From allegations of child pornography and lewd nicknames, here is what we learned about the pop star’s 2005 trial in “Michael Jackson: The Verdict.”
Michael Jackson estate sued for alleged child sex trafficking
Four siblings, formerly friends of the Jackson family, have sued the Michael Jackson estate for alleged child sex trafficking.
As Michael Jackson’s biopic continues to ignite the box office, an unnerving new docuseries is revisiting one of the icon’s darkest chapters.
“Michael Jackson: The Verdict” (now streaming on Netflix) is a three-episode documentary exploring Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, when he was accused of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo. The singer was ultimately acquitted on all counts, with jurors citing insufficient evidence.
“The Verdict” features interviews with attorneys, journalists and people in Jackson’s inner circle. It also includes sheriff’s footage of Arvizo’s interview with law enforcement and officers raiding Jackson’s Neverland Ranch home in California.
USA TODAY has reached out to Jackson’s estate for comment.
Here are some of the most shocking revelations from the new film:
Michael Jackson allegedly had lewd nicknames for young boys
One of the key figures of the docuseries is Vincent Amen, who came to work for Jackson in 2002 and was tasked with looking after the Arvizo family, who had returned to Neverland Ranch to ride out the media storm.
At one point, Amen pulls out a series of old Polaroids that he held onto from Neverland, all featuring Gavin’s mom, Janet, and younger brother, Star. Janet captioned one of the photos: “Dearest loving Michael, we appreciate you being our family. What God brings together, no man can undo. We love you.”
Star, meanwhile, handwrote another caption, saying: “I love you, my daddy Michael. Your son, Blowhole.”
“These are the nicknames that Michael would give these young boys,” Amen says.
Jackson and his confidante allegedly ordered child pornography
At the end of Episode 1, Amen describes how many of Jackson’s associates had their homes searched in the wake of his arrest. Jackson’s longtime friend and assistant, Frank Cascio – also known as Frank Tyson – allegedly cleaned his house of anything that came from Neverland Ranch.
Amen alleges that Tyson gave him a Nike bag. Feeling suspicious about its contents, Amen apparently filmed himself opening the bag, which according to the docuseries, contained a lascivious and illegal magazine.
“Start flipping through it, and there was a Sharpie … circles around the video ordering section,” Amen says. “Someone wanted these videos, circled the ones they want. These videos, which are children naked. Some with family, some just naked children.
“I confronted Frank,” Amen continues. “I said, you know, ‘Frank, what is this magazine? … There’s circles around videos with naked children.’ He says, ‘That’s just a phase that Michael and I went through. He circled the videos that he wanted, I ordered them, it was a phase that we went through.’ They watched them together. When I heard that, I was in disbelief.”
According to a title card at the end of Episode 1, Tyson couldn’t be reached for comment by the filmmakers.
Jackson allegedly spent ‘several days’ with teen boys amid Neverland raid
Jackson wasn’t home at Neverland when it was raided by the FBI and the media ran wild about his mysterious whereabouts. According to Diane Dimond, an investigative journalist who reported on the case, the pop star was allegedly hiding out in Las Vegas, hoping that it would blow over.
“I find out from a source, he’s holed up in this villa, and he only opens the door wearing a colorful dashiki muumuu garment, only enough to get the food brought in, and then he slams the door,” Dimond alleges in the docuseries. “And he’s having wild parties. There were cigarette burns in the leather couches and chairs. There were empty liquor bottles on every table. And this is where Michael Jackson had been for several days, entertaining young teenage boys, who all spoke German.”
Jackson’s substance abuse was allegedly ‘astronomical’ following arrest
Jackson surrendered himself to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department two days after the Neverland raid. The singer had his mugshot taken and was then released after posting a $3 million bond.
In the days and weeks to follow, “he was enormously stressed,” defense attorney Mark Geragos says in the docuseries. “All of a sudden, there is a reality to what has been theoretical. I watched him just disintegrate, literally disintegrate. The ingestion of substances was just astronomical. There was a time when I actually saw him in the fetal position on the floor, and I thought, ‘What do we do?’ I mean, you don’t want his death to be on your hands because you took some inaction.
“It was a horrific time for him and those around him,” Geragos continues. “We had genuine concerns [whether] he could even withstand a trial: physically, mentally.”
‘The Verdict’ shares a window into the jury’s conflicted mindset
Much of the second episode focuses on Gavin’s testimony during the trial. On the witness stand, the teenager was reportedly combative and flustered by Jackson’s attorney Tom Mesereau, who attempted to poke holes in Gavin’s testimony and allegedly screamed at the boy throughout.
“He’s a kid. I wanted to make sure I listened to what he was saying,” Melissa Herard, aka Juror No. 8, says in the doc. “But then when Mr. Mesereau gets up and then he puts it all in order, it’s like, ‘Oh, definitely, that does make more sense.”
In “The Verdict,” Herard and others who were in the courtroom recall how the prosecution showed Bashir’s documentary in full as evidence. Many of the jurors were seemingly shaken by Gavin’s appearance in the film; others were seen bobbing their heads and dancing in their seats during sections featuring Jackson’s music.
“Would I let my kids sleep with somebody who’s famous like that and share a room with them? No,” Herard says. “But I thought Martin Bashir was trying to trap Michael Jackson into saying something wrong to make things out that weren’t there.”
Jackson was allegedly ‘terrified’ by judge’s threat
The documentary details how the night before Gavin’s testimony, Jackson was admitted to the hospital after falling in the shower, and that he was allegedly given enough pain medication “to tranquilize an elephant,” Kerry Anderson, Jackson’s director of security, says in the series.
When he was late for his trial the next day, the judge ordered Jackson’s bond to be revoked and a warrant issued for his arrest if he didn’t make it to the courthouse within an hour.Jackson and his team raced down the highway going 90 miles per hour to make it to the court on time.
“Michael was terrified, upset, beside himself,” Brian Oxman, the Jackson family attorney, says in the docuseries. “He thought that his whole life was evaporating.”
Jackson received death threats, allegedly lashed out about his accuser
In Episode 2, Anderson details the chaos of escorting Jackson to his trial day in and day out. The singer liked to keep his car windows open to greet the fans, despite major safety concerns.
“We had threat assessments done that [found that] there were idiots saying they were going to kill him,” Anderson says in the film. “When you expose yourself to people who say they’re going to kill you, that’s when they can obviously do it. But he was like, ‘But the fans.’”
Anderson also recalls seeing Jackson’s fury during their drives back to Neverland: The Grammy winner allegedly called Bashir a “demon” who was part of a “conspiracy” to destroy him. Jackson also allegedly punched the seat of his car repeatedly after Gavin’s testimony, enraged that the boy had accused him of such “egregious acts.”
Jackson allegedly demanded his attorney to dig up ‘skeletons’
The third episode largely recaps key moments from the trial that are already public knowledge. Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s second wife and mother to Prince and Paris Jackson, testified for the prosecution. But according to people inside the courtroom, she seemingly “flipped” after looking at Jackson and praised him on the witness stand.
The docuseries also suggests that Janet Arvizo’s erratic and rambling testimony sunk the prosecution’s case, earning her the nickname “Janet from Another Planet” by jurors such as Herard.
Before Janet took the stand, Oxman alleges that Jackson told him to dig into the Arvizo family’s legal past and find a way to paint them as fraudsters.
“Michael told me, ‘That’s your job, Brian. Your job is to find out what really happened here,’” Oxman says. “‘I need to find every skeleton in their closet [and] dirt on their shoes.’”
Macaulay Culkin allegedly believed Jackson was ‘in deep trouble’
Jackson’s former cook, Phillip LeMarque, alleged that in 1991, he saw Jackson grope “Home Alone” star Macaulay Culkin while playing video games one night. But Culkin testified on the witness stand that the King of Pop never inappropriately touched him.
“I called him up and I said, ‘Mac, they’re making all these accusations against Michael about you,’” Oxman recalls. “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 testify! I’ve told them a thousand times and I’ll tell them again!’”
“The jury looked like they were a little starstruck,” Dimond adds. And in the courtroom, the two megastars shared a moment where they glanced at each other and Jackson smiled.
Although he was set free, the verdict was ‘life-ruining’ for Jackson
Jackson was ultimately found not guilty on all counts on June 13, 2005. But when the judge read the verdict aloud, “he didn’t look excited or happy,” Dimond recalls. “He turned to Tom Mesereau like, ‘What happened?’”
Herard says that Jackson looked her directly in the eye, whispered thank you and bowed his head to the jury, while Anderson says that Jackson was speechless on the ride home, save for a long exhale of relief.
“I had this idealized, romanticized notion: Now he’s going to get his life back,” says J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackson’s biographer. “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. This is life-ruining for Michael. He will never recover from this.’
“That just hit me hard,” Taraborrelli adds. “Michael, he knew that a lot of people thought he was guilty no matter what the verdict was.”
Jackson died four years later on June 25, 2009, from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication. He was 50.
