Michael Jackson: The Verdict (2026) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
[tape rewinds, whirs]
[ominous music playing]
[man 1] Mr. Jackson, uh… [clears throat]
…we're back here after the lunch break.
Did anything occur over the lunch break
that, uh, would affect your ability
to recall or recount information?
No.
[man 1] Are you familiar with a person
named Jordy Chandler?
- Who?
- [man 2] We're not going there.
Don't answer.
We're not going to get into
who he knows and doesn't know.
If you want to ask a question,
go ahead and ask it, but…
I believe it's beyond the scope
of discoverable matters in the case.
[Ron] Michael Jackson
is sitting there smiling.
Of course he knows Jordy Chandler.
[man 1] Is it your position
that you will instruct Mr. Jackson
not to answer any questions
that pertain to the issue
of Jordy Chandler in any way?
[Ron] This was the first allegation
of abuse against Michael Jackson.
The Chandler case
took place about ten years
prior to the case involving Gavin.
I wanted the jury to understand
that this guy's done this before.
[man] Michael!
[Ron] I wanted to bring in
that evidence to show
that he has a propensity
to commit sex crimes.
- It could change the outcome of this case.
- [crowd yelling indistinctly]
[woman on TV] …the Jackson jury
to hear past trial sex claims.
This is a critical ruling.
- Where there's smoke, there's fire.
- [crowd yelling]
[Ron] It's very compelling evidence.
And every time I have done that
on a child molest case, I've won.
[crowd yelling]
- [crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
- [ominous music continues]
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] Neverland.
This fantasy island that he created…
was a huge piece of property
with multitudes of staff.
I believe some of the cleaning staff,
the senior staff, the secretaries,
the security people,
knew what was going on.
I am convinced
some of them were complicit.
How could they not have known?
[unsettling music continues]
They knew when to stay away
and where to stay away.
They understood that,
you know, as long as you work here,
don't dare ever think about even
mentioning what goes on here to anybody.
There will be hell to pay if you do.
[music turns ominous]
We wanted the jury to know what they saw.
[woman on TV] The Michael Jackson trial
is back in session today.
The jurors continue to hear testimony
about past molestation allegations
against the self-proclaimed King of Pop.
- [crowd yelling indistinctly]
- [man] Michael!
[Diane] Former employees were going
to come and testify that for years,
Michael Jackson
lured young boys to Neverland
and sexually molested them.
It could be a real game changer.
[man 1 on TV] Each day,
we're going to hear disturbing details
of what people claim that they saw.
Michael Jackson knew what they had seen.
[ominous music continues]
I had interviewed former employees of his.
They'd all talked about misbehavior
between Michael and young boys.
None of them came forward
until we got them to.
Get into court,
you have to answer questions.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Diane] I'll just read out of my notebook.
Ralph Chacon.
He was a security guard at Neverland.
One night on his patrol
by the shower area, by the swimming pool…
[water splashing]
…there was Michael
and Jordy Chandler, both naked.
"I saw that Mr. Jackson was caressing
the boy's hair and caressing his face."
"And Michael Jackson
performing oral sex on the boy."
Blanca Francia, a former maid,
talks about finding Wade Robson
in the shower with Michael Jackson.
[man 2 on TV]
Testimony just keeps on coming.
Another ex-employee took the stand.
[Diane] A former chef from Neverland
named Phillip LeMarque.
He testifies that Michael Jackson
was playing the Thriller video game
with the movie star Macaulay Culkin.
And Michael Jackson's left hand
was inside the pants of the kid.
[video game trilling]
Question, why didn't you go to the police?
Quote, "No one would have believed me."
[Ron] There wasn't a one of them
who was able to say
that Michael Jackson, to their knowledge,
ever had an adult guest
in his room overnight.
Not even a wife. And he was married twice.
It was only adolescent boys
who stayed in his room.
Many members of the press started to say,
"This is a bigger subject than we thought,
than just the Arvizo family."
According to witnesses,
there was the Home Alone kid,
Macaulay Culkin,
Wade Robson, Brett Barnes,
and Jordan Chandler.
[Kevin] It was like this pattern
of prepubescent boys.
Almost like a conveyor belt.
They come in young,
get old, they get off the other side.
Jim, bring me up to date, friend.
Five other children who Jackson allegedly
groomed and inappropriately touched
could very well turn this jury
against Michael Jackson.
[ominous music playing]
It did make me kind of stop and think,
"Wow, what if they're, like, the same
thing that's been going on with Gavin,
you know, the same MO?"
[Nancy] Five boys,
but only one of them
is going to testify, correct?
Four of the boys,
Jordy Chandler, Brett Barnes,
and Wade Robson, and Macaulay Culkin,
none of them would talk to us.
We were down to one.
[ominous music continues]
Blanca Francia was one of the maids.
She had a son,
adolescent son, named Jason,
now an adult, who was cooperative.
And he did testify for us.
You know, when he first walked in,
I noticed Michael Jackson look at him
and then snap his head around,
and he just looked forward.
Jason Francia, youth pastor,
then about 8, 9, 10 years old.
Three times, he said
he was abused by Michael Jackson.
"Question, 'Did his hands
make contact with your genitalia?'"
"'Yes, over the clothes.'"
"'How long was his hand there?'"
"'Two cartoons' worth.'"
[unsettling music playing]
Well, it was very moving.
I had interviewed his mother
about these incidents back in 1993,
and here, years later,
her son is telling me
exactly the same thing. [voice breaks]
It really got to me.
His testimony really got to me.
[man on TV] There's witness after witness
that say Jackson has a pattern
and practice of molesting children.
And the jury's going to look to that,
and they're going to have a difficult time
saying that Jackson
is not a pedophile in this case.
The prosecution, they said, "We got him."
We have a serial pedophile.
Well, what a bunch of junk that was.
The people who testified,
Francia, Chacon, McManus, LaMarque,
former employees who were angry.
They had an ax to grind.
- And we were going to prove it.
- [dramatic music playing]
Jackson's lead attorney, Tom Mesereau,
counterattacked ferociously.
[Trent] The defense skillfully
took each one of these witnesses
and put them in one box,
and it was a box of grifters.
[dramatic music continues]
Some of these people were paid money
by the media for their stories.
[Nancy] The housekeeper reportedly
sold her story to Hard Copy for $20,000.
[Diane] He had something
on every single one of them.
You got $20,000?
The fact of the matter is,
back in the '90s,
tabloid television paid people.
I mean, everybody knows that.
Now they're having
their reputation battered in court.
He was masterful.
I mean, he used facts and a tone of voice
that made the jury think,
"Oh boy, these people can't be believed."
[tense music playing]
Yeah, you know,
in my opinion, money hungry.
People wanted Michael Jackson's money,
no matter how to get it.
[Thomas] I think
we cross-examined effectively.
They put on witnesses
who were lacking in credibility.
[man 1 on TV] Every one
of these prosecution witnesses
has their own little ax to grind
to some degree.
[woman on TV] This is just Mesereau
throwing more dirt.
We've had ten people testify,
and he says they're all crooks and liars.
You have to buy that all these ten people
are willing to risk perjury, defamation…
[man 1] They made
a pretty strong case here.
[man 2] All about credibility,
not physical evidence.
All of this is hanging in the air
for the jury to consider.
[music fades]
[woman] I think the prosecution needs to
pull something really big out of the bag.
[crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
[Diane] As terrible as it looked
at that point for the prosecution,
what they did next,
I thought, was brilliant.
What better person to bring to the stand
than the mother of Jordy Chandler,
the little boy who got millions
and millions of dollars to shut up?
- And so June Chandler came to the stand.
- [ominous music playing]
[Brian] When we discovered that
June Chandler was going to take the stand,
there was pandemonium, okay? [laughs]
It came back to haunt us.
[Diane] To understand
how significant it was
for the mother of Jordy Chandler
to take the stand,
you have to go back ten years earlier,
with this notebook right here,
book number one
of my notes on Michael Jackson.
This is the original story
that we broke back in 1993.
[ominous music playing]
[man 1 on TV] America is in shock tonight
over the scandal
surrounding pop star Michael Jackson.
Barry, I don't want to overstate anything.
I try to be a careful reporter.
But we could very well be watching
the downfall of a superstar.
[man 2] Sources in Los Angeles say
a 13-year-old boy's claim of sexual abuse
led to the criminal probe
of Michael Jackson.
[ominous music continues]
[man 3] It's the LAPD's
Sexually Exploited Child Unit
of their Juvenile Division
that is handling this case.
[music crescendos]
[Rosibel] When we first
interviewed the victim,
it was at his father's home.
His parents were divorced.
The allegations were he had a sexual
relationship with Michael Jackson.
The victim became very detailed.
One of the allegations
was that they would shower together.
He drew specific details
of Mr. Jackson's body.
He drew a picture of Mr. Jackson's
private part, and specifically his penis,
stating that Mr. Jackson
had markings on his, uh, penis.
Because of the details
that he was giving to me
and to the other officers in the room,
there was absolutely no way
that he could make this up.
[tense music playing]
[man 1 on TV] The Jacksons' lawyers
had to guarantee
that Michael would submit
to a police strip search
so cops could see
if various parts of Jackson's body
matched up with the descriptions.
[Rosibel] The body warrant was served
to photograph Michael Jackson.
[camera clicking]
Mr. Jackson was hysterical at the time,
yelling, screaming,
yelling at his attorneys,
"How are you allowing this to happen?"
They served a search warrant on me
which allowed them to view
and photograph my body,
including my penis,
my buttocks, my lower torso,
thighs, and any other area
that they wanted.
[woman on TV] This is the first time
the world has seen Michael Jackson
deny the allegations of sexual abuse.
In a message carried on live television
from his Santa Barbara ranch,
he emotionally described undergoing
a recent body search by investigators.
It was the most
humiliating ordeal of my life.
[tense music continues]
[Rosibel] From what I understand,
some detectives were able
to corroborate the sketch,
actually match the photographs
and the markings
that Michael Jackson had on his body.
[music intensifies]
We knew that we had a good case,
but the victim did not want
to pursue the criminal case.
[music turns dramatic]
The young boy who was the catalyst,
uh, for this investigation
has recently informed us
that he does not wish to participate,
that we must decline
prosecution involving Mr. Jackson.
[Rosibel] I was in disbelief.
We don't have a victim.
We don't have anybody else
who's willing to come forward.
We don't have a case.
[man 2 on TV] The settlement is in,
and Jackson's young accuser
is now California's newest millionaire.
Michael Jackson understood
what this kid was capable of doing to him,
and $23 million was to keep
Michael Jackson out of prison.
I did say to him, you know,
"But that's got to be the end, Mike."
"You can never be seen
around kids again, ever."
[music fades]
- [crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
- [yelling indistinctly]
- Michael, innocent!
- [somber music playing]
[man on TV] The mother
of the 1993 alleged victim
is the 51st witness
to testify for the prosecution.
June Chandler,
this highly credible witness.
This is the first time
the jury's going to hear
the truth about
what happened with her son.
Everything short of the actual
description of molestation,
everything else could come from her.
June Chandler's testimony was riveting.
[ominous music playing]
- [games chiming]
- [indistinct chatter]
[Diane] She said she and her son
and small daughter
traveled the world with Michael Jackson.
[cameras clicking]
It was a whirlwind existence.
[ominous music continues]
June Chandler testified
it was the end of March 1993
that they went to Vegas.
Jackson came to her crying.
"You don't trust me. We're a family.
Why won't you let Jordan be with me?"
And she said, "He is with you."
"But why not in my bedroom?"
And Michael was trembling and saying,
"We're a family.
Jordy is having fun with me."
"Why can't he sleep in my bed?
There's nothing wrong."
"There's nothing going on.
Don't you trust me?"
And in the end,
she did allow him to sleep with Jackson.
And from that point on,
he always slept with Michael Jackson.
MJ spent the night more than 30 times
in her Santa Monica house.
Where did they stay?
"In my son's bedroom."
Question, "Is there more
than one bed in that room?"
"No."
[ominous music continues]
That just gives me chills.
You couldn't get it
out of your mind that this woman
got talked into letting her son
sleep with Michael Jackson.
He was 12 years old.
[man on TV] Jackson gave her
a very expensive Cartier bracelet.
And from then on, every time
Jackson and Jordy were together,
they shared a bed.
You got the sense that she sold her son.
[music turns unsettling]
[Diane] And then she told the jury
that she hadn't seen her son in 11 years.
You got the impression that June Chandler
realized she had done something wrong.
She had allowed access to her son
that she now regretted.
I know she was hurting.
I could see that in her face
when she would talk about Jordy.
[somber music playing]
[Ron] They were not able to resume
a kind of a normal
mother-son relationship after that.
It would be speculation,
but I think Jordan blamed her
for not protecting him
from this abusive relationship
as a mother should have been.
You get diamonds, I get abused.
That's their understanding.
It was heartbreaking
and infuriating at the same time.
I just remember sitting in the room
watching her on the stand.
I just thought, "This woman perhaps
gave a death blow to Michael."
I'm thinking the jury
is going to send him to prison.
It did make me
kind of stop and think, "Wow."
Knowing that Michael Jackson
paid off this family
makes you wonder, is he guilty?
[man 1] Michael. Michael, do you think
June Chandler told the truth?
There'll be no comment.
There'll be no comment.
[man 2 on TV] The pattern she showed
was so close to the current case,
the jury could really believe
Jackson had a way
of going about seducing these kids.
[man 3] The prosecution is wrapping up
the molestation part of its case,
moving on to conspiracy,
alleging the Arvizo family
was held against their will.
[tense music playing]
Janet Arvizo, the mother of the accuser,
is on the stand.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
- Innocent!
- Michael!
[woman on TV] Michael Jackson
face-to-face with the mother
of the teenage boy
he's accused of molesting.
For the prosecutors, Janet Arvizo,
the mother of the accuser, Gavin Arvizo,
could not be a more important,
pivotal witness.
[tense music continues]
She was going to testify
that she had been kidnapped,
the family had been
held against their will,
and then Michael Jackson
had molested her son.
- [indistinct chatter]
- [tense music continues]
[Ron] Janet was a very complicated woman.
Three kids when she was very young,
lived in a state of poverty.
They had a one-room studio apartment.
Married to a man
who was violent and abusive.
And that had an effect
on how she viewed the world.
Insecure and conflicted
and emotionally traumatized.
And that's how she presented.
[woman on TV] Emotional testimony
revolved around the charge
that Jackson falsely imprisoned her
and her three children.
[Diane] On the stand, Janet talked about
being surrounded by the Jackson team
after the Martin Bashir documentary.
They said, "We've got
to hide you at Neverland,
so the media can't get you."
So she did anything they told her.
- [music turns ominous]
- [VCR clicks, whirs]
[Ron] We discovered
fairly early in the case,
the video that depicted
the entire Arvizo family
proclaiming their praise
for Michael Jackson
and how much he's done for their family.
He plays with them, laughs with them.
He, uh…
lets them win. [laughs]
[Ron] At the time
that that video was made,
Janet had no awareness at all that there
was anything going on that was unseemly,
anything that was wrong,
anything that was criminal.
She still believed that
Michael Jackson was the family savior.
Every door closed on us,
and Michael said, "All my doors are open."
"My home is your home."
"And your children,
I am like their father."
And me, he calls me "family."
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] Michael Jackson telling her
that they are now family,
that he has a special relationship
not just with her son,
but with her as well,
and that he could be counted upon,
those were the types of things
that June Chandler testified to as well.
What every prosecutor
who deals with sex crimes learns quickly,
a pattern of behavior
is repeated over a period of time.
And we believe there is a grooming process
that extends beyond the child,
that includes the family of the child.
Pretty consistently with all of these kids
that Michael Jackson was involved with,
there was no father figure.
That was the case with Jordan.
I mean, there was a divorce.
It was the case with Gavin.
Michael Jackson telling them,
"I am the father now."
"I will take care of you,
and I will love you,
and you will be cared for
and you will be attended to."
"You have to believe
I have only your best interests at heart."
"Now let's go to bed."
[unsettling music continues]
From the very beginning,
things did not make sense
about this family.
[dramatic music playing]
Michael Jackson, he couldn't understand,
why are they doing this to me?
Everybody has a past.
So when it came to Arvizos,
who are these people?
Michael told me, "That's your job, Brian."
"Your job is to find out
what really happened here."
I need to find
every skeleton in their closet,
dirt on their shoes.
"You've got to sniff it out."
Do the search, court records.
Bingo.
There's a case
against JCPenney's by the Arvizos.
[ominous music playing]
Gavin Arvizo went in and stole clothing,
and the security guard
saw him and caught him.
Janet Arvizo sees what's happening,
and a melee ensued.
A fight.
They did not get charged with shoplifting.
Instead, Janet Arvizo
filed a lawsuit against JCPenney's,
saying that the security guard supposedly
molested Janet Arvizo in the parking lot.
[music fades]
Wait a minute, they've done this before.
This is the same MO.
I found out there was $152,000
paid to them in a settlement agreement.
And I said, "They've got all this money.
What are they doing on welfare?"
They were scam artists.
They knew how to do it.
I found the smoking gun.
But was it enough?
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman 1] Today at the Jackson trial,
Jackson's attorney begins
cross-examining his accuser's mother.
Now the defense came into play.
[woman 2] Michael, are you looking forward
to the cross-examination of this witness?
[Trent] Tom Mesereau's cross-examination,
it was surgical.
Never explosive, but devastating.
He flipped the narrative.
He made the Arvizos the aggressors,
the predators,
and Michael Jackson the prey.
The welfare fraud was so powerful,
it resulted in her
claiming the Fifth Amendment.
He allowed Janet Arvizo
to effectively hang herself.
There was a palpable reaction
in the courtroom.
[Melissa] It did bother me.
- To me, it was…
- [suspenseful music continues]
It was just a farce, you know.
She just… She just was out for money.
Out for money.
At every opportunity,
the defense absolutely excoriated her.
The whole notion
that they're a family of grifters
looking for a quick buck is nonsense.
There was high drama in the courtroom
of the Michael Jackson
child molestation trial.
She witnessed Jackson
licking her son's face,
and she actually
did a reenactment of that,
which must have been incredibly bizarre.
She shouted, quote,
"Neverland is all about booze,
pornography, and sex with boys."
She was rambling.
She was incoherent. She was emotional.
[Diane] She was on the stand
several days in a row.
[reporters clamoring]
[Diane] Every day, she appeared
as a different person.
Once very meek,
and then the next day very mad,
and then the next day very sad.
You just never knew
what you were gonna get with Janet Arvizo.
All I know is sitting,
you know, six feet away from her,
she was pointing at the jury.
"Put yourself in my shoes.
Don't you judge me."
Talking about being kidnapped
in a hot-air balloon.
I called her Janet from Another Planet.
Sorry, but, you know,
I mean, that's just how she acted.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Ron] It's a normal reaction
for a mother who realizes
that their child has been exposed to harm.
And she was somebody who psychologically
didn't have the ability to deal with it.
I'm not sure I would have
the ability to deal with it,
and I had a fairly normal upbringing.
Today, we went
from Neverland to fantasy land.
[Trent] This witness was a disaster.
She was the worst possible witness
you could have imagined for a prosecutor.
It was an extraordinarily
pivotal moment in the case.
She was, at the end of the day,
what the defense needed.
And that was walking,
talking, reasonable doubt.
[crowd yelling indistinctly]
[Trent] I think it was a really
important moment for Michael Jackson.
The case was going very well for him.
[tense, pensive music continues]
[woman] Michael, are you pleased with
the way the cross-examination is going?
- [Michael] It's going well.
- [crowd yelling]
[Kerry] Michael was real excited
and jubilant, as a matter of fact.
- It made it a good day.
- [music turns ominous]
I cherish those days, um, the good days,
because most of the times
were extremely stressful.
Throughout the trial, he was
deteriorating mentally and physically,
you know, because he was
just paralyzed with fear and anxiety.
At times, you would see him…
just in thought,
and I'd see tears come down,
you know, because it was destroying him.
[woman 1 on TV] A key prosecution witness
is expected to testify, Jackson's ex-wife.
[woman 2] The singer's ex-wife,
the mother of two of his children,
is set to take the witness stand.
Just knowing that Debbie Rowe
is on the prosecution's side,
that was problematic.
[tense music playing]
[Randy] Debbie, Michael Jackson's ex-wife,
now she's going to be a witness.
I'm thinking,
"Oh man, what's going to happen?"
[Diane] Debbie Rowe gives Michael Jackson
what he's always wanted, his own children.
Not one, but two.
And she agrees
not to be part of the children's life.
She gave up her parental rights
so that the children were all his.
But she changed her mind.
[man on TV] Rowe is locked in
a custody battle with Jackson
over their children
and is reportedly upset because the singer
has not paid alimony for more than a year.
[Diane] She told the prosecution
she hadn't seen her children
in two and a half years
because Jackson wouldn't let her,
and she called him a sociopath.
What a coup for the prosecution
to get Debbie Rowe.
[ominous music playing]
[Randy] The night before,
I was at a steak joint
where we always ate every single night.
And there's Debbie.
She's with the prosecution,
and they're huddling,
and they got their heads down,
and they're taking notes,
and she's being very animated,
and who the heck knew what she was saying?
But I knew it wasn't good.
[ominous music continues]
[woman on TV] Sparks could fly later today
in the Michael Jackson child molestation
trial with the singer's ex-wife.
- [crowd screaming]
- [Ron] At this point, we had a battle.
We had to pull out all the stops.
Debbie Rowe, she had information
that was relevant, you know,
critical of him
and what he did with children.
Now, could we get her
to deliver that information
in a way that was effective
and was received well by a jury?
She didn't demonstrate
any hesitancy in doing so.
Could be potentially
devastating for this defense.
[man on TV] I think
she'll be given instant credibility
because of who she is
and what she may know.
[Brian] Debbie Rowe was going to appear
as a prosecution witness,
was a heart-stopping event.
Randy, Jermaine, La Toya, Mr. Jackson,
everyone in the defense,
talk about people's blood draining
from their face and their heart.
People were going to believe
she had the inside story.
[ominous music continues]
[Randy] There she is, Debbie Rowe, right?
And she looks at Michael.
He looks at her.
And there was a moment…
when I saw her flip.
Something happens in a courtroom
that it overcomes people,
and their emotions come out,
and her emotions came out.
"Michael, I think the world of you."
And she said so.
[tense, pensive music playing]
What she testified to and what she told us
were two very different things.
Yeah, if I was expecting her
to say something along the line of, um,
"I was very concerned about his behavior
and his association with children,"
she certainly didn't say that
on the witness stand.
[speaks indistinctly]
There's a limit to what you can do
to neutralize something like that.
You just have to live with it.
[Diane] It was pretty devastating.
The prosecution cut her testimony short.
They realized she's flipped.
She's not going to tell us
what she told us behind closed doors.
- Michael was numb the whole time.
- [ominous music playing]
He kind of just looked at me,
"Okay, that's my Debbie."
"I love her too," you know?
[woman on TV] Debbie Rowe was touted
as the prosecution's bombshell witness,
but she appears to have
exploded in their faces.
As she left the stand, Debbie Rowe
took this long, beseeching look,
like, "Look at me, would you, please?"
He, as I recall, just kept his head down.
The moment she got in the courtroom,
took the witness stand,
took one look at Jackson,
she melted like an ice cube.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Diane] Did she still love him?
Is that why she did it?
One theory, if she would testify
favorably for Michael Jackson,
there was this backdoor agreement
that he would let her see her children.
I don't think anybody really knows
except Debbie Rowe.
[woman] Michael, was it good
to see Debbie again?
[man 1] Michael, what was it like
to see Debbie Rowe?
- No comment, sir.
- [woman] No comment at all?
[man 2 on TV] The one person who has
a right to hate Michael Jackson, doesn't.
What does that say about Michael Jackson?
How could they
put this witness on the stand?
How could they not know
what she was going to testify to?
[man 3] It's bad. It's especially bad
because it's so late in the case.
You know, the defense is about to begin.
You want to start strong and end strong.
Well, this is both
the end of the prosecution case
and the end of the prosecution case.
[ominous music playing]
[man on TV] Forty-five days
and 85 witnesses later,
the prosecution
in the Michael Jackson case rested.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Brian] The prosecution
made so many mistakes,
Martin Bashir being one of them.
Debbie Rowe, oh my goodness.
But we, we were still in trouble.
Public opinion, very important.
Seventy percent said he was guilty.
Oh man, we were getting killed.
Since when do that number of Americans
agree on anything?
Could we move that needle
back where it belonged
on the defense side?
I can't wait till it's over.
If I see him in his pajamas again,
I don't know if I'll get through.
Defense is close to presenting its side.
Let's meet our panel and go to your calls.
- [woman] Hi, Larry.
- [Larry] Go ahead.
[woman] Do you think they should
let Michael get on the stand?
If I were defending him, absolutely not.
[tense music playing]
[crowd screaming]
[yelling]
[Nancy] After ten weeks of taking
pot shots at the state's case,
the defense kicks off.
[Diane] Now it's the defense's turn.
The defense had this big master plan
to polish up Michael Jackson's reputation.
So who do they call?
Wade Robson.
They call Brett Barnes,
who the prosecution said
that Michael Jackson groomed
and sexually molested.
But guess what?
They also called
the movie star Macaulay Culkin.
The Home Alone kid always said
glowing things about Michael Jackson.
What happened at the house?
That's what people are concerned about.
That's what's so weird. Nothing happened.
You know, I mean, nothing, really.
We played video games, you know?
[Brian] Macaulay Culkin. He's a neat guy.
I called him up, and I said,
"Mac, they're making all these
accusations against Michael about you."
And Macaulay Culkin says,
"From what I'm seeing
going on in this courtroom,
Michael is in deep, deep trouble."
"I'll be there for him, Brian.
I'll come in. I'll testify."
"I've told them a thousand times.
I'll tell them again."
[tense music playing]
[Diane] The jury looked like
they were a little starstruck.
There was the Home Alone kid right there,
you know, feet away from them,
swearing to tell the truth
and nothing but the truth.
He asked this jury to believe him.
"If you trust me,
Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin,
you should trust Michael Jackson."
Michael Jackson stared at him,
um, for a moment.
He smiled.
And it was a moment between two megastars,
um, when the world could have stopped
and the two of them just
sort of shared a moment with each other.
He categorically denied
that Michael Jackson ever molested
or ever inappropriately touched him.
[woman on TV] Culkin called
the allegations absolutely ridiculous.
[man] The second defense witness,
Brett Barnes, said the same thing.
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.
[Brian] Wade says,
"No, Michael never touched me."
"He never did anything
that was even remotely
associated with these accusations."
[tense music continues]
[Melissa] Wade was very convincing,
made me feel like
he was telling me the truth.
It's really hard
to kind of lie to somebody.
When you look directly at him,
you kind of would look away
or look, you know, distracted.
But he didn't do any of that.
It was a trio of home runs
for Tom Mesereau.
All three of those young men said
their time at Neverland was magical, safe.
Did you always sleep
with Michael Jackson when you were there?
"Yes." "And nothing bad ever happened?"
"No, nothing bad ever happened."
I was hearkened back to 1993
when Wade Robson as a 9-year-old
and Brett Barnes as a 9- or 10-year-old
were brought out by Team Jackson.
[man] Have you slept
in the same bed with him?
Yeah, but I was on one side,
he was on the other.
It's this big bed.
Yeah, there's been different times
where it'd just be me and Michael.
Then there'd be other times
where he has other friends over too.
It's just a slumber party.
We just have a lot of fun.
[Diane] And there they were years later,
testifying as grown men
to the very same thing.
Yes, they slept in bed
with Michael Jackson,
but "nothing ever happened."
It was a mantra.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing happened.
How much stronger
can you get for the defense?
And you have to wonder why the prosecution
brought these
three cases up to begin with.
What we had to overcome
was something that was almost devastating.
We had presented to the jury our belief
that Wade Robson was a victim.
We had a witness who saw that
he was being abused by Michael Jackson.
He insisted he was not.
That's very difficult evidence
to overcome, right?
Now, it's my task to cross-examine him.
[Sheree] I was inside the courtroom.
At one point,
the prosecution was so frustrated
on how well he was doing for the defense,
he leaned on the podium,
like out of frustration,
like, "We can't break you."
And he said, "You know,
maybe he did these things to you
and you were asleep."
The audience just gasped
because it was like,
you're that desperate?
It was hard to get past that.
You know, it's hard to convince a jury
when the subject of the act itself
says it didn't happen.
[tense music playing]
I had decided that the most effective way
to be able to deal with that
was to simply do a presentation
of some of the materials,
sexually graphic material that we had
seized from Michael Jackson's home.
[Diane] Two books
introduced by the prosecution.
One of them is Boys Will Be Boys!
And one, I'm going
to cover up the cover photo,
called simply The Boy,
a Photographic Essay.
In these books, you will see
naked boys sprawled on rocks,
naked boys eating bananas,
naked boys touching each other.
And suddenly, you saw Wade Robson,
who sat stock-still in the witness chair,
slump down.
His whole demeanor changed.
And you could see
these books affected him.
And I had to wonder,
had Michael Jackson shown him these books?
[man on TV] Ron Zonen, the prosecutor,
did an absolutely magnificent job
of taking this witness
and turning him to his own witness.
[Ron] My goal was to make this jury
as uneasy as possible.
I want the jury to sit there and think,
"I sure wouldn't want
my child in bed with a man
who found this kind of material
to be fascinating or enticing."
[tense music continues]
[man 1 on TV] I frankly felt like
I was hit by a two-by-four in the stomach.
It was only about two hours of testimony,
but it was tremendously powerful, Nancy.
[Diane] The prosecution
did score some points.
Was it enough?
Well, that was up to the jury.
[tense music continues]
[Trent] For the next two weeks,
Tom Mesereau took the jury through
every piece of evidence that was critical,
every witness that was important.
They took 50 witnesses
and put them on in over two weeks.
[Thomas] There were so many
ridiculous aspects to this trial
that I think our witnesses
blew them out even more.
[man 2 on TV]
Jackson lead attorney Tom Mesereau,
he simply said, "The defense rests."
[music crescendos, fades]
[man 3] Michael Jackson admits
to sleeping with children,
but is the 46-year-old pop star
a child molester?
It is now up to a jury in Santa Maria,
California, to answer that question.
After more than three months of testimony,
the jury in the Michael Jackson
child molestation trial
began deliberating the case on Friday.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
Michael! Innocent!
- Michael's innocent!
- [suspenseful music playing]
[Melissa] I was nervous.
The first thing we did was we took a poll.
It was almost kind of equal
of people thinking he was guilty
and people thinking he was innocent.
What has to be proven
is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Can you doubt that happened?
[suspenseful music continues]
[man 1 on TV] They've been
in the deliberation now for three days.
The longer it goes on, it could mean
that they're basically
locked on some issues.
[Melissa] Emotions were high.
There was yelling
and crying and screaming.
The people outside could hear us.
All over the world,
everybody was watching.
The media was all up in it.
That's a lot of pressure.
[man 2 on TV] Something that
is resonating through
the African-American community right now,
they do not believe that
Michael Jackson is being treated fairly.
Michael Jackson,
in front of a jury of mostly white,
conservative Santa Marians,
was probably going to be found guilty.
Go back to the mug shot.
- Go back to dancing on the roof of an SUV.
- [crowd screaming]
[man 3 on TV] There are ten counts
against Michael Jackson.
Go back to all of the charges.
[man 4] I think for the prosecutors,
the key is looking at the big picture,
saying, "There's a pattern here."
"This is not just about this boy."
This is the MO.
Facing the kind of charges that
he was facing, the odds were against him.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Diane] The jurors, I mean,
they're right in that room,
right back there.
They have to reach a verdict,
and I don't think
it's gonna happen any time soon.
This is a pretty complicated case.
Day after day after day,
more and more of the fans would gather.
[man] Diane is on fire!
We don't need the water!
Let the bitch, bitch burn!
It got really tense in that parking lot.
[woman 1] Stop child predators!
[woman 2] Her problem is he's Black.
What came out of his mouth
about sleeping with boys?
What came out of his mouth?
I don't know what kind of kids you raised.
That does not mean he did it.
You're going to hell, uh,
possibly with Michael Jackson.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
Innocent! Innocent!
[Sheree] I won't use the word "anxious."
I will use the word "prayerful."
We have faith in the jury.
We're gonna let them handle it.
[crowd chanting] Michael's innocent!
Sooner or later,
somebody has to come out of that room
with some kind of an announcement.
We had the bailiff tell the judge,
you know, "We're at a standstill."
"What are we supposed to do?"
The judge says,
"No, we ain't doing no mistrial."
"You're gonna sit there and work it out."
[man on TV] The heart of this case is,
do you believe the boys
making these accusations?
And do you believe this mother that they
were all confined at the Neverland home?
[suspenseful music playing]
It's the biggest story of the century,
so we've got to cover this.
What we want to know is, where's Gavin?
We are basically on Gavin.
He doesn't know we're there.
It's long-lens work.
[camera clicking]
On the face of it, it's a picture of Gavin
and his brother, Star, buying some snacks.
It looked like it was movie night.
And as they're leaving the store,
you start seeing them look up
at the TV mounted on the ceiling.
[man 1] Breaking news.
The jury in Santa Maria has sent word
that it has reached a verdict.
There's a verdict in the Jackson case.
This is how he saw it.
We were there at that moment.
It's not a happy picture. He looks scared.
They jump on their bikes,
and they pedal home as fast as they can.
[suspenseful music continues]
There is a verdict.
I am told there is a verdict.
All right, so it is now official
that at 1:30 p.m. Pacific time,
a verdict will be announced
in the Michael Jackson case.
Everybody was like, "Whoa."
My heart is beating real fast.
[man 2] A jury of 12 men and women.
If one of them expresses reasonable doubt
on any one of the charges,
he is acquitted.
The sheriff said,
"I just want to let you know
that when your friend is found guilty,
we're going to rush his ass
out of that courtroom so fast
your head's going to spin."
And I'm like…
"This guy knows something I don't know."
Like, Michael Jackson's
going to be found guilty.
[man 3] The jury verdict is to be read
when he arrives at the courthouse.
His motorcade, as you see
from this helicopter shot live.
[Kerry] Michael's life hinged on
what these jurors are going to say.
And he's like just in shock.
I found a scripture
in the Bible, Isaiah 41,
and I gave this to his mother, Katherine.
And I told her to read this.
[somber music playing]
"So do not fear, for I am with you."
"Do not be dismayed, for I am your God."
"I will strengthen you and help you."
"I will uphold you
with my righteous right hand."
"All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced."
"For I am the Lord, your God,
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you,
'Do not fear, I will help you.'"
Wow.
[sniffles, sobs softly]
One moment. Wow.
This is taking me back.
[inhales, exhales sharply]
This is taking me back
to that very moment.
[man 1 on TV] Michael Jackson is
a few moments away from hearing his fate.
[Nancy] It's been over 60 days
of evidence, of testimony,
of late-to-the-court moments.
In the next, uh, 50 minutes or so.
Live outside.
The jury will release its judgment.
[man 2 yells] Michael!
[man 3] You see there Michael Jackson's
team arriving here at the courthouse.
So many fans, media, all just in a crush.
- [tense music playing]
- [crowd yelling]
[man 3] This could be the last time
that Michael Jackson
is a free man for a long time.
[Sheree] I just remember seeing his face.
I'm just like, "Wow," you know.
- [crowd yelling]
- [cameras clicking]
[Stacy] The slow walk, it was almost
like a death march, you know.
Blank look on his face.
No emotion whatsoever.
It's almost like
he's a zombie just existing.
[man 4] A live audio feed,
which the judge has agreed to.
And we will be hearing it
all at the same time.
[Nancy] The jury is making their way
into the jury room.
Diane Dimond, row one.
Every muscle in my body was tense
because after all these months,
finally, it's going to be over?
Whether you supported him
or whether you were against him,
you could see everybody nervous.
[Nancy] All lawyers standing up.
Michael Jackson standing up,
waiting for the verdict to be read.
[music fades]
[man 5] We're all in listening mode here.
First word, first audio we hear
from inside that courthouse.
The microphone's on.
[woman over PA] The People
of the State of California, plaintiff,
versus Michael Joe Jackson, defendant.
Count one verdict.
We, the jury in the above entitled case
find the defendant
not guilty of conspiracy
as charged in count one of the indictment.
Count two verdict.
Not guilty of a lewd act
upon a minor child.
Count three verdict.
[man 6] Michael Jackson is now free.
- Yeah!
- [woman over PA] Count ten verdict.
Not guilty of providing
alcoholic beverages.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Not guilty on all counts.
Michael's vindicated, acquitted.
I told you so.
Michael Jackson was persecuted
for crimes he didn't commit.
It was proven in that court of law today.
[cheering]
[laughs] I mean,
they're roaring out there.
We could hear it inside the courtroom.
I lost it.
I couldn't stop crying
because it was just so emotional.
- [poignant music playing]
- [crowd yelling]
[Sheree] I remember tears.
I'm jubilant but can't
physically give any more.
I completely pass out.
I end up on the stretcher.
At the end of the day,
Michael was always innocent,
and he is loved.
- [crowd yelling]
- No evidence! Not guilty! No evidence!
[Diane] It was tough. Not guilty.
That doesn't say innocent.
It says not guilty
of the charges brought against him.
I did come away at the end thinking
that the State had kind of blown it.
I think the State
made the case so complicated
by adding the conspiracy counts.
[crowd cheering]
The man's innocent. He always was.
[woman on TV]
Defense attorney Tom Mesereau said,
"If you have reasonable doubt
about this family accusing Jackson,
you must acquit," and they did.
[Ron] If there are ever two words
you never want to hear, it's "not guilty."
It's the worst moment you could have
as a professional prosecutor
to ever hear "not guilty."
But it is what happened.
And we're professionals.
And it's not guilty.
The jury has spoken.
That's it. We're done.
I'm looking at Michael Jackson.
He didn't look excited or happy.
He turned to Tom Mesereau like,
"What happened?"
And Tom Mesereau had to whisper
in his ear like, "Hey, you know, we won."
I turned around and looked,
and Michael Jackson looked right at me.
And he went, "Thank you,"
and bowed his head down to me.
I'm like, "Just doing my job."
- [dramatic music playing]
- [crowd screaming]
[Randy] I went over to Michael.
"Congratulations, Mike,
you know, you did it."
And he kind of looked right through me.
[woman on TV] What a trial
this was for him.
Moments of total humiliation,
total anguish,
embarrassment, physical pain.
This isn't exactly a day you want to just
throw your hat up and have a party.
[dramatic music continues]
[Kerry] We put him in the car.
And it was relatively quiet.
I saw him lean back like this
and exhale.
And I think it kind of set in that,
"Wow, I am done."
You know, "I am going home."
You know, "I'm a free man."
[crowd yelling]
[Randy] I had this idealized,
romanticized notion.
Now he's going to get his life back.
The one person who disabused me of that
notion was his manager, Frank DiLeo.
He turned to me and he said,
"You don't get it."
I said, "What?"
He said,
"This is life-ruining for Michael."
"He will never recover from this."
That just hit me hard, you know.
I mean, I was like,
"Oh my God, he's right."
Michael, he knew
that there were a lot of people
who felt that he was guilty,
no matter what the verdict was.
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] The key core part of the case
is the testimony of the boy,
his younger brother, and the mother.
And clearly the jurors, all 12 of them,
rejected the testimony.
The main thing that Gavin kept repeating
is that, "They didn't believe me."
"Why didn't they believe me?"
Um, you know, he just-- That's how he is.
He felt like he had failed.
"Why didn't they believe me?"
[woman 1 on TV] Above-entitled case find
the defendant not guilty of conspiracy…
[Trent] People continued to question,
was he guilty?
Was he not guilty?
While this was a trial clearly about
Michael Jackson and molestation charges,
the trial was also a trial
about America's,
and maybe the world's,
most fragile obsession.
Michael Jackson has set
the music world on its ear.
[crowd screaming]
[man on TV] The album is still number one
after 57 weeks in the charts.
[Trent] Our obsession with fame,
celebrity, and status…
[cameras clicking]
…balanced against suspicion of our icon.
[woman 2] He's a little weird.
And all of those things
came colliding together in this trial.
…most well-known, controversial people
in the world is in the fight of his life.
Rumors fueled
by a tabloid frenzy and obsession.
[Trent] Every time we watch a tabloid show
or every time we read a tabloid magazine,
that was the kerosene
placed onto the slowly burning embers
of Michael Jackson.
- And we had to make a value judgment.
- [crowd chanting] Innocent!
[Trent] What do we believe?
And what don't we believe?
And in the end,
it left us looking in the mirror.
[gate creaks, shuts]
And I'm not sure that we like what we saw.
[animal calls]
[unsettling music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]
[ominous music playing]
[man 1] Mr. Jackson, uh… [clears throat]
…we're back here after the lunch break.
Did anything occur over the lunch break
that, uh, would affect your ability
to recall or recount information?
No.
[man 1] Are you familiar with a person
named Jordy Chandler?
- Who?
- [man 2] We're not going there.
Don't answer.
We're not going to get into
who he knows and doesn't know.
If you want to ask a question,
go ahead and ask it, but…
I believe it's beyond the scope
of discoverable matters in the case.
[Ron] Michael Jackson
is sitting there smiling.
Of course he knows Jordy Chandler.
[man 1] Is it your position
that you will instruct Mr. Jackson
not to answer any questions
that pertain to the issue
of Jordy Chandler in any way?
[Ron] This was the first allegation
of abuse against Michael Jackson.
The Chandler case
took place about ten years
prior to the case involving Gavin.
I wanted the jury to understand
that this guy's done this before.
[man] Michael!
[Ron] I wanted to bring in
that evidence to show
that he has a propensity
to commit sex crimes.
- It could change the outcome of this case.
- [crowd yelling indistinctly]
[woman on TV] …the Jackson jury
to hear past trial sex claims.
This is a critical ruling.
- Where there's smoke, there's fire.
- [crowd yelling]
[Ron] It's very compelling evidence.
And every time I have done that
on a child molest case, I've won.
[crowd yelling]
- [crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
- [ominous music continues]
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] Neverland.
This fantasy island that he created…
was a huge piece of property
with multitudes of staff.
I believe some of the cleaning staff,
the senior staff, the secretaries,
the security people,
knew what was going on.
I am convinced
some of them were complicit.
How could they not have known?
[unsettling music continues]
They knew when to stay away
and where to stay away.
They understood that,
you know, as long as you work here,
don't dare ever think about even
mentioning what goes on here to anybody.
There will be hell to pay if you do.
[music turns ominous]
We wanted the jury to know what they saw.
[woman on TV] The Michael Jackson trial
is back in session today.
The jurors continue to hear testimony
about past molestation allegations
against the self-proclaimed King of Pop.
- [crowd yelling indistinctly]
- [man] Michael!
[Diane] Former employees were going
to come and testify that for years,
Michael Jackson
lured young boys to Neverland
and sexually molested them.
It could be a real game changer.
[man 1 on TV] Each day,
we're going to hear disturbing details
of what people claim that they saw.
Michael Jackson knew what they had seen.
[ominous music continues]
I had interviewed former employees of his.
They'd all talked about misbehavior
between Michael and young boys.
None of them came forward
until we got them to.
Get into court,
you have to answer questions.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Diane] I'll just read out of my notebook.
Ralph Chacon.
He was a security guard at Neverland.
One night on his patrol
by the shower area, by the swimming pool…
[water splashing]
…there was Michael
and Jordy Chandler, both naked.
"I saw that Mr. Jackson was caressing
the boy's hair and caressing his face."
"And Michael Jackson
performing oral sex on the boy."
Blanca Francia, a former maid,
talks about finding Wade Robson
in the shower with Michael Jackson.
[man 2 on TV]
Testimony just keeps on coming.
Another ex-employee took the stand.
[Diane] A former chef from Neverland
named Phillip LeMarque.
He testifies that Michael Jackson
was playing the Thriller video game
with the movie star Macaulay Culkin.
And Michael Jackson's left hand
was inside the pants of the kid.
[video game trilling]
Question, why didn't you go to the police?
Quote, "No one would have believed me."
[Ron] There wasn't a one of them
who was able to say
that Michael Jackson, to their knowledge,
ever had an adult guest
in his room overnight.
Not even a wife. And he was married twice.
It was only adolescent boys
who stayed in his room.
Many members of the press started to say,
"This is a bigger subject than we thought,
than just the Arvizo family."
According to witnesses,
there was the Home Alone kid,
Macaulay Culkin,
Wade Robson, Brett Barnes,
and Jordan Chandler.
[Kevin] It was like this pattern
of prepubescent boys.
Almost like a conveyor belt.
They come in young,
get old, they get off the other side.
Jim, bring me up to date, friend.
Five other children who Jackson allegedly
groomed and inappropriately touched
could very well turn this jury
against Michael Jackson.
[ominous music playing]
It did make me kind of stop and think,
"Wow, what if they're, like, the same
thing that's been going on with Gavin,
you know, the same MO?"
[Nancy] Five boys,
but only one of them
is going to testify, correct?
Four of the boys,
Jordy Chandler, Brett Barnes,
and Wade Robson, and Macaulay Culkin,
none of them would talk to us.
We were down to one.
[ominous music continues]
Blanca Francia was one of the maids.
She had a son,
adolescent son, named Jason,
now an adult, who was cooperative.
And he did testify for us.
You know, when he first walked in,
I noticed Michael Jackson look at him
and then snap his head around,
and he just looked forward.
Jason Francia, youth pastor,
then about 8, 9, 10 years old.
Three times, he said
he was abused by Michael Jackson.
"Question, 'Did his hands
make contact with your genitalia?'"
"'Yes, over the clothes.'"
"'How long was his hand there?'"
"'Two cartoons' worth.'"
[unsettling music playing]
Well, it was very moving.
I had interviewed his mother
about these incidents back in 1993,
and here, years later,
her son is telling me
exactly the same thing. [voice breaks]
It really got to me.
His testimony really got to me.
[man on TV] There's witness after witness
that say Jackson has a pattern
and practice of molesting children.
And the jury's going to look to that,
and they're going to have a difficult time
saying that Jackson
is not a pedophile in this case.
The prosecution, they said, "We got him."
We have a serial pedophile.
Well, what a bunch of junk that was.
The people who testified,
Francia, Chacon, McManus, LaMarque,
former employees who were angry.
They had an ax to grind.
- And we were going to prove it.
- [dramatic music playing]
Jackson's lead attorney, Tom Mesereau,
counterattacked ferociously.
[Trent] The defense skillfully
took each one of these witnesses
and put them in one box,
and it was a box of grifters.
[dramatic music continues]
Some of these people were paid money
by the media for their stories.
[Nancy] The housekeeper reportedly
sold her story to Hard Copy for $20,000.
[Diane] He had something
on every single one of them.
You got $20,000?
The fact of the matter is,
back in the '90s,
tabloid television paid people.
I mean, everybody knows that.
Now they're having
their reputation battered in court.
He was masterful.
I mean, he used facts and a tone of voice
that made the jury think,
"Oh boy, these people can't be believed."
[tense music playing]
Yeah, you know,
in my opinion, money hungry.
People wanted Michael Jackson's money,
no matter how to get it.
[Thomas] I think
we cross-examined effectively.
They put on witnesses
who were lacking in credibility.
[man 1 on TV] Every one
of these prosecution witnesses
has their own little ax to grind
to some degree.
[woman on TV] This is just Mesereau
throwing more dirt.
We've had ten people testify,
and he says they're all crooks and liars.
You have to buy that all these ten people
are willing to risk perjury, defamation…
[man 1] They made
a pretty strong case here.
[man 2] All about credibility,
not physical evidence.
All of this is hanging in the air
for the jury to consider.
[music fades]
[woman] I think the prosecution needs to
pull something really big out of the bag.
[crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
[Diane] As terrible as it looked
at that point for the prosecution,
what they did next,
I thought, was brilliant.
What better person to bring to the stand
than the mother of Jordy Chandler,
the little boy who got millions
and millions of dollars to shut up?
- And so June Chandler came to the stand.
- [ominous music playing]
[Brian] When we discovered that
June Chandler was going to take the stand,
there was pandemonium, okay? [laughs]
It came back to haunt us.
[Diane] To understand
how significant it was
for the mother of Jordy Chandler
to take the stand,
you have to go back ten years earlier,
with this notebook right here,
book number one
of my notes on Michael Jackson.
This is the original story
that we broke back in 1993.
[ominous music playing]
[man 1 on TV] America is in shock tonight
over the scandal
surrounding pop star Michael Jackson.
Barry, I don't want to overstate anything.
I try to be a careful reporter.
But we could very well be watching
the downfall of a superstar.
[man 2] Sources in Los Angeles say
a 13-year-old boy's claim of sexual abuse
led to the criminal probe
of Michael Jackson.
[ominous music continues]
[man 3] It's the LAPD's
Sexually Exploited Child Unit
of their Juvenile Division
that is handling this case.
[music crescendos]
[Rosibel] When we first
interviewed the victim,
it was at his father's home.
His parents were divorced.
The allegations were he had a sexual
relationship with Michael Jackson.
The victim became very detailed.
One of the allegations
was that they would shower together.
He drew specific details
of Mr. Jackson's body.
He drew a picture of Mr. Jackson's
private part, and specifically his penis,
stating that Mr. Jackson
had markings on his, uh, penis.
Because of the details
that he was giving to me
and to the other officers in the room,
there was absolutely no way
that he could make this up.
[tense music playing]
[man 1 on TV] The Jacksons' lawyers
had to guarantee
that Michael would submit
to a police strip search
so cops could see
if various parts of Jackson's body
matched up with the descriptions.
[Rosibel] The body warrant was served
to photograph Michael Jackson.
[camera clicking]
Mr. Jackson was hysterical at the time,
yelling, screaming,
yelling at his attorneys,
"How are you allowing this to happen?"
They served a search warrant on me
which allowed them to view
and photograph my body,
including my penis,
my buttocks, my lower torso,
thighs, and any other area
that they wanted.
[woman on TV] This is the first time
the world has seen Michael Jackson
deny the allegations of sexual abuse.
In a message carried on live television
from his Santa Barbara ranch,
he emotionally described undergoing
a recent body search by investigators.
It was the most
humiliating ordeal of my life.
[tense music continues]
[Rosibel] From what I understand,
some detectives were able
to corroborate the sketch,
actually match the photographs
and the markings
that Michael Jackson had on his body.
[music intensifies]
We knew that we had a good case,
but the victim did not want
to pursue the criminal case.
[music turns dramatic]
The young boy who was the catalyst,
uh, for this investigation
has recently informed us
that he does not wish to participate,
that we must decline
prosecution involving Mr. Jackson.
[Rosibel] I was in disbelief.
We don't have a victim.
We don't have anybody else
who's willing to come forward.
We don't have a case.
[man 2 on TV] The settlement is in,
and Jackson's young accuser
is now California's newest millionaire.
Michael Jackson understood
what this kid was capable of doing to him,
and $23 million was to keep
Michael Jackson out of prison.
I did say to him, you know,
"But that's got to be the end, Mike."
"You can never be seen
around kids again, ever."
[music fades]
- [crowd chanting] Michael, innocent!
- [yelling indistinctly]
- Michael, innocent!
- [somber music playing]
[man on TV] The mother
of the 1993 alleged victim
is the 51st witness
to testify for the prosecution.
June Chandler,
this highly credible witness.
This is the first time
the jury's going to hear
the truth about
what happened with her son.
Everything short of the actual
description of molestation,
everything else could come from her.
June Chandler's testimony was riveting.
[ominous music playing]
- [games chiming]
- [indistinct chatter]
[Diane] She said she and her son
and small daughter
traveled the world with Michael Jackson.
[cameras clicking]
It was a whirlwind existence.
[ominous music continues]
June Chandler testified
it was the end of March 1993
that they went to Vegas.
Jackson came to her crying.
"You don't trust me. We're a family.
Why won't you let Jordan be with me?"
And she said, "He is with you."
"But why not in my bedroom?"
And Michael was trembling and saying,
"We're a family.
Jordy is having fun with me."
"Why can't he sleep in my bed?
There's nothing wrong."
"There's nothing going on.
Don't you trust me?"
And in the end,
she did allow him to sleep with Jackson.
And from that point on,
he always slept with Michael Jackson.
MJ spent the night more than 30 times
in her Santa Monica house.
Where did they stay?
"In my son's bedroom."
Question, "Is there more
than one bed in that room?"
"No."
[ominous music continues]
That just gives me chills.
You couldn't get it
out of your mind that this woman
got talked into letting her son
sleep with Michael Jackson.
He was 12 years old.
[man on TV] Jackson gave her
a very expensive Cartier bracelet.
And from then on, every time
Jackson and Jordy were together,
they shared a bed.
You got the sense that she sold her son.
[music turns unsettling]
[Diane] And then she told the jury
that she hadn't seen her son in 11 years.
You got the impression that June Chandler
realized she had done something wrong.
She had allowed access to her son
that she now regretted.
I know she was hurting.
I could see that in her face
when she would talk about Jordy.
[somber music playing]
[Ron] They were not able to resume
a kind of a normal
mother-son relationship after that.
It would be speculation,
but I think Jordan blamed her
for not protecting him
from this abusive relationship
as a mother should have been.
You get diamonds, I get abused.
That's their understanding.
It was heartbreaking
and infuriating at the same time.
I just remember sitting in the room
watching her on the stand.
I just thought, "This woman perhaps
gave a death blow to Michael."
I'm thinking the jury
is going to send him to prison.
It did make me
kind of stop and think, "Wow."
Knowing that Michael Jackson
paid off this family
makes you wonder, is he guilty?
[man 1] Michael. Michael, do you think
June Chandler told the truth?
There'll be no comment.
There'll be no comment.
[man 2 on TV] The pattern she showed
was so close to the current case,
the jury could really believe
Jackson had a way
of going about seducing these kids.
[man 3] The prosecution is wrapping up
the molestation part of its case,
moving on to conspiracy,
alleging the Arvizo family
was held against their will.
[tense music playing]
Janet Arvizo, the mother of the accuser,
is on the stand.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
- Innocent!
- Michael!
[woman on TV] Michael Jackson
face-to-face with the mother
of the teenage boy
he's accused of molesting.
For the prosecutors, Janet Arvizo,
the mother of the accuser, Gavin Arvizo,
could not be a more important,
pivotal witness.
[tense music continues]
She was going to testify
that she had been kidnapped,
the family had been
held against their will,
and then Michael Jackson
had molested her son.
- [indistinct chatter]
- [tense music continues]
[Ron] Janet was a very complicated woman.
Three kids when she was very young,
lived in a state of poverty.
They had a one-room studio apartment.
Married to a man
who was violent and abusive.
And that had an effect
on how she viewed the world.
Insecure and conflicted
and emotionally traumatized.
And that's how she presented.
[woman on TV] Emotional testimony
revolved around the charge
that Jackson falsely imprisoned her
and her three children.
[Diane] On the stand, Janet talked about
being surrounded by the Jackson team
after the Martin Bashir documentary.
They said, "We've got
to hide you at Neverland,
so the media can't get you."
So she did anything they told her.
- [music turns ominous]
- [VCR clicks, whirs]
[Ron] We discovered
fairly early in the case,
the video that depicted
the entire Arvizo family
proclaiming their praise
for Michael Jackson
and how much he's done for their family.
He plays with them, laughs with them.
He, uh…
lets them win. [laughs]
[Ron] At the time
that that video was made,
Janet had no awareness at all that there
was anything going on that was unseemly,
anything that was wrong,
anything that was criminal.
She still believed that
Michael Jackson was the family savior.
Every door closed on us,
and Michael said, "All my doors are open."
"My home is your home."
"And your children,
I am like their father."
And me, he calls me "family."
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] Michael Jackson telling her
that they are now family,
that he has a special relationship
not just with her son,
but with her as well,
and that he could be counted upon,
those were the types of things
that June Chandler testified to as well.
What every prosecutor
who deals with sex crimes learns quickly,
a pattern of behavior
is repeated over a period of time.
And we believe there is a grooming process
that extends beyond the child,
that includes the family of the child.
Pretty consistently with all of these kids
that Michael Jackson was involved with,
there was no father figure.
That was the case with Jordan.
I mean, there was a divorce.
It was the case with Gavin.
Michael Jackson telling them,
"I am the father now."
"I will take care of you,
and I will love you,
and you will be cared for
and you will be attended to."
"You have to believe
I have only your best interests at heart."
"Now let's go to bed."
[unsettling music continues]
From the very beginning,
things did not make sense
about this family.
[dramatic music playing]
Michael Jackson, he couldn't understand,
why are they doing this to me?
Everybody has a past.
So when it came to Arvizos,
who are these people?
Michael told me, "That's your job, Brian."
"Your job is to find out
what really happened here."
I need to find
every skeleton in their closet,
dirt on their shoes.
"You've got to sniff it out."
Do the search, court records.
Bingo.
There's a case
against JCPenney's by the Arvizos.
[ominous music playing]
Gavin Arvizo went in and stole clothing,
and the security guard
saw him and caught him.
Janet Arvizo sees what's happening,
and a melee ensued.
A fight.
They did not get charged with shoplifting.
Instead, Janet Arvizo
filed a lawsuit against JCPenney's,
saying that the security guard supposedly
molested Janet Arvizo in the parking lot.
[music fades]
Wait a minute, they've done this before.
This is the same MO.
I found out there was $152,000
paid to them in a settlement agreement.
And I said, "They've got all this money.
What are they doing on welfare?"
They were scam artists.
They knew how to do it.
I found the smoking gun.
But was it enough?
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman 1] Today at the Jackson trial,
Jackson's attorney begins
cross-examining his accuser's mother.
Now the defense came into play.
[woman 2] Michael, are you looking forward
to the cross-examination of this witness?
[Trent] Tom Mesereau's cross-examination,
it was surgical.
Never explosive, but devastating.
He flipped the narrative.
He made the Arvizos the aggressors,
the predators,
and Michael Jackson the prey.
The welfare fraud was so powerful,
it resulted in her
claiming the Fifth Amendment.
He allowed Janet Arvizo
to effectively hang herself.
There was a palpable reaction
in the courtroom.
[Melissa] It did bother me.
- To me, it was…
- [suspenseful music continues]
It was just a farce, you know.
She just… She just was out for money.
Out for money.
At every opportunity,
the defense absolutely excoriated her.
The whole notion
that they're a family of grifters
looking for a quick buck is nonsense.
There was high drama in the courtroom
of the Michael Jackson
child molestation trial.
She witnessed Jackson
licking her son's face,
and she actually
did a reenactment of that,
which must have been incredibly bizarre.
She shouted, quote,
"Neverland is all about booze,
pornography, and sex with boys."
She was rambling.
She was incoherent. She was emotional.
[Diane] She was on the stand
several days in a row.
[reporters clamoring]
[Diane] Every day, she appeared
as a different person.
Once very meek,
and then the next day very mad,
and then the next day very sad.
You just never knew
what you were gonna get with Janet Arvizo.
All I know is sitting,
you know, six feet away from her,
she was pointing at the jury.
"Put yourself in my shoes.
Don't you judge me."
Talking about being kidnapped
in a hot-air balloon.
I called her Janet from Another Planet.
Sorry, but, you know,
I mean, that's just how she acted.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Ron] It's a normal reaction
for a mother who realizes
that their child has been exposed to harm.
And she was somebody who psychologically
didn't have the ability to deal with it.
I'm not sure I would have
the ability to deal with it,
and I had a fairly normal upbringing.
Today, we went
from Neverland to fantasy land.
[Trent] This witness was a disaster.
She was the worst possible witness
you could have imagined for a prosecutor.
It was an extraordinarily
pivotal moment in the case.
She was, at the end of the day,
what the defense needed.
And that was walking,
talking, reasonable doubt.
[crowd yelling indistinctly]
[Trent] I think it was a really
important moment for Michael Jackson.
The case was going very well for him.
[tense, pensive music continues]
[woman] Michael, are you pleased with
the way the cross-examination is going?
- [Michael] It's going well.
- [crowd yelling]
[Kerry] Michael was real excited
and jubilant, as a matter of fact.
- It made it a good day.
- [music turns ominous]
I cherish those days, um, the good days,
because most of the times
were extremely stressful.
Throughout the trial, he was
deteriorating mentally and physically,
you know, because he was
just paralyzed with fear and anxiety.
At times, you would see him…
just in thought,
and I'd see tears come down,
you know, because it was destroying him.
[woman 1 on TV] A key prosecution witness
is expected to testify, Jackson's ex-wife.
[woman 2] The singer's ex-wife,
the mother of two of his children,
is set to take the witness stand.
Just knowing that Debbie Rowe
is on the prosecution's side,
that was problematic.
[tense music playing]
[Randy] Debbie, Michael Jackson's ex-wife,
now she's going to be a witness.
I'm thinking,
"Oh man, what's going to happen?"
[Diane] Debbie Rowe gives Michael Jackson
what he's always wanted, his own children.
Not one, but two.
And she agrees
not to be part of the children's life.
She gave up her parental rights
so that the children were all his.
But she changed her mind.
[man on TV] Rowe is locked in
a custody battle with Jackson
over their children
and is reportedly upset because the singer
has not paid alimony for more than a year.
[Diane] She told the prosecution
she hadn't seen her children
in two and a half years
because Jackson wouldn't let her,
and she called him a sociopath.
What a coup for the prosecution
to get Debbie Rowe.
[ominous music playing]
[Randy] The night before,
I was at a steak joint
where we always ate every single night.
And there's Debbie.
She's with the prosecution,
and they're huddling,
and they got their heads down,
and they're taking notes,
and she's being very animated,
and who the heck knew what she was saying?
But I knew it wasn't good.
[ominous music continues]
[woman on TV] Sparks could fly later today
in the Michael Jackson child molestation
trial with the singer's ex-wife.
- [crowd screaming]
- [Ron] At this point, we had a battle.
We had to pull out all the stops.
Debbie Rowe, she had information
that was relevant, you know,
critical of him
and what he did with children.
Now, could we get her
to deliver that information
in a way that was effective
and was received well by a jury?
She didn't demonstrate
any hesitancy in doing so.
Could be potentially
devastating for this defense.
[man on TV] I think
she'll be given instant credibility
because of who she is
and what she may know.
[Brian] Debbie Rowe was going to appear
as a prosecution witness,
was a heart-stopping event.
Randy, Jermaine, La Toya, Mr. Jackson,
everyone in the defense,
talk about people's blood draining
from their face and their heart.
People were going to believe
she had the inside story.
[ominous music continues]
[Randy] There she is, Debbie Rowe, right?
And she looks at Michael.
He looks at her.
And there was a moment…
when I saw her flip.
Something happens in a courtroom
that it overcomes people,
and their emotions come out,
and her emotions came out.
"Michael, I think the world of you."
And she said so.
[tense, pensive music playing]
What she testified to and what she told us
were two very different things.
Yeah, if I was expecting her
to say something along the line of, um,
"I was very concerned about his behavior
and his association with children,"
she certainly didn't say that
on the witness stand.
[speaks indistinctly]
There's a limit to what you can do
to neutralize something like that.
You just have to live with it.
[Diane] It was pretty devastating.
The prosecution cut her testimony short.
They realized she's flipped.
She's not going to tell us
what she told us behind closed doors.
- Michael was numb the whole time.
- [ominous music playing]
He kind of just looked at me,
"Okay, that's my Debbie."
"I love her too," you know?
[woman on TV] Debbie Rowe was touted
as the prosecution's bombshell witness,
but she appears to have
exploded in their faces.
As she left the stand, Debbie Rowe
took this long, beseeching look,
like, "Look at me, would you, please?"
He, as I recall, just kept his head down.
The moment she got in the courtroom,
took the witness stand,
took one look at Jackson,
she melted like an ice cube.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Diane] Did she still love him?
Is that why she did it?
One theory, if she would testify
favorably for Michael Jackson,
there was this backdoor agreement
that he would let her see her children.
I don't think anybody really knows
except Debbie Rowe.
[woman] Michael, was it good
to see Debbie again?
[man 1] Michael, what was it like
to see Debbie Rowe?
- No comment, sir.
- [woman] No comment at all?
[man 2 on TV] The one person who has
a right to hate Michael Jackson, doesn't.
What does that say about Michael Jackson?
How could they
put this witness on the stand?
How could they not know
what she was going to testify to?
[man 3] It's bad. It's especially bad
because it's so late in the case.
You know, the defense is about to begin.
You want to start strong and end strong.
Well, this is both
the end of the prosecution case
and the end of the prosecution case.
[ominous music playing]
[man on TV] Forty-five days
and 85 witnesses later,
the prosecution
in the Michael Jackson case rested.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Brian] The prosecution
made so many mistakes,
Martin Bashir being one of them.
Debbie Rowe, oh my goodness.
But we, we were still in trouble.
Public opinion, very important.
Seventy percent said he was guilty.
Oh man, we were getting killed.
Since when do that number of Americans
agree on anything?
Could we move that needle
back where it belonged
on the defense side?
I can't wait till it's over.
If I see him in his pajamas again,
I don't know if I'll get through.
Defense is close to presenting its side.
Let's meet our panel and go to your calls.
- [woman] Hi, Larry.
- [Larry] Go ahead.
[woman] Do you think they should
let Michael get on the stand?
If I were defending him, absolutely not.
[tense music playing]
[crowd screaming]
[yelling]
[Nancy] After ten weeks of taking
pot shots at the state's case,
the defense kicks off.
[Diane] Now it's the defense's turn.
The defense had this big master plan
to polish up Michael Jackson's reputation.
So who do they call?
Wade Robson.
They call Brett Barnes,
who the prosecution said
that Michael Jackson groomed
and sexually molested.
But guess what?
They also called
the movie star Macaulay Culkin.
The Home Alone kid always said
glowing things about Michael Jackson.
What happened at the house?
That's what people are concerned about.
That's what's so weird. Nothing happened.
You know, I mean, nothing, really.
We played video games, you know?
[Brian] Macaulay Culkin. He's a neat guy.
I called him up, and I said,
"Mac, they're making all these
accusations against Michael about you."
And Macaulay Culkin says,
"From what I'm seeing
going on in this courtroom,
Michael is in deep, deep trouble."
"I'll be there for him, Brian.
I'll come in. I'll testify."
"I've told them a thousand times.
I'll tell them again."
[tense music playing]
[Diane] The jury looked like
they were a little starstruck.
There was the Home Alone kid right there,
you know, feet away from them,
swearing to tell the truth
and nothing but the truth.
He asked this jury to believe him.
"If you trust me,
Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin,
you should trust Michael Jackson."
Michael Jackson stared at him,
um, for a moment.
He smiled.
And it was a moment between two megastars,
um, when the world could have stopped
and the two of them just
sort of shared a moment with each other.
He categorically denied
that Michael Jackson ever molested
or ever inappropriately touched him.
[woman on TV] Culkin called
the allegations absolutely ridiculous.
[man] The second defense witness,
Brett Barnes, said the same thing.
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.
[Brian] Wade says,
"No, Michael never touched me."
"He never did anything
that was even remotely
associated with these accusations."
[tense music continues]
[Melissa] Wade was very convincing,
made me feel like
he was telling me the truth.
It's really hard
to kind of lie to somebody.
When you look directly at him,
you kind of would look away
or look, you know, distracted.
But he didn't do any of that.
It was a trio of home runs
for Tom Mesereau.
All three of those young men said
their time at Neverland was magical, safe.
Did you always sleep
with Michael Jackson when you were there?
"Yes." "And nothing bad ever happened?"
"No, nothing bad ever happened."
I was hearkened back to 1993
when Wade Robson as a 9-year-old
and Brett Barnes as a 9- or 10-year-old
were brought out by Team Jackson.
[man] Have you slept
in the same bed with him?
Yeah, but I was on one side,
he was on the other.
It's this big bed.
Yeah, there's been different times
where it'd just be me and Michael.
Then there'd be other times
where he has other friends over too.
It's just a slumber party.
We just have a lot of fun.
[Diane] And there they were years later,
testifying as grown men
to the very same thing.
Yes, they slept in bed
with Michael Jackson,
but "nothing ever happened."
It was a mantra.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing happened.
How much stronger
can you get for the defense?
And you have to wonder why the prosecution
brought these
three cases up to begin with.
What we had to overcome
was something that was almost devastating.
We had presented to the jury our belief
that Wade Robson was a victim.
We had a witness who saw that
he was being abused by Michael Jackson.
He insisted he was not.
That's very difficult evidence
to overcome, right?
Now, it's my task to cross-examine him.
[Sheree] I was inside the courtroom.
At one point,
the prosecution was so frustrated
on how well he was doing for the defense,
he leaned on the podium,
like out of frustration,
like, "We can't break you."
And he said, "You know,
maybe he did these things to you
and you were asleep."
The audience just gasped
because it was like,
you're that desperate?
It was hard to get past that.
You know, it's hard to convince a jury
when the subject of the act itself
says it didn't happen.
[tense music playing]
I had decided that the most effective way
to be able to deal with that
was to simply do a presentation
of some of the materials,
sexually graphic material that we had
seized from Michael Jackson's home.
[Diane] Two books
introduced by the prosecution.
One of them is Boys Will Be Boys!
And one, I'm going
to cover up the cover photo,
called simply The Boy,
a Photographic Essay.
In these books, you will see
naked boys sprawled on rocks,
naked boys eating bananas,
naked boys touching each other.
And suddenly, you saw Wade Robson,
who sat stock-still in the witness chair,
slump down.
His whole demeanor changed.
And you could see
these books affected him.
And I had to wonder,
had Michael Jackson shown him these books?
[man on TV] Ron Zonen, the prosecutor,
did an absolutely magnificent job
of taking this witness
and turning him to his own witness.
[Ron] My goal was to make this jury
as uneasy as possible.
I want the jury to sit there and think,
"I sure wouldn't want
my child in bed with a man
who found this kind of material
to be fascinating or enticing."
[tense music continues]
[man 1 on TV] I frankly felt like
I was hit by a two-by-four in the stomach.
It was only about two hours of testimony,
but it was tremendously powerful, Nancy.
[Diane] The prosecution
did score some points.
Was it enough?
Well, that was up to the jury.
[tense music continues]
[Trent] For the next two weeks,
Tom Mesereau took the jury through
every piece of evidence that was critical,
every witness that was important.
They took 50 witnesses
and put them on in over two weeks.
[Thomas] There were so many
ridiculous aspects to this trial
that I think our witnesses
blew them out even more.
[man 2 on TV]
Jackson lead attorney Tom Mesereau,
he simply said, "The defense rests."
[music crescendos, fades]
[man 3] Michael Jackson admits
to sleeping with children,
but is the 46-year-old pop star
a child molester?
It is now up to a jury in Santa Maria,
California, to answer that question.
After more than three months of testimony,
the jury in the Michael Jackson
child molestation trial
began deliberating the case on Friday.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
Michael! Innocent!
- Michael's innocent!
- [suspenseful music playing]
[Melissa] I was nervous.
The first thing we did was we took a poll.
It was almost kind of equal
of people thinking he was guilty
and people thinking he was innocent.
What has to be proven
is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Can you doubt that happened?
[suspenseful music continues]
[man 1 on TV] They've been
in the deliberation now for three days.
The longer it goes on, it could mean
that they're basically
locked on some issues.
[Melissa] Emotions were high.
There was yelling
and crying and screaming.
The people outside could hear us.
All over the world,
everybody was watching.
The media was all up in it.
That's a lot of pressure.
[man 2 on TV] Something that
is resonating through
the African-American community right now,
they do not believe that
Michael Jackson is being treated fairly.
Michael Jackson,
in front of a jury of mostly white,
conservative Santa Marians,
was probably going to be found guilty.
Go back to the mug shot.
- Go back to dancing on the roof of an SUV.
- [crowd screaming]
[man 3 on TV] There are ten counts
against Michael Jackson.
Go back to all of the charges.
[man 4] I think for the prosecutors,
the key is looking at the big picture,
saying, "There's a pattern here."
"This is not just about this boy."
This is the MO.
Facing the kind of charges that
he was facing, the odds were against him.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Diane] The jurors, I mean,
they're right in that room,
right back there.
They have to reach a verdict,
and I don't think
it's gonna happen any time soon.
This is a pretty complicated case.
Day after day after day,
more and more of the fans would gather.
[man] Diane is on fire!
We don't need the water!
Let the bitch, bitch burn!
It got really tense in that parking lot.
[woman 1] Stop child predators!
[woman 2] Her problem is he's Black.
What came out of his mouth
about sleeping with boys?
What came out of his mouth?
I don't know what kind of kids you raised.
That does not mean he did it.
You're going to hell, uh,
possibly with Michael Jackson.
[crowd chanting] Innocent!
Innocent! Innocent!
[Sheree] I won't use the word "anxious."
I will use the word "prayerful."
We have faith in the jury.
We're gonna let them handle it.
[crowd chanting] Michael's innocent!
Sooner or later,
somebody has to come out of that room
with some kind of an announcement.
We had the bailiff tell the judge,
you know, "We're at a standstill."
"What are we supposed to do?"
The judge says,
"No, we ain't doing no mistrial."
"You're gonna sit there and work it out."
[man on TV] The heart of this case is,
do you believe the boys
making these accusations?
And do you believe this mother that they
were all confined at the Neverland home?
[suspenseful music playing]
It's the biggest story of the century,
so we've got to cover this.
What we want to know is, where's Gavin?
We are basically on Gavin.
He doesn't know we're there.
It's long-lens work.
[camera clicking]
On the face of it, it's a picture of Gavin
and his brother, Star, buying some snacks.
It looked like it was movie night.
And as they're leaving the store,
you start seeing them look up
at the TV mounted on the ceiling.
[man 1] Breaking news.
The jury in Santa Maria has sent word
that it has reached a verdict.
There's a verdict in the Jackson case.
This is how he saw it.
We were there at that moment.
It's not a happy picture. He looks scared.
They jump on their bikes,
and they pedal home as fast as they can.
[suspenseful music continues]
There is a verdict.
I am told there is a verdict.
All right, so it is now official
that at 1:30 p.m. Pacific time,
a verdict will be announced
in the Michael Jackson case.
Everybody was like, "Whoa."
My heart is beating real fast.
[man 2] A jury of 12 men and women.
If one of them expresses reasonable doubt
on any one of the charges,
he is acquitted.
The sheriff said,
"I just want to let you know
that when your friend is found guilty,
we're going to rush his ass
out of that courtroom so fast
your head's going to spin."
And I'm like…
"This guy knows something I don't know."
Like, Michael Jackson's
going to be found guilty.
[man 3] The jury verdict is to be read
when he arrives at the courthouse.
His motorcade, as you see
from this helicopter shot live.
[Kerry] Michael's life hinged on
what these jurors are going to say.
And he's like just in shock.
I found a scripture
in the Bible, Isaiah 41,
and I gave this to his mother, Katherine.
And I told her to read this.
[somber music playing]
"So do not fear, for I am with you."
"Do not be dismayed, for I am your God."
"I will strengthen you and help you."
"I will uphold you
with my righteous right hand."
"All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced."
"For I am the Lord, your God,
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you,
'Do not fear, I will help you.'"
Wow.
[sniffles, sobs softly]
One moment. Wow.
This is taking me back.
[inhales, exhales sharply]
This is taking me back
to that very moment.
[man 1 on TV] Michael Jackson is
a few moments away from hearing his fate.
[Nancy] It's been over 60 days
of evidence, of testimony,
of late-to-the-court moments.
In the next, uh, 50 minutes or so.
Live outside.
The jury will release its judgment.
[man 2 yells] Michael!
[man 3] You see there Michael Jackson's
team arriving here at the courthouse.
So many fans, media, all just in a crush.
- [tense music playing]
- [crowd yelling]
[man 3] This could be the last time
that Michael Jackson
is a free man for a long time.
[Sheree] I just remember seeing his face.
I'm just like, "Wow," you know.
- [crowd yelling]
- [cameras clicking]
[Stacy] The slow walk, it was almost
like a death march, you know.
Blank look on his face.
No emotion whatsoever.
It's almost like
he's a zombie just existing.
[man 4] A live audio feed,
which the judge has agreed to.
And we will be hearing it
all at the same time.
[Nancy] The jury is making their way
into the jury room.
Diane Dimond, row one.
Every muscle in my body was tense
because after all these months,
finally, it's going to be over?
Whether you supported him
or whether you were against him,
you could see everybody nervous.
[Nancy] All lawyers standing up.
Michael Jackson standing up,
waiting for the verdict to be read.
[music fades]
[man 5] We're all in listening mode here.
First word, first audio we hear
from inside that courthouse.
The microphone's on.
[woman over PA] The People
of the State of California, plaintiff,
versus Michael Joe Jackson, defendant.
Count one verdict.
We, the jury in the above entitled case
find the defendant
not guilty of conspiracy
as charged in count one of the indictment.
Count two verdict.
Not guilty of a lewd act
upon a minor child.
Count three verdict.
[man 6] Michael Jackson is now free.
- Yeah!
- [woman over PA] Count ten verdict.
Not guilty of providing
alcoholic beverages.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Not guilty on all counts.
Michael's vindicated, acquitted.
I told you so.
Michael Jackson was persecuted
for crimes he didn't commit.
It was proven in that court of law today.
[cheering]
[laughs] I mean,
they're roaring out there.
We could hear it inside the courtroom.
I lost it.
I couldn't stop crying
because it was just so emotional.
- [poignant music playing]
- [crowd yelling]
[Sheree] I remember tears.
I'm jubilant but can't
physically give any more.
I completely pass out.
I end up on the stretcher.
At the end of the day,
Michael was always innocent,
and he is loved.
- [crowd yelling]
- No evidence! Not guilty! No evidence!
[Diane] It was tough. Not guilty.
That doesn't say innocent.
It says not guilty
of the charges brought against him.
I did come away at the end thinking
that the State had kind of blown it.
I think the State
made the case so complicated
by adding the conspiracy counts.
[crowd cheering]
The man's innocent. He always was.
[woman on TV]
Defense attorney Tom Mesereau said,
"If you have reasonable doubt
about this family accusing Jackson,
you must acquit," and they did.
[Ron] If there are ever two words
you never want to hear, it's "not guilty."
It's the worst moment you could have
as a professional prosecutor
to ever hear "not guilty."
But it is what happened.
And we're professionals.
And it's not guilty.
The jury has spoken.
That's it. We're done.
I'm looking at Michael Jackson.
He didn't look excited or happy.
He turned to Tom Mesereau like,
"What happened?"
And Tom Mesereau had to whisper
in his ear like, "Hey, you know, we won."
I turned around and looked,
and Michael Jackson looked right at me.
And he went, "Thank you,"
and bowed his head down to me.
I'm like, "Just doing my job."
- [dramatic music playing]
- [crowd screaming]
[Randy] I went over to Michael.
"Congratulations, Mike,
you know, you did it."
And he kind of looked right through me.
[woman on TV] What a trial
this was for him.
Moments of total humiliation,
total anguish,
embarrassment, physical pain.
This isn't exactly a day you want to just
throw your hat up and have a party.
[dramatic music continues]
[Kerry] We put him in the car.
And it was relatively quiet.
I saw him lean back like this
and exhale.
And I think it kind of set in that,
"Wow, I am done."
You know, "I am going home."
You know, "I'm a free man."
[crowd yelling]
[Randy] I had this idealized,
romanticized notion.
Now he's going to get his life back.
The one person who disabused me of that
notion was his manager, Frank DiLeo.
He turned to me and he said,
"You don't get it."
I said, "What?"
He said,
"This is life-ruining for Michael."
"He will never recover from this."
That just hit me hard, you know.
I mean, I was like,
"Oh my God, he's right."
Michael, he knew
that there were a lot of people
who felt that he was guilty,
no matter what the verdict was.
[unsettling music playing]
[Ron] The key core part of the case
is the testimony of the boy,
his younger brother, and the mother.
And clearly the jurors, all 12 of them,
rejected the testimony.
The main thing that Gavin kept repeating
is that, "They didn't believe me."
"Why didn't they believe me?"
Um, you know, he just-- That's how he is.
He felt like he had failed.
"Why didn't they believe me?"
[woman 1 on TV] Above-entitled case find
the defendant not guilty of conspiracy…
[Trent] People continued to question,
was he guilty?
Was he not guilty?
While this was a trial clearly about
Michael Jackson and molestation charges,
the trial was also a trial
about America's,
and maybe the world's,
most fragile obsession.
Michael Jackson has set
the music world on its ear.
[crowd screaming]
[man on TV] The album is still number one
after 57 weeks in the charts.
[Trent] Our obsession with fame,
celebrity, and status…
[cameras clicking]
…balanced against suspicion of our icon.
[woman 2] He's a little weird.
And all of those things
came colliding together in this trial.
…most well-known, controversial people
in the world is in the fight of his life.
Rumors fueled
by a tabloid frenzy and obsession.
[Trent] Every time we watch a tabloid show
or every time we read a tabloid magazine,
that was the kerosene
placed onto the slowly burning embers
of Michael Jackson.
- And we had to make a value judgment.
- [crowd chanting] Innocent!
[Trent] What do we believe?
And what don't we believe?
And in the end,
it left us looking in the mirror.
[gate creaks, shuts]
And I'm not sure that we like what we saw.
[animal calls]
[unsettling music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]