- (beeping, crackling)
- You need to sit right there, buddy.
We are going to try our best to make a case.
OK? A criminal case. We're gonna try our best.
But you need to understand that we're gonna need your cooperation.
- He wanted to show you how to masturbate?
- He... OK.
- One of the Sheriffs came over to me, and he said,
'When he's found guilty,
we're gonna get him out of there so fast...
that your head is gonna spin.'
MESEREAU: It was the most covered criminal trial in American history.
- They decided to infuse the celebrity factor into this case
significantly: Michael Jackson knew a lot of celebrities.
- Anybody who claims...
that they know what a jury's gonna do is a fool.
- It was a really rough week:
it was very emotional, up-and-down roller coaster.
- I myself wanted to walk out.
- I was convinced that Michael Jackson had...
molested Gavin Arvizo.
If there was a smoking gun for this juror, that was probably it.
MESEREAU: I was told that the police were expecting
some type of riot if Michael Jackson were convicted.
ZONEN: There were a lot of death threats.
- I was really shaking in my boots.
REPORTER: This could be the last time that Michael Jackson
is a free man for a long time.
TARABORRELLI: There was no way
Michael Jackson was ever gonna survive in prison.
- The Martin Bashir documentary,
Living With Michael Jackson, came out in 2003.
QUARLES: In the documentary, Michael's sitting next to Gavin.
Gavin's kinda curled up next to him,
and that's when the spotlight gets put on that relationship.
- I asked him if I could stay in his bedroom, and then he finally said,
'Mm-kay, if you love me, you can sleep on the bed.'
- What? What did he just say?
- People don't want to believe that people we admire
are also people who can do harmful things.
- And Michael Jackson, the fizzled King of Pop,
surrendered to authorities in Santa Barbara, California.
The charges? Child molestation.
- Today's opening statements were presented in stark detail
and decidedly not fit for the dinner hour.
- I never had as many good days in cross-examination, in any trial,
as I had in the Michael Jackson trial:
I felt as I was shooting dominoes. I mean, I really did.
- He came into Michael Jackson's bedroom
and observed the molestation with his own eyes.
- I think they proved that this is Michael Jackson's MO:
this is what he does,
and this is how he does it, and it's not just Gavin.
- I would go home some nights thinking,
'Oh, my God, did he do it?'
- The boy's mother,
who has been a lightning rod for controversy in the case,
has made it to the courthouse for the first time
since the start of the trial.
REPORTER: She is very important for the prosecution's case
with regard to the conspiracy charge.
The prosecution claims that Jackson and his associates
conspired to hold the accuser and his family against their will.
- The prosecution said that because...
the Bashir documentary was such a PR disaster,
and this young boy, Gavin, is at the centre of it,
they wanted to keep this family under wraps.
And they wanted to get this family to do a rebuttal video.
- (beep)
MAN 1: Very quiet, please. MAN 2: Everybody settle. Thank you.
- The Santa Barbara investigators
go after Michael Jackson after the Bashir documentary,
but they initially don't know...
that this bombshell video of the very family
that ultimately accuses Michael Jackson of molestation exists,
where the same family is praising him to the hilt.
- We may be broken... but Michael fixed us.
- They come upon this video...
..'What are we gonna do?'
So what happens is...
there's another charge added.
They add a conspiracy charge.
The DA is saying Michael Jackson didn't start molesting Gavin
until after the family made that video.
ZONEN: Janet had no idea that Gavin had been molested at that point,
and much of the molestation occurred after that date.
REPORTER 1: Stunning new charges added
to the Michael Jackson indictment in court today.
REPORTER 2: The last count stems from charges by the accuser
and his family that they were intimidated by Jackson employees
and detained at Neverland against their will.
- Every day is a new day...
by God's grace...
via Michael pulling us together...
as a tight-knit family.
- Michael Jackson's people engaged in a pattern of behaviour
that's very consistent with their belief...
that Michael Jackson had engaged in crimes against this child.
They pulled the kids out of school.
They moved the family's possessions out of their apartment
and put them in storage someplace where they didn't know.
They got them visas, one-way tickets,
passports to go to Brazil.
They were moving them out of the country.
REPORTER: The question before the jury:
was the family held against its will?
The accuser's mother testified that she never witnessed any molestation
and did not see the pop star give her young children alcohol,
but she is still a key witness for the conspiracy charge.
AMEN: Janet Arvizo was not held against her will.
Janet was calling the shots.
We did whatever Janet wanted us to do.
'Take me here. Take me there.
Take me to Robinsons-May for bras.
I feel like having ice cream. Take me for ice cream.'
You can't hold someone hostage
when you're taking them where they wanna go.
- The thing that really hurt the prosecution,
if she, indeed, was being held against her own will,
why was she out with her boyfriend?
Why was she getting bikini waxes? Why didn't she call the police?
- I was in communication with the Arvizo family,
pretty much daily, at that time.
There was nothing where they ever gave me any indication
that they were being held against their will
or that they were being harmed in any sort of way.
ZONEN: It's nonsense, because she had to stage her escape from there.
She says she had to go for a haircut appointment
and then was able to arrange to have her boyfriend meet her there,
coming through the back door, and whisked her out the back door.
REPORTER: And she talked about the infamous allegation
that on a flight from Miami, Jackson licked her son's head.
She even demonstrated the incident.
- Every time I would come home in the evening,
I would go spend a half hour or so...
just recording what I could remember from the day.
I recorded them for my own purpose,
and these recordings haven't been distributed anywhere.
If she's acting, she did a pretty good acting job,
but she got... she got really upset.
What still bothers me about what she said
is that if she was upset,
as she appeared to be in the courtroom today,
I just... I really don't understand why she...
didn't try to get ahold of the police immediately.
- I didn't believe that was something she saw...
..and brushed it off, and walked away from the situation,
and continued to stay there.
- Why in the world would...
Michael Jackson lick some kid's head with 13 people on a plane?
Didn't make sense at all.
- I would have been through the roof,
and me and my children would have been gone,
and he probably would have been injured.
- There seemed to be a growing disconnect between these jurors
and that witness as the day went on, and that's dangerous.
- Janet Arvizo was probably the worst witness...
(chuckles) ..I've ever seen on the stand.
She somehow believed that she was in charge of the jury,
and she would snap her fingers at them...
..after every answer.
And it was weird.
- In a trial that's not about physical evidence, or forensics,
but all about credibility, the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser
is a witness you'd have to see and hear to believe.
- People are having a hard time understanding:
is she for real? Is she hallucinating?
Is she on medication? She is that strange.
- (laughs) Janet from another planet.
She would point her fingers and... (exhales rhythmically)
- She was speaking directly to us, lots of pointing.
- I've been hearing descriptions that, literally,
the mother is turning to the jurors...
when being questioned, saying, 'Oh, no, that's not true.'
- It was almost like she was on stage
in front of a camera and acting.
ZONEN: Janet is difficult for a number of different reasons.
Janet was a victim of domestic violence that went for years.
Her experience, the decade-plus that she spent
in this very abusive relationship had consequences on her,
and it manifested itself in not-appealing ways.
- It's a wish come true. (exhales)
For example, to see my children...
interact with a ideal role... a father role model.
He plays with them, laughs with them.
He...
lets them win! (laughs)
ABRAMS She kept telling Mesereau, 'I'm acting.'
Obviously frustrated, she said,
and this has to be the quote of the day...
- For Tom Mesereau to portray her as a schemer
and a conniver was pretty easy.
- There had a been a lawsuit against JCPenney
in which a shoplifting allegation
had turned into an allegation of assault.
- Mesereau got this woman, the accuser's mother,
to admit that, yes, she had, in fact, lied in sworn depositions
in that case in the past: in other words, perjured herself.
- Right there, the jury thought,
'Shoplifter? The whole family's in on it?
They're all scamming?'
- It's very easy for us to look back and say,
'Oh, how could anyone have questioned her?'
There were real reasons.
Her past issues weren't things like, you know, drunk driving...
that would be irrelevant in the context of this case.
They directly related...
to lying about something in an effort to make money.
But it doesn't really address, cos they haven't provided a link yet,
to how kooky mom is convincing the rest of the kids
to tell these very consistent lies about Michael Jackson.
- Oh, I mean, I'm mindful of the fact
that this is a very challenging witness,
and it's gonna be difficult for a jury to be able to get past
the theatre that was her presentation
and concentrate on the facts.
But we believed Gavin.
Janet was challenging. She was challenging for all of us.
And so was Michael's ex-wife Debbie Rowe.
ABRAMS: Debbie Rowe may have been the single...
most highly anticipated witness in this trial.
- Michael and Debbie Rowe had this sort of tortured,
complicated relationship.
You know what they say about 'hell hath no fury.'
There was no woman more scorned at that time than Debbie Rowe.
- They had the perfect hostile witness
to help them nail Michael Jackson.
TARABORRELLI: This was gonna be a disaster for Michael.
- The sparks could fly later today
in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial
with the singer's ex-wife, the mother of two of his children,
set to take the witness stand.
- (church bell rings)
- Well, wedding bells have rung again for Michael Jackson.
REPORTER: The Gloved One giving his hand to longtime friend Debbie Rowe.
- (camera shutters clicking)
- There were so many questions
about Michael Jackson's relationship with Debbie Rowe,
many suggesting, 'Oh, it wasn't even a real marriage,'
and was she just a figurehead?
Was she just there to make it look like Michael Jackson was married?
REPORTER: The tabloids have had a field day
with Jackson's latest venture into family life,
but undaunted, his personal plans move forward.
- So in 1997,
Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe have their first child, Prince.
- Prince, you want a Life Saver? - Yes.
- Shake... If you want a Life Saver, shake it for me.
- Then in 1998, they have their daughter, Paris.
- Stand... What a shame. Where's your guys' rhythm?
- (person laughs) - Then the next year, they divorce:
when they divorced, the agreement was Michael'd raise the children,
and Debbie really wouldn't have much to do with their lives.
REPORTER: Ultimately, Rowe signed away her parental rights
to both Prince Michael Jr and Paris-Michael Katherine.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: She had originally said, 'I don't need to be involved.
I trust Michael Jackson. He's gonna raise the kids,'
and then at a certain point, after these allegations particularly,
she wanted to be more involved with the kids.
TARABORRELLI: She was angry with Michael at that time.
He was preventing her from seeing her kids.
I mean, Michael wasn't even returning her phone calls.
REPORTER: The prosecution claims that Rowe was basically coerced
into doing this rebuttal video.
The prosecution says she was told
that she would only be given visitation rights
to see her two children that she has with Michael Jackson
if she participated in the interview.
They also say it was highly scripted.
- The prosecution wanted Debbie Rowe to testify in court,
in front of the jury, that,
'In the rebuttal video, I was given a script,
just like Arvizo and his family.
And we followed the script because Michael Jackson told us to.'
- Debbie Rowe had been assisting the prosecution,
and I think they thought she was gonna help them
establish their conspiracy charge:
that somehow, Michael Jackson falsely imprisoned the family...
abducted the children,
and in the process, forced them to do this rebuttal documentary.
- On the face of it, she would be a good prosecution witness.
The story's told that they had dinner with her, the prosecutors,
the night before she testified, and...
they thought they were gonna hit a home run.
- Then there was the boomerang.
- She did exactly the opposite: she destroyed their charge.
- It was clearly misreported that Debbie Rowe
was gonna come up on the stand and say
that she had the same experience as the accuser's mother.
The accuser's mother said the whole thing was scripted in her case.
Debbie Rowe said that is definitely not true.
- She said Michael Jackson was a great father,
and that, yes, she participated in the rebuttal video.
She wanted to. Nobody made her.
She wanted to defend Michael Jackson.
- If he called me tonight and said,
'Let's have five more...' in a heartbeat.
INTERVIEWER: You would do it again? - In a heartbeat. In a heartbeat.
- She became a witness for the defence...
..much to everybody's surprise.
She flipped on the prosecution.
DEUTSCH: It turned out that she still was in love with Michael.
It was amazing to see.
MESEREAU: I saw the look in her eyes of affection for Michael,
and she realised she was being asked to send him away to prison.
- It was the effect that he had
on all of these people who are intertwined with his life,
and for whom... They owed him.
I mean, Debbie Rowe was millions.
It was a constant battle that we had to deal with:
with the staff, with his friends, with his associates.
None of them were honest. None of them were candid.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: This was her valentine to Michael Jackson.
This was her ultimate gift.
This shows you the power that this megastar had on people,
that they literally would be a witness for the prosecution,
and then they would just testify as a defence witness
just to send him a message.
She was teary-eyed and looking at him longingly.
ALL: (chanting) Michael's innocent! Michael's innocent!
- There are certain people who have this magnetism,
and it's really... powerful.
REPORTER: They may not speak his language,
but they can sing his songs. ALL: (singing) She's just a girl...
who says that I am the one.
- He's a great performer. He's the greatest man I know of.
- (people chattering)
- Around the world, the devotion to Michael Jackson was rabid.
- I love you! I love you! - I love you.
MAN: We gotta go. Let go. Let go.
Stop.
GRACE: They had plastic surgery to look like him.
They dressed like him. They knew all his lyrics.
They practised his dance moves. I did!
- You had Michael Jackson,
the biggest pop star in the world, at court.
- (crowd screaming and whistling)
ABRAMS: This was truly international.
There were people who flew...
long distances to come to show up at the courthouse
and wanted their presence to be known.
- Anybody who thinks prosecuting an international superstar
is the same thing as prosecuting the guy
who just happens to be walking down the street... is kidding themself.
ALL: (chanting) Michael's innocent!
REPORTER: To his most fervent fans,
lined along the fence of this courthouse,
Michael Jackson is as much a victim as Gandhi,
Mandela, Martin Luther King.
And the victimiser? The media.
It was, after all, to a TV journalist
that Jackson admitted sleeping with children.
- I will never forget the...
..anger and the vitriol...
..the death threats, the hate mail...
when I said, 'He did it.
Michael Jackson's a child molester.'
- People care a lot more
about Michael Jackson as a person, I...
To this day, I still get...
hate mail on social media.
Based on what I think was...
sober legal analysis during the trial.
REPORTER: One fan has been so abusive to this Reporter
that she's obtained a court restraining order
keeping him away from her.
ZONEN: There were a lot of death threats
When we walked around to the courthouse in Santa Maria,
we usually had armed guards with us.
We were just mindful that there were a lot of people out there
who viewed this case with suspicion.
- The prosecution rests in State versus Michael Jackson.
Now it's on the defence.
MESEREAU: When the prosecution rested its case,
I felt very good about our situation.
I had never had so many successful days
cross-examining prosecution witnesses in my life
as I'd had in their case in chief.
I had to wrestle with the thought of, 'What do I do?
Do I put on a defence case and risk subjecting
my witnesses to cross-examination?
Will I get a hung jury? Will I get acquittals? What will I get?'
- I wanted the defence to rest,
because I just felt that the prosecution's case was so weak
that there was no way that he was ever gonna be found guilty.
HULTMAN: When the prosecution rested...
I don't think I really had any specific feelings...
one way or the other.
You know, he hadn't been proven guilty yet...
as far as I was concerned.
The prosecution had presented their case,
but there was a lot more to come.
- At that time, I really still wasn't sure,
so I wanted to keep an open mind for when...
the defence could pull in their witnesses.
MESEREAU: I felt we had to take some risks.
We had to go all-out to get acquittals on every count.
And that's what I did.
There was a moment during the trial that...
I thought was very, very... important.
The prosecution rested their case,
and at the end of that day,
I was in the courtroom with Tom Sneddon.
Bailiffs were gone, lawyers were gone,
and Tom Sneddon said to me, 'Who are your first witnesses?'
And I told him, 'Our first witnesses are Wade Robson,
Macaulay Culkin and Brett Barnes.'
And the blood just drained from his face.
I don't think he ever thought these witnesses would cooperate with us.
- The key for the defence was to bring in...
a series of witnesses who had been kids,
had been with Michael Jackson, even slept in his bed,
but to say nothing criminal happened.
The defence hoped the jurors would say, 'He may be weird.
He may have been inappropriate. But he wasn't a criminal.'
REPORTER: Star choreographer Wade Robson told jurors
he first met Jackson at age five
and shared a bed with him more than 20 times until he was 14.
- He was so adamant he was never mistreated by Michael, in any way,
that I decided to make him our first witness.
- Wade got up there and said nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing happened.
DEUTSCH: He was asked if he ever molested him.
He said absolutely not.
He was asked if he ever touched him inappropriately. 'No.'
ZONEN: We knew a lot of information.
We knew about the relationship that he had with Michael Jackson.
We knew about the extended periods of time
that he spent in his home, and in his bed,
that went on for not just weeks and months, but years.
And there was just no way that we believed
that was a pure friendship without any sexual connotation to it.
REPORTER: Jurors seemed riveted as Robson was forced
to describe photos of naked boys
and read a series of graphic porn titles seized from Jackson's home.
- I would show him a picture and say,
'Are you comfortable with the idea of somebody, an adult man,
who finds this type of material interesting,
and perhaps even exciting,
to be sharing a bed with a child?'
DEUTSCH: And his answer was kind of odd.
It was, 'If it was a stranger, yes.
But it was Michael. If it was Michael, no.'
ZONEN: How did I know that Wade Robson
was not telling the truth on the witness stand?
Because he was noticeably uncomfortable.
Those were challenging questions for him, and he didn't answer them well.
It was pretty obvious that he was not telling the truth.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Many years after Michael Jackson died,
Wade tells a different story,
and it's a heartbreaking story, and it's gut-wrenching.
- He sexually abused me from 7 years old until 14.
- You can see how the power of this celebrity,
this superstar, was so potent that...
he STILL wanted to impress...
and seek the approval of Michael Jackson, even on the witness stand.
ZONEN: Robson has now acknowledged that he committed perjury.
Yes, it is somewhat disappointing when I see that there was
evidence that was available to us, but not available to us,
that we could have had at that time:
that Gavin wouldn't have been the only witness up there
testifying to sexual abuse, then it could very well have
made a difference, and yes, that was frustrating.
REPORTER: The second defence witness, Brett Barnes,
said the same thing: Barnes said he shared Jackson's bed...
until he was 19.
- Brett Barnes was obviously quite loyal to Jackson
and said that if Jackson had done anything like that,
he said, 'I wouldn't be here today,' that he just wouldn't stand for it.
- When Barnes sat down saying, 'I wasn't touched,'
I felt the prosecution's case was in jeopardy at that point.
- Barnes spent a full year with him, every day, every night,
as they travelled across the capitals of Europe,
and I understand Michael Jackson, and his predilections,
so no, I don't believe that for a full year
of sharing a bed with this child, he never touched him.
- One of the most well-known child actors in recent memory
is expected to testify today at the Michael Jackson trial:
now 24-year-old Macaulay Culkin.
- (people yelling to Macaulay)
REPORTER: The former child star Culkin
said he slept in the same bed with Jackson
but told the court nothing ever happened.
- What happened at the house? That's what all these things...
- That's what's so weird, you know? - What did happen?
- Nothing happened, you know? I mean, nothing, really.
I mean, we played video games, you know?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: He's a performer. He's a star himself.
And he gets on the witness stand,
and he very confidently says nothing happened.
His demeanour is calm, cool and collected.
He doesn't seem like a broken person. None of the kids did.
- It was powerful, cos it was one after the other,
and they all said that, no,
Michael did not touch them in any way.
- Ron Zonen had Macaulay Culkin on cross-exam,
and he noticed something that...
Culkin had said, earlier,
that he was never molested 'that he could recall.'
- And we have witnesses who say that they saw...
Macaulay Culkin asleep with Jackson with his hands up his pants.
It's, I suppose, possible that Macaulay Culkin doesn't know,
or remember, that he was molested.
- I can go in and change my son's clothes...
while he's asleep,
pull a sweatshirt over his head.
He never wakes up,
and he's only under the influence of skim milk.
Who knows what happened to Macaulay Culkin when he was asleep?
- It came across as corny.
It came across as someone who's desperate to find something
where they got nothing.
- I understood what Tom was doing,
and he's a lawyer, and I'm not: I'm just a writer.
But when he started bringing guys onto the witness stand
whose story was that they slept with Michael Jackson
and nothing happened...
..I started feeling...
like this was not the best strategy.
- Even if you assume what they say is true,
it's still unsettling to think...
I think that many of the jurors looked at Michael Jackson
and thought... 'I wonder.'
HULTMAN: I wasn't wondering. I just didn't flat-out believe it.
I felt, at that time, that these children had...
also been part of the group...
that had been molested by Michael Jackson.
- No matter how many times you said it was OK
for Michael to sleep in the same bed with a kid,
there are gonna be people out there who will disagree with that.
And I was worried about the jury at that point.
- Martin Bashir convinced Michael Jackson...
that this would be a professional, fair TV show,
and Michael Jackson, fortunately...
had his own videographer during these interviews.
I argued with the Judge, 'If you're going to hurt us...
by playing this documentary, at least let us play the outtakes...
that were selectively edited,
which put a different perspective on Michael Jackson.'
Fortunately for us, the Judge...
said if they're gonna play the Bashir documentary,
the defence has a right to play the outtakes that were not included.
The Producer was not always candid with him,
and manipulated him in a sinister way.
There were ways that Bashir, in my opinion,
flattered Michael Jackson
and cajoled him into giving these interviews.
They haven't got a clue.
- The story of your life.
- It made me feel Bashir was being dishonest...
and that he had an alternative motive
for why he did that documentary,
and what he was after.
JACKSON: All I want to do is give people some bliss,
some escapism, and some fun and some joy.
Why hurt the guy who wants to bring a little sunshine in your life?
Why?
- I think our strongest witness was Michael Jackson...
in the Bashir documentary and in the outtakes,
particularly when Michael Jackson said,
'I would slit my wrists before I would hurt a child.
I would never do anything improper with a child.'
BASHIR: What about 1993? What happened?
What was Michael Jackson doing? - Cos they don't know me.
They don't know me.
All that was false. I'm a completely innocent guy. I would never do that.
I would slit my wrists before I would hurt a child.
- I think that was powerful testimony,
even though it was on videotape
and even though he wasn't cross-examined on it.
- People say, 'Why is he always with children?'
Well, I was raised in a world with adults.
When kids were playing and in bed sleeping at night,
I was up doing clubs. I was doing club dates, three in the morning.
The striptease would come on after us.
We worked, we worked, and we worked. It was through Christmas.
Birthdays. We were very strict Jehovah Witnesses.
So I'm compensating. Nature makes sure that I compensate for the lost.
Everything that I do is inspired from the children,
you know, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again:
if it wasn't for the children, I'd throw in the towel.
Like, I wouldn't care. You know?
BASHIR: You really mean that? - I really mean that.
HULTMAN: I guess I wasn't really... buying everything that he said.
It was like, 'OK, well, here's the superstar,
talking about how he just likes children,
and... that's all there is to it.'
I just found that to be a bunch of excuses
for unexcusable behaviour.
- I just wanted to have fun or know what it's like
to have a buddy over or a slumber party.
Or a birthday, which we never had,
or a Christmas, which we never had.
BASHIR: Is that why you do it now? - That's why I do it now.
I haven't been betrayed or deceived by children.
Adults have let me down. Adults have let the world down.
It's time for the children now. It's time for us to give them a chance.
- If you think about Michael's life, it's easy to understand, you know,
that Michael felt that adults were always being duplicitous,
and always taking and wanting.
He just had, like, a real jaundiced view of adults.
- Touring the world, in and out of hotels, in and out of shows:
I think they were worked too hard, and that was partly Motown.
But it was also partly their father, Joe Jackson, who rode them hard.
Michael did, very vividly,
describe physical abuse at the hands of his father.
He described being chased and beaten with cords
and basically being fearful of his life whenever his father was around.
Michael made these allegations
in a very public way: he said them on Oprah.
OPRAH: Were you scared of him? - Very frightened.
There's been times when he'd come to see me, and I would get sick.
You know, I'd start to regurgitate.
OPRAH: As a child, or as an adult? - Both.
OPRAH: Both. - He's never heard me say this.
I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me.
- There's no question that it took a very, very serious toll on Michael,
because it was abusive.
- He really was a child who never had an opportunity to be a child,
yet he was a man who had sexual needs
and seemed to focus only on young boys.
- Children show me, in their playful smiles,
the divine in everyone.
The simple goodness shines straight from their hearts.
Being with them connects us to the deep wisdom of life.
- He portrayed himself as special, as different.
'I never had a childhood. I'm a kid at heart. I'm Peter Pan.'
So was he just putting on this act
so he could get a pass on behaviour
that if any other 40-year-old guy did...
..there'd be an uproar?
- At the very beginning of the trial,
they read off a witness list that had, I don't know, 400, 500 names,
including every celebrity you've ever known in your life.
- Michael Jackson's trial is no laughing matter
for Tonight Show host, Jay Leno, at least for today:
he's testifying on behalf of the pop star.
- (crowd shrieking and yelling)
ZONEN: They decided to infuse the celebrity factor into this case,
significantly: Michael Jackson knew a lot of celebrities.
It was a kind of a zoo of an atmosphere from day one,
and I'm sure that that didn't help.
- Defence source says it'll be a simple statement
that he remembers a call from Jackson's accuser,
the boy's mother prompting him in the background:
a call that made Leno suspicious.
- Jay Leno testified that having the Arvizo boy call on the phone
and express that Leno was his hero...
seemed unusual to Mr Leno,
because, as he put it, he's not Batman.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jay Leno said he got a bad feeling.
When Gavin got on the phone with him, he was...
really oversolicitous, and gushing with too much praise.
And he could hear the mother in the background, and he thought,
'This family's looking for a mark.'
And he just cut his ties.
- (indistinct chatter)
REPORTER: Her name is Azja Pryor,
and she shares a child with actor Chris Tucker.
- While they never asked directly,
they were very...
verbal with communicating their hardships.
I remember Janet one time telling me how she had to walk...
home from the San Fernando Valley
to East LA, which is, like, 30 miles or so,
because she didn't have money to catch the bus.
So hearing those things, I'd give them money.
There was discussions of them receiving a car from us,
so they would reach out, quite often,
to me about getting the car.
The fact that they could do this...
to someone who they praised the same way they praised Chris and I...
means if they could do it to him,
they could do it to us, they could do it to anyone.
REPORTER: Comedian Chris Tucker, the last defence witness,
took the stand late in the day.
Tucker was close to the accuser and his family.
- When he heard that Gavin had cancer,
he wanted to be nice, and generous, and helpful to the Arvizos.
They joined him in Las Vegas on the set of the movie Rush Hour.
- The Arvizo family stayed for weeks,
being supported by Chris Tucker financially,
which caused Chris Tucker some concern.
He later warned Michael Jackson that the Arvizo mother, particularly,
was someone to be concerned about and to watch out for.
- There was a sense that the defence was...
..projecting that the mother, Janet,
had actually trained these kids to lie
and had actually, indeed, sent them to acting school
to perfect their ability to tell a story that she wanted them to tell.
So that they were essentially, according to the defence,
sophisticated kids looking for a mark.
- Their personal wish...
humongous wish, is to be in movies.
So Michael would tell them, 'OK, OK, you're all better now.
We're gonna... You're gonna be in movies. You're gonna be in movies,'
and that's their biggest wish.
- There was a constant effort by the defence to...
label the family as a family of grifters.
- We were trying to show that there was a strange pattern
of somehow trying to get face-to-face with celebrities
on the part of the family, and I was hoping
the jury would find that not only strange...
but very disconnected from any life that they led.
It was part of a general strategy to discredit these accusers.
- 'Your Honour, the defence rests.'
With those words, Michael Jackson's Attorney
ended the case in chief without calling Michael...
MESEREAU: I just followed my instincts: 'They get the picture.
'Our witnesses have done well. Their witnesses have done poorly.'
I felt that the jury didn't seem hostile to us,
in my opinion, and I just felt this was the right time
to send it into the jury room for deliberations.
- The police interview clip of Gavin.
WOMAN: The police tape. Do you remember this?
- Yes.
Right. Yeah, this was actually really powerful.
ABRAMS: The jurors will hear from the accuser in this case again...
on tape.
- This could prove to be a powerful last piece of evidence
for the prosecution during its rebuttal case.
The accuser is said to give a very emotional account
of the alleged molestation.
- The police started an investigation that...
eventually got to the stage of doing an interview with Gavin.
That interview was played for the jury. It was actually very moving.
- There's a practical matter in introducing
a police interrogation: there's no cross-examination.
ZONEN: We wanted the jury to watch the entire tape in its entirety.
To me, it seemed obvious that this was a child
who was disclosing, for the first time,
most of the details of this period of molestation.
That's why we played it.
- The defence said, basically, the mother scripted the kids
and trained them to lie in order to make money
and to destroy Michael Jackson.
And the prosecution says,
'Look at this video of Gavin talking to police and telling his story.
Does this look scripted to you?'
- He wanted to show you how to masturbate?
- He... OK.
- OK.
And did he do it for you?
Go ahead, Gavin. It's fine.
ABRAMS: This was a really powerful piece of evidence for prosecutors,
because Gavin seemed reluctant to speak.
He seemed reluctant to be there.
He didn't seem to want to talk about this
and tell the police what he said had happened.
And that made it that much more authentic.
- Did he put it on the outside?
- Inside? And what did he do next?
- OK.
- Did he stop?
- And what... Did he finally stop?
- I think one of the reasons they did that...
is to show that his story was consistent.
And that even at the time he went to police,
before there had been any alleged coaching
or any other nefarious activity,
he spoke to police, and this is what he said.
And that is why the State launched the prosecution.
- This video had a substantial impact
in that it was very believable.
He appeared not to be coached in any way,
and it was obviously difficult for him.
MAN 1: It was extraordinarily powerful for the prosecution
to end its case on this evidence.
MAN 2: You think the prosecution finished on a strong note?
MAN 3: I would say the people who may not have made up their mind yet
and then saw this tape probably believes this boy.
- If there was a smoking gun in this trial,
it was probably that video, to me.
He did respond in a way...
that convinced this juror
that what he was saying was true...
and did actually happen.
- The one piece...
that I thought could lead the jury to hang
was that tape of Gavin.
I remember thinking, 'That is either... the greatest kid actor...
..or this actually happened.'
- At that point, I was convinced...
that Michael Jackson had molested Gavin Arvizo.
- (cheering) - (camera shutters click)
- Finally today, closing arguments from both sides.
REPORTER 1: This is expected to be a showdown in court today.
This clearly is the last chance for both sides to get to this jury.
REPORTER 2: Outside the courthouse in Santa Maria, California,
the crowds of fans, and foes, was larger than usual,
as was the number of people hoping for a lucky lottery ticket
for a seat inside the courtroom.
- Everybody will get one ticket,
and then we will do the lotto draw.
- (crowd screaming, chanting)
REPORTER 1: Michael Jackson walked into court surrounded by family
and serenaded by fans...
- (all singing)
REPORTER 1: ..knowing the jury would soon address the question,
is he or is he not a child molester?
Prosecutor Ron Zonen said there's no question.
REPORTER 2: Inside the courtroom,
prosecutor Ron Zonen wrapped up the State's case
by painting Jackson as a sexual predator.
ZONEN: Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about the exploitation
and sexual abuse of a 13-year-old cancer survivor
at the hands of an international celebrity.
He really had the ability to isolate himself in a huge house,
with one child after another,
and do as he wished.
REPORTER: The prosecution tried to soften the defence's claim
the accuser's mother was the greedy force
behind the sexual allegations.
Zonen told jurors there was no evidence
the mother ever asked for a penny from the pop star.
ZONEN: They had never asked for money.
Janet was the only one who wasn't impressed with his money.
- Prosecution painted a pretty frightening portrayal
of Jackson as a predator who took advantage
of a 13-year-old cancer survivor: they said he...
groomed his victims, and I quote, 'With...
methods to seduce boys into his confidence,
his bedroom, and into his bed.'
REPORTER: For the defence,
it's always been a question of credibility.
Defence Attorney Thomas Mesereau launched an all-out attack
on the accuser's family, especially the mother.
He called her a pathological liar,
who used her children to extort money.
- We were trying to argue...
that there was a strong financial motive, one,
for approaching Michael Jackson,
and two, for instigating this prosecution
when Michael Jackson turned away from them. That was our theory.
- So I wrote,
'Michael Jackson may be the defendant,
but the pop star's accuser and his mother
were the ones essentially placed on trial.'
ABRAMS: It's very easy for us to look back and say, 'Oh...
how could anyone have questioned her?'
There were real reasons to question her.
There were allegations that she had engaged in efforts
to make money off of lies before.
- In my closing argument,
I argued that if you think they were untruthful on A, B, C, D and E,
don't just pick and choose.
You either find them credible, or you don't.
And I told the jury, 'We have proven, throughout,
you can't believe this rendition of events.'
HULTMAN: I think what reinforced the defence position
for those that were leaning that way was
Tom Mesereau's comment being, 'If you can't believe the Arvizos,
then it's out the door.'
And I think that stuck in the mind of...
a lot of the jurors going into...
deliberations.
REPORTER: The fate of a celebrity known around the world
is now in the hands of a jury.
- I was going to be as fair as I possibly could,
and do what I was asked to do.
HULTMAN: I didn't make any decision until I got...
to the end, the Sheriff's video.
Gavin, in his Sheriff's interview,
you know, just... just reinforced it for me.
- Almost everybody had their opinion done...
as soon as the trial was over.
REPORTER 1: Jackson's final wave to fans
as he left for Neverland to await his fate.
REPORTER 2: Thirteen weeks, one hundred and forty witnesses
and 60 days of evidence and testimony,
and sometime next week, a dozen of his anonymous neighbours
will begin deciding whether rekindled fame or indelible infamy
will from this point forward attach to his name.
- (crowd screaming)
- In Santa Maria, California, tonight,
it's all in the hands of the jury now:
eight women, four men on the Michael Jackson jury
will decide whether or not he is guilty of child molestation.
ALL: (chanting) Michael's innocent! Michael's innocent!
REPORTER: Crowds of reporters, fans, and curious observers standing by.
- I support him, but it doesn't look good for him.
- He's gotta be free, out to make more music
and keep me and everyone else happy.
- When we went into the deliberation room,
I suggested we take a vote.
Just to go around, before we even read the directions,
how people were feeling.
- Two-thirds of the jurors...
were voting not guilty,
and one third of the jurors were voting... guilty.
And that kinda took me by surprise. I thought, if anything, it would...
probably be the other way around.
- We decided it would be best to go through one count at a time
and figure out if he was guilty or not guilty.
- It's a difficult case.
We have a long way to go on this thing as the deliberation continues.
- Jurors have just finished the first day of deliberations here.
No verdict. REPORTER: Remember OJ Simpson.
Nobody really knows how long it'll take.
- People can pontificate till they're blue in the face:
there were hundreds of people, dozens,
maybe hundreds of channels making predictions.
- The longer a jury deliberates, is it good or bad for the defendant?
- If the jury were to come back very quickly...
- What's the verdict? - That would be good for...
- ..he's gonna get convicted. Gonna be a clean sweep.
- No rational adult sleeps with children.
- They wanna know the facts.
They're trying to decide did he do it, or didn't he?
- But nobody knows.
Since all the other bets are taken, who knows?
But I'll just throw it out there for a hung jury on most counts.
- Oh, good Lord. (chuckles)
- Well, I mean, I was trying to be different.
REPORTER: As deliberations continue behind closed doors,
the scene outside the courthouse is increasingly tense.
Without the daily arrival of their pop idol,
the Jackson fans have turned their eye on the media.
- They giving all these opinions. They crucifying the man.
- Melissa played the Sheriff's video over again,
probably for my benefit, because I was putting so much weight...
on the Sheriff's video.
- And so they ran through it, and I stopped it.
'What do you see? What is he doing?'
They're like... (gasps) 'He's smirking.'
- 'Can't you see he's got a smirk on his face?'
- Tell me, does a kid smirk...
when they're...
divulging the worst thing in their life that happened to 'em?
HULTMAN: I didn't see that.
I saw a kid who was sitting there with his head down,
trying to talk at the same time, with this room full of men,
about being molested by Michael Jackson.
Melissa had her own agenda...
as somebody who felt...
Gavin... was not telling the truth.
It was undeniable to me...
that Gavin was telling the truth.
If there was a smoking gun for this juror,
that was probably it.
It's hard to get 12 jurors to agree on anything.
HERARD: It was a long process. There was a lot of arguing.
- I, myself, wanted to walk out.
HULTMAN: There were a lot of people in that room
that weren't gonna change their position.
BOLTON: There wasn't enough to convict.
There wasn't enough to send somebody to prison.
HULTMAN: With Melissa, you kind of made fun...
of anybody else's position if it didn't match her own.
You had a number of witnesses
that came in that said nothing happened.
Well, why should I believe those witnesses
any more than I believe Gavin when he said he WAS molested?
- I told them, I said, 'I can't trust any testimony...
that either kid said.'
We weren't bullying up on people.
We were just saying it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
HULTMAN: Tammy broke down,
and it was on what I call 'emotional Thursday.'
- I was beyond frustrated.
I felt strongly in...
..that there's not enough to convict him.
HULTMAN: She basically was very sympathetic to Michael Jackson.
She could not in her heart...
ever believe that she could be part
of sending this wonderful man to prison.
COOPER: There you see two white vans carrying 12 very important people:
the eight women and four men who make up the Michael Jackson jury.
They've been having a hard time making up their minds.
Once again, they failed to reach a verdict today.
They'll be back at the courthouse tomorrow to resume deliberations.
- The jury in the Michael Jackson trial
is well into its sixth day of deliberations.
- It was a really rough week: it was very emotional,
up-and-down roller coaster, everybody's opinion.
- Like I said, I'm gonna go out of this deliberation room
knowing that this guy is a child molester,
and that's what I believe in my heart.
- The ones who...
were saying guilty...
..couldn't say anything more than, 'Well, I just think he did it.'
TARABORRELLI: Before the verdict came in,
one of the Sheriffs came over to me, and he said, 'You know what?
You have the best seat in the house.'
And I was like, 'Why is that?'
He said, 'Cos you're sitting right behind Michael Jackson.
And when he's found guilty,
we're gonna get him out of there so fast...
..that your head is gonna spin.
Because we think that the brothers,
the Jackson brothers, are gonna jump the rail.
And there's gonna be a riot.' It's the most racist thing I ever heard.
I couldn't sleep that night because this guy who is a sheriff
is telling me that Michael is gonna be found guilty.
He must have a reason to think that.
And I was really shaking in my boots.
REPORTER: Prosecutors and prison officials
are already planning for the singer to spend years here,
Corcoran State Prison, in a special cell block,
with the likes of Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson.
- I knew for sure that Michael Jackson would not survive in prison.
I knew it. There was no way Michael was ever gonna survive in prison.
MAN: Yeah, there we go. They're lining up right there.
- There is breaking news from California at this hour
in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial.
MAN: OK, we're on the move.
REPORTER: The jury in Santa Maria, California,
has sent word that it has reached a verdict.
- Nobody knows what a jury's gonna do, ever.
Anybody who claims that they know what a jury's gonna do...
is a fool.
ALL: (chanting) Michael's innocent! Michael's innocent!
- Good day from New York. We'll soon be switching to live pictures
from Santa Maria, California.
Michael Jackson is apparently a few miles
and a few moments away from hearing his fate.
There are over 2,000 accredited media.
MESEREAU: It was the most covered criminal trial in American history.
More accredited media following it
than OJ Simpson and Scott Peterson combined.
- When the verdict is read, we will have a live audio feed,
which in normal speak means that the viewers will hear the verdict
at the same time as the Reporters hear it...
at the same time that Michael Jackson hears it.
- I think they deliberated for eight days,
which is the longest jury deliberation I had ever experienced
in my entire career.
So I wasn't really certain what they were going to do.
- (crowd yelling)
REPORTER: This could be the last time that Michael Jackson
is a free man for a long time.
MAN: (chanting) MJ's innocent! Innocent! Innocent!
- Michael Jackson was increasingly frail as the trial progressed,
and on the verdict day,
he looked terrified.
MESEREAU: Michael deteriorated physically,
and emotionally, during the trial: you could see him lose weight,
you could see his facial features become more pale and more sunken in.
He looked the worst on verdict day.
That was the worst I'd ever seen him look.
- The tension, it's almost impossible to describe,
after so many months, indeed, years,
covering Michael Jackson here, there and everywhere,
for this moment to have arrived.
ABRAMS: You know, one of the folklores of trials
is that if the jury comes in
and doesn't look at the defendant,
that means they are convicting him.
If they look at him, that means they are acquitting him.
That's actually proven pretty reliable in my experience.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: When the jury came in, they were grim.
They were serious. They didn't appear to look at Michael Jackson.
And I thought, 'Oh, that's not good.'
- Right now, there's a very calm sense of quiet
outside the courthouse: where I could barely hear myself
a few minutes ago, now I can hear a pin drop for a block away.
- (indistinct chatter)
- With the anticipation building right now,
it doesn't get much more exciting: if you've been watching this case,
it's gonna boil down to the next two, three, four, five minutes.
- Whatever happens during this whole process,
do not come out into the street.
Stay on your side of the barricades.
PRESENTER 1: If there's a guilty verdict, it'll be pandemonium.
If there's an innocent verdict, there's gonna be pandemonium.
PRESENTER 2: Here we go. Here's the audio. Let's listen.
FOREPERSON: The people of the state of California, plaintiff,
versus Michael Joe Jackson, defendant,
case number 1133603, count one verdict.
We, the jury, in the above-entitled case,
find the defendant not guilty of conspiracy.
- (cheering, shrieking)
- The first verdict came back, and it was not guilty,
and I was like, 'Whoa.' I couldn't believe it.
I mean, I could believe it, but I couldn't believe it.
FOREPERSON: Count two verdict.
We, the jury, in the above-entitled case, find the defendant not guilty.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: The fans who were there were ecstatic.
One woman even went so far as to release a dove for every...
count that Michael Jackson was acquitted of:
something I would not recommend anybody do.
FOREPERSON: Count three verdict.
We, the jury, in the above-entitled case,
find the defendant not guilty of a lewd act upon a minor child.
MESEREAU: You would hear, 'Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty.'
I had to sit there stoically and just wait for each count.
PRESENTER: It's pandemonium out here among the crowd members.
FOREPERSON: Count four verdict, not guilty of...
(overlapping) Count five verdict... Count six verdict... Not guilty...
Count seven verdict, not guilty... Count eight verdict, not guilty...
Count nine verdict... We, the jury, in the above-entitled case...
Count ten verdict... ..find the defendant not guilty...
- Boom, boom, boom, not guilty on all counts.
- (cheering)
REPORTER: From Times Square... around the world,
for that matter, the not-guilty verdicts reverberated.
- People think he's crazy. I just think he's different.
It's uniqueness. Everyone has uniqueness.
GRACE: Jane, describe what happened when the verdict came down.
- The tears start flowing. One attorney, Susan Yu, starts weeping.
One of the jurors starts weeping.
His mother, Katherine, starts weeping, he appears to be weeping,
because tissues are going up to his eyes.
HERARD: I look across, and I see his woman lawyer over there.
All of a sudden, she busts down.
She's crying. I lost it.
I was crying and sobbing, and crying and sobbing.
And it was just emotional release.
- It was a moment that I'll just never forget...
..and Joe Jackson came walking through the centre of the courtroom
with a big smile on his face,
came up to me, put his hand out, and said, 'You're almost as good as me.'
ZONEN: I was disappointed.
I was concerned as to how Gavin would react to it
and what the consequence would be on him,
not just in the near future but for the long-term.
Tom called him, and I was there when he called him.
- He told him what the verdict was. Gavin said he understood.
He realised that there was the potential of that happening.
He knew what the challenges were on the case.
And um... And he said, 'Fine, so be it.'
- It was a hard moment for us.
- I won't say that we got to a unanimous decision,
because those that felt he was guilty gave up.
Yes, as much as I would like to see...
..Michael Jackson convicted for being a child molester,
I can see that there... there is reasonable doubt.
You've got the problem with the Arvizos.
They're not a lily-white family
that has no history, no problem.
There's reasonable doubt.
It's unfortunate that that has to creep into the picture,
but it did.
No matter how little reasonable doubt,
there was reasonable doubt,
and we had to find Michael Jackson not guilty.
At least I'll know that Michael Jackson is a child molester.
But he squeaked by on this one.
- You have to prove somebody's guilt,
but when all was said and done, it wasn't there.
The evidence wasn't there.
ABRAMS: I think the fact that Michael Jackson was...
such a celebrity allowed people to say,
'Well, maybe it was just inappropriate.
Maybe it was just wrong.
Maybe it's just one of those crazy things celebrities do.'
I think if he hadn't been a celebrity,
immediately, people would have said,
'What the heck?'
KATZ: What we saw operating here is what I call the halo effect.
It's a scientific term for...
giving positive characteristics to someone that...
when there's one positive characteristic about them...
Michael Jackson clearly is...
is one of the most talented musicians that we've ever seen.
And people loved him and adored him, and he's produced brilliant music,
music I love and enjoy.
But that doesn't mean that all the other parts of him are positive.
- We've got around 250 fans here now.
One woman told me this is the happiest day of her life.
- The happiest day of her life? OK.
ABRAMS: After the verdict,
I went to Michael Jackson's home,
Neverland, for the celebration party.
I think I was the only journalist who was there,
and it was a bizarre scene.
- (car horns honking) - (cheering)
- You had family members of the Jacksons,
but mostly kids,
parents who were bringing their kids to Neverland...
in the aftermath of this trial.
I worried.
Looking around.
Is this kid gonna be the next victim?
It was a bizarre scene...
on the heels of a bizarre event.
TARABORRELLI: After the trial, I had this vision in my head...
that Michael was going to go on and be the great Michael Jackson
that I knew and loved since I was, you know, 14.
And that's not what happened.
- (crowd screaming)
- After the trial, I had this vision in my head...
that Michael was going to go on and be the great Michael Jackson
that I knew and loved since I was,
you know, 14.
And that's not what happened.
- After the trial, Michael flees Neverland.
Remember, Neverland had been his paradise.
KNOPPER: He just took off. He never went back to Neverland Ranch.
He felt that America had turned on him.
QUARLES: His brother Jermaine had introduced him to...
one of the princes in Bahrain.
REPORTER: Michael Jackson turned up at a Bahrain shopping mall,
on Wednesday, hiding his face behind a veil and wearing a black robe
traditionally worn by Middle Eastern women.
- But he ends up fleeing Bahrain
and is eventually sued by the Prince for $7 million.
He says, 'Look, Michael, you promised that we would do...
a theme park and a book and all this stuff.'
Now he has no money, and he has to rebuild his life.
KNOPPER: After Bahrain, he came back to the US,
and he retreated to Vegas.
Michael Jackson was in $275 million worth of debt,
and he realised,
'Man, I'm gonna be in trouble if I don't get out of this debt.'
- So in order to rebuild his finances,
there was a plan to go on another tour, the This Is It Tour.
- (cheering)
- I'll be performing the songs my fans want to hear.
- We were all covering, just so excited
to see Michael Jackson do what he does best, perform.
- This is it, and see you in July.
- (cheering)
- I was listening to this great song, Corner Of The Sky,
remembering Michael,
just having sort of, like, this great Jackson 5 moment.
And then it showed up...
Michael Jackson was in the hospital.
- We're still reacting to this incredible news,
the sudden word out of Los Angeles now confirmed by NBC News,
Michael Jackson dead at the age of 50. Lester Holt here with us...
- At the height of the Michael Jackson comeback,
he dies.
REPORTER: Michael Jackson died this afternoon,
apparently of cardiac arrest.
The last comeback is not going to take place.
CHIDEYA: Michael Jackson being a global superstar,
this became a global moment of mourning.
- He had incredible fans in Japan, in Korea,
in Africa... really, everywhere. He was one of the...
- People around the world were sharing in sorrow,
and that's rare.
- He's been a part of my world for a long time.
ALL: (chanting) We love Michael! We love Michael!
- ..our coverage begins of this massive event,
the memorial for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center.
It is estimated that before it's over,
this will be viewed by between 750 million...
to a billion people.
# Hallelujah
# We're going to see the king... #
- The kind of grieving that you do for...
someone like Michael Jackson is,
in some ways, a grieving for, like, your own earlier life.
Like, you remember all the moments that you shared with that music.
Hearing Off The Wall at my Girl Scout troop,
and, like, me singing ABC when I was a little kid,
and me dancing at family picnics, and then in college, you know?
I mean, it really is... I do find it kinda profoundly sad.
- I stand here...
trying to find words of comfort,
solace...
trying to understand why the lord has taken our brother.
- In retrospect, I don't know if Michael ever recovered
from this trial: he deteriorated physically.
He deteriorated emotionally.
I fear that the trauma of this...
entire criminal case...
destroyed him in many ways that never healed.
QUARLES: You know, in death, Michael's...
reputation was able to recover.
People started talking about all the good things he had done, and...
people were kinda leaving those molestation whispers
and those drug whispers alone.
Then comes Leaving Neverland.
PRESENTER: Premiering today at the Sundance Film Festival,
Leaving Neverland, the new, potentially damaging documentary
about music legend Michael Jackson.
- Well, the film includes the firsthand accounts of two men,
Wade Robson and James Safechuck.
They claim Michael Jackson sexually abused them for years.
- One of the ways I remember it starting is...
you know, Michael just sort of starting to touch my legs,
and touch my crotch over my pants.
- That's not a 'slightly out of bounds' move,
you know, if those allegations are true,
and I believe them to be.
QUARLES: So these are young boys
that Michael was with a lot of the times.
I mean, they testified saying nothing happened.
Now they're saying, 'We were young boys. We were manipulated.
A lot did happen, and we were molested.'
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Really, really gut-wrenching
to watch them reveal... the details.
I found them believable.
- You know, I had a lot of mixed reaction about Leaving Neverland,
because we're in a climate right now where you really...
are sort of compelled to believe victims,
and victims, you know, SHOULD be believed.
It puts people like me in a tough spot,
because what most of the public doesn't have that I have
is the memory of Michael Jackson, right in my face,
denying these things.
And if you had that memory of him,
I think that it would...
it would make you look at all these allegations in a...
in a different way.
- You know, we are in an era where there are so many allegations,
whether it's adult MeToo allegations
or allegations involving children.
And all we can do as human beings is embrace the complexity of saying,
'I don't know, but I believe.'
- Wade Robson testified at the trial,
and I sat right there, like, 6ft away from him,
and he was adamant that nothing happened.
- Why did you do that? - The training.
Michael's training of me...
..to testify began...
the first night that he started abusing me.
He started telling me, 'If anybody else ever finds out,
we'll both go to jail: both of our lives will be over.'
MESEREAU: I don't believe the changed story at all.
I don't believe it for one second.
I'm not naive. I think I'm a pretty good judge of people.
I looked him in the eye. I questioned him.
And I said to myself, 'He's gonna be a powerful defence witness.'
And he was subjected to a very, very strong cross-examination
by Ron Zonen, a good prosecutor, and he didn't budge for one second.
ZONEN: Ask Mesereau why he won't watch the documentary.
Ask him why he won't sit down with him, and talk to him,
and assess for himself the truthfulness of his statement.
- I don't wanna dignify it. I think it's garbage.
Witnesses who testified, under oath...
that Michael didn't touch them are now changing their story,
and from what I've learnt,
there were all sorts of contradictions in their stories.
- It's interesting because I covered the Michael Jackson trial,
in 2005 in Santa Maria, California:
I remember when Wade Robson testified.
It was devastating for the prosecution, because...
- I'm pretty certain that had Jimmy Safechuck...
cooperated during the trial, and had Wade Robson told the truth,
that the outcome could very well have been different.
BOLTON: I was disgusted when I heard about Leaving Neverland.
I never watched it.
Michael Jackson's gone now.
I don't see... a point in it.
He came, and he told us nothing happened,
and I took what he said under oath, and I believed him.
Had he came and gave different testimony 15 years ago,
the verdict very likely could have came out differently.
- I just feel sorry that...
you know, that...
Michael isn't here to defend himself.
But if that did happen to Wade,
then, you know, I'm sorry, but...
I believed him when he spoke, because he was under oath.
And if that wasn't true, then he perjured himself.
So...
HULTMAN: My reaction was that he's finally coming out
and telling the truth about what happened to him.
I'm sure that was very difficult...
for him to do that.
But I'm glad that he did.
- I don't think he molested these boys.
I don't. I hope I'm right.
- They credit your testimony, in part, for Michael's acquittal.
On some level, do you feel guilty about that now?
- I wish that I was ready.
I wish that I could have helped...
..Gavin Arvizo receive some justice
and some validation for what happened to him.
- Does he feel vindicated? I think he's above that.
I think he always knew, and always understood,
that he did the right thing,
even though it was horribly...
painful for him at the time to deal with it.
At the time of the trial, he had just turned 15.
It was a challenge for him,
but he always knew that he was doing the right thing.
He has never regretted that decision,
and he's just, at this time, trying to live a...
a decent life, meaningful life.
- (cheering) ALL: (chanting) Michael! Michael!
- One of the things that has happened in the MeToo era
is that a wider variety of people are talking about having had...
nonconsensual sexual experiences, both as children and as adults.
DURBIN: What degree of certainty do you believe
Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?
- 100%.
- Society has changed a lot in the 15 years
since the Michael Jackson trial,
and the stereotype that rape,
and sexual molestation, and sexual assault,
only happens when a stranger grabs you in the dead of night
and throws you in an alley, that's not how it happens.
- We turn now back to this breaking news tonight.
Harvey Weinstein verdict, the jury finding him guilty today
on both rape and sexual assault charges.
- There's a lot more recognition that...
there are many people who have amazing qualities:
the ability to direct and produce amazing movies, you know,
to be political leaders, and still...
can be sexual predators.
And whether or not you believe that...
Michael Jackson was a sexual predator,
I think that the dialogue would have been totally different in this era.
- After Leaving Neverland comes out,
you almost had a movement where some radio stations were saying,
'We're not gonna play Michael Jackson's music.'
CHIDEYA: There's, like, a whole little war
over whether if you hear a Michael Jackson song,
it's OK to dance to it, or should you leave the room,
or should you, like, chew out the DJ?
QUARLES: And of course, this comes down to that age-old question:
can you love the music but not like the man?
Can you separate the two?
- It goes... back as far as you can trace these people's behaviour.
Gauguin, the incredible French painter: paedophile.
Phil Spector is a convicted murderer. R Kelly is in jail.
And some of the most beloved artists of the last however many centuries
could have been horrible, horrible people.
That doesn't mean they didn't create great art.
- I used to believe incredibly strongly...
in 'judge the art, not the artist,' but...
the people who tend to have these allegations against them are men,
and so I wonder if 'judge the art, not the artist'
is a little bit of a philosophy that excuses men.
That kind of lets them off the hook for their behaviour.
QUARLES: In this post-MeToo world we live in,
would the trial be any different today? Would his celebrity matter?
- The trial would have been exponentially different today.
I don't think there would be a lot of sympathy or mercy
from a jury or from the public.
ABRAMS: Even with the better understanding that we have today,
this would still be... a tricky case.
Do I think prosecutors could get a conviction...
all things equal?
I don't know.
Janet Arvizo was a real problem
for the prosecution's case.
And when the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt...
..Janet Arvizo reeked of reasonable doubt.
MESEREAU: Our society likes to see people rise to great heights
and then fall and plummet to destruction,
because it makes for a good story.
We acquitted him of every count.
He was completely innocent, and he would be found innocent today
on evidence like this, just like he was then.
ZONEN: I think that there might be a different result today,
because of the MeToo movement, but I think there clearly would be
a different result today...
if we had the cooperation of the two men who were in...
Dan Reed's documentary, Robson and Safechuck,
honestly, and in a compelling fashion,
testifying to what happened to them in front of a jury.
I think there definitely would have been a difference.
CHIDEYA: At some point, there will be another trial
with some similar allegations.
Probably not for anyone as famous,
but the core issues around...
sexual agency, safety of children, consent, all of these things,
that genie's not gonna be put back in the bottle.
We're in a different era than we were during the trial.
- (camera shutter clicks)
- In my mind, as great of a musician as he was,
as much as he changed the world...
..he is, was, will always be...
..an adult man that victimised children.
You can't gloss over that.
KING: We all have facets to us.
If Michael did what they say that he did,
I feel sorry for him and for the boys. It's a tragic story.
CHIDEYA: I don't believe it's disrespectful...
to the legacy of a tremendous talent...
to recognise...
that there may have been criminal behaviour.
It is respectful to the legacy to look at...
finally, maybe for the first time,
Michael Jackson gets to be a human being,
who's judged for all of who he is.
But we have to grapple with this.
We can't leave this as something we don't examine,
and to begin to examine how we can do better,
because things like this will come up again.
And I think that it's going to be tough for us,
as a culture that has embraced Michael Jackson,
to live with these aftershocks.
Because as long as there's recorded history,
there will be Michael Jackson. We will have...
his image, his moves, all of what he brought to the world.
And I don't think we can turn away.
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