Booze, Naked Women… and Michael Jackson?
After the DCFS and Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s interviews of the Arvizo family, something happened to change their minds. It’s not known yet what transpired, but whatever it was turned them all against Michael Jackson. Suddenly, the family was whispering to others about sexual molestation having occurred, and stories getting back to the Jackson camp were worrisome. However, when Michael heard about them, he didn’t seem concerned.
‘This could be a problem,’ noted someone on his team.
‘I’m used to problems,’ Michael said, dismissively. ‘My focus now is on my new album. I didn’t do anything, so this will go away.’
‘You mean like Jordie Chandler went away?’ he was asked.
Jordie is rarely brought up in his presence. Michael’s brown eyes slitted. It was as if he was saying, ‘You know better than to mention that name to me.’ He drew a deep breath and then exhaled, loudly. ‘Look, man, just take care of it,’ he said, as he took his leave. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about it.’
There was nothing to take care of… yet. No one knew the details of what was being alleged… but, there was a sense that something was about to happen, and it would not be good. ‘It was in the air,’ said a source in the Jackson camp.
In fact, people who have been in the Jackson camp for years were troubled enough to bring in high-powered attorney Mark Geragos, and a team of investigators, to look into the matter. ‘He may want to continue to be naive in the face of danger,’ said a person close to Jackson, ‘but people who care about him smelled big trouble. They did not want have another Jordie Chandler case on their hands. It was determined that this thing would have to be nipped in the bud, whether MJ [Michael] took it seriously, or not. Michael was told to keep his distance from those people, and he did.’
After Michael’s handlers drew a line in the sand between him and the Arvizo family, Janet Ventura-Arvizo made her move: she and one of her attorneys sought out Larry Feldman for advice on how to proceed; Feldman is the same attorney who represented Jordie Chandler against Michael Jackson. In the same conference room in which Feldman sat with Jordie Chandler and his father, Evan, he sat with Michael’s new accuser and his mother. After he heard their story, he felt there was more to it than the boy had even alleged – and so he arranged for the boy to be interviewed by psychologist Dr Stan Katz.
After several sessions with the psychologist, the bits and pieces finally came together and the boy started to remember all sorts of things. Dr Katz’s notes are part of the material being used against Michael Jackson by the Santa Barbara District Attorney. What the family told him was exactly
opposite
to everything they had ever said before about the pop star to Martin Bashir, Christian Anderson, and the DCFS.
In the records Dr Katz wrote, ‘The accuser says he drank alcohol every night and got buzzed… whiskey, vodka and Bacardi.’ When the youngster – suffering from cancer, don’t forget – got headaches from the drinking, ‘Michael said, “Keep drinking. It will make it feel better.”’ Dr Katz reported that, according to the boy, ‘Michael showed him pictures of naked women on the computer.’ He said that he once ‘saw Michael just standing there, naked for a moment.’ He added that Michael told him, ‘he had to masturbate, or he’d go crazy’.
Dr Katz further disclosed that Gavin’s brother Star said that on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles, he saw Michael lick Gavin’s head as the boy slept against Michael’s chest. He said that Michael gave them all ‘wine, vodka and tequila on numerous occasions’. He also said, according to the doctor, that one of Michael’s security guards threatened to ‘kill us and our parents if we told about the alcohol’. He said that Michael ‘talked a lot about sex’, and that he and his brother ‘constantly sleep in Michael’s room with Michael and his brother in Michael’s bed’. He then gave graphic details of two sexual encounters he says he witnessed between Gavin and Michael.
Furthermore, Dr Katz wrote that Gavin’s sister Daveline says that Michael gave her wine, as well, and that she witnessed Michael kissing her brother on the cheek, ‘hugging him and always rubbing him’.
According to the report, when asked about the DCFS inquiry, the family said that they were ‘made’ to say that Michael had been a father figure and that nothing sexual had ever happened between him and Gavin. Katz, in his report, wrote that he believed the family had not been forthcoming in the past but was now telling
him
the truth. ‘I don’t get the feeling the mom is lying about anything, though she may distort’, he wrote. ‘I really felt the kids were credible.’
However, of Michael Jackson, Dr Katz also wrote in his report, ‘He doesn’t really qualify as a pedophile. He’s just a regressed 10-year-old.’
Exactly as happened in the Chandler case – the mental-health professional, Dr Stan Katz, was compelled by California law to report the details of the recollected sexual abuse to the police. It evolved so quickly, everyone in the Jackson camp was a little stunned by the swiftness of events, even though they suspected there might be trouble ahead. When told about the report to the police, Michael’s mouth went agape. ‘Huh?’ he asked. ‘Are you kidding me? Really?’ He seemed lost for several heartbeats. ‘But…’ He stammered. ‘But… I thought…
huh?
‘