As the February 2003 events transpired with much media fanfare, Michael Jackson himself seemed to be missing in action. Jackson had been in Miami when the Bashir documentary was broadcast in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The airdates were respectively February 3 and February 6, 2003.
At the time, British reporters managed to track down the boy and his family. One media account has it that the mother of the boy in question had granted an interview with Los Angeles-based David Gardner of London's Daily Mail. During the talk, which was conducted on February 4, 2003, she lavished Jackson with praise.
It was the following day, February 5, when contact was reestablished between Jackson and the family. Prior to the broadcast of the Bashir documentary in the United States, the family was flown down to Miami to meet up with Jackson. They arrived in Florida in the early morning hours of February 6, and returned to California the following day without allegedly watching the Bashir program. Reasons as to why the reconnect and the trip were made have thus far been conflicting.
The family reportedly stayed at Neverland, with occasional periods of absence, between February 7 and March 12, 2003, their purported last day at the ranch. It was at this time that the boy and his family say Jackson molested the teenager, plied him with alcohol, and abducted, falsely imprisoned, and extorted the lot of them.
Bizarre enough? Between this time period, it is a fact that the family continued to laud Jackson and all they say he had done for them to anybody willing to listen. This, of course, was while the media was going hog wild with speculation that Jackson had already molested the kid.
In order to understand this, it must be pointed out that the segment for the Bashir documentary, which included the boy, was filmed at Neverland in November 2002. As per the current allegations, there had been nothing going on between Jackson and the boy at that point in time.
It would be interesting to know how Dr. Lieberman feels about this proclamation of abuse now, considering she helped instigate this drama. According to her "analysis" of the boy's behavior in the special, "something ual" had already transpired between Jackson and his houseguest. Not so, the boy says.
He's instead alleging that Jackson began molesting him in the middle of the firestorm that had recalled past allegations of abuse, and while knowing that District Attorney Sneddon was once again investigating him. There's also the fact that child protection agencies in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara were looking into the matter, a criminal attorney was then on hand on Jackson's behalf, and his camp was attempting to spur the negative attention he was receiving in the press.
This is the moment that the accusing family and Santa Barbara prosecutors say Jackson figured he'd start ually exploiting a child he was told he helped beat cancer three years earlier.
Not ones to address the obvious, the media and its talking heads focused on the extraordinary allegations being made by the boy and his family. From the moment pieces of their confusing tales of , booze, and videotape hit the press, it had been fairly obvious to the silenced and oft-dismissed majority that there was more than something wrong with the case, and something even worse behind the motivations of those pursing and perpetuating it.
Excuse after excuse continues to be made for the accusing family. They're poor and disenfranchised. The boy has one kidney. Mother reads the Bible and was abused, so she deserves sympathy. Though she went to a civil attorney, who she can't possibly afford, that isn't evidence that she wants Jackson's money. Even though they're dysfunctional and the mother has allegedly used her children to support her past false claims, that doesn't mean her son is lying about being molested.
Then there's the latest tactic of invoking the 1993 case when all else fails. One expert after another comes along to claim that children never lie about being molested. People who would otherwise be considered "intelligent," would parrot this misconception without giving it a second thought. How quickly, it seems, that one chooses to forget the McMartin case, where it was determined that the children in that matter were lying about their abuse.
Reminder to the media: accusations do not equal truth.
Jackson, up until the start of his media-mediated trial, hasn't been given the benefit of the doubt. In the eyes of those rambling in front of the camera and pulling the strings in the background, Michael Jackson is guilty as charged. There has never been any real questions regarding the family's motives, nor has there been inquiries as to District Attorney Sneddon's pursuance of this "case," beyond those raised by Geraldo Rivera and other voices that have intentionally been suppressed from the public.
Has anybody even asked why it is that the accuser's mother allegedly allowed her sons to go on an unsupervised dining and shopping spree with a KTTV-TV reporter in January 2004, during a time when the family was claiming to be harassed? Is anyone even aware of this trip at all, where video games and the like were reportedly purchased for the two children? What's the motivation here?
Public revelations and victories for Jackson barely receive coverage, if any, while the prosecution's theory, which has sensible observers going around in circles, gets massive exposure. Fair and balanced? Reporter objectivity?
District Attorney Sneddon and his posse have used many ways to explain their case against Jackson, yet no matter the angle, they are still marred by levels of implausibility that they have yet to shake. First, Jackson conspired and instructed his people to kidnap and send the family to Brazil to keep them from informing the press and authorities of their allegations. Then it became Jackson kidnapped and coerced the family into speaking kindly of him, so he could use their words to resuscitate his image and his finances. Or is this one and the same?
It is then, and only then, they say, that Jackson decided to molest his accuser.
The State has yet to provide an explanation as to how it is that the mother was allegedly selling her kind words about Jackson before she and her family, they now claim, were kidnapped and forced into speaking kindly of him in several statements, both recorded and written. Santa Barbara authorities also have yet to explain why it is that Jackson molested the teen during the period he's alleged to have done it, and then goes on to distance himself from the family without making an attempt to monetarily placate them against later accusations.
To quote Rivera, had this been a Jackson Michael, this case wouldn't have seen the light of day.
As for the question relating to whether this "case" and its preceding "storm" was intentionally set and pursued, that answer will undoubtedly be provided as the Jackson trial unfolds. The first week alone has revealed more than anticipated, with Jackson's defense team taking over the game and dismantling on cross-examination two key prosecution witnesses, one of who was the accuser's sister.
This resulted in a blackout on discussions of Jackson's case, typical that is, being that that has been the situation since November 2003 whenever anything comes along and dents the image the press has doggedly pushed out there of Michael Jackson.
In any event, it is only a matter of time before it is fully revealed the role the media and other interested parties have played in seeing these allegations against Michael Jackson come to fruition.
Source: MJJF