rather than fight against the allegations in court. The reason is, said Jackson lawyer John Branca, “He just wanted the whole thing to go away.” Jackson naïvely believed that if he paid the Chandlers to stop pursuing him, then he could get on with his life. He thought the public would support him instead of a father who would accept money in lieu of justice.

Almost a decade after the molestation saga, life for Jackson hasn’t transpired in the way he had hoped it would. Many people throughout the world still believe Michael Jackson is a freak who abuses children. As Jackson prepares to launch his campaign in support of his new album, Invincible, he must accept that reality and work to change it. Only then could Jackson hope to reestablish the pristine reputation the media took from him in 1993. And only then could Jackson hope for his career to ascend once again to the dizzying heights from which he saw his past albums break all records possible.