The self-proclaimed King of Pop Michael Jackson has been cleared of all counts in his child molestation case — a victory for him, his defense and a huge personal and professional defeat for the prosecution:
A California jury found pop superstar Michael Jackson not guilty Monday of all charges in his child-molestation trial.
The jury deliberated about 32 hours before reaching its decision.
A number of Jackson’s family members accompanied him to the courthouse to hear the verdict.
The verdicts were read in a packed courtroom, where a large crowd of supporters gathered outside the courthouse cheered, wept and hugged upon hearing the verdict.
Monday’s verdicts capped a chain of events that began in February 2003, after the broadcast of “Living With Michael Jackson,” an unflattering television documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir.
In the program, Jackson was shown holding hands with the boy now accusing him of child molestation, and he defended as “loving” his practice of letting young boys sleep in his bed.
In November of 2003, California authorities searched Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, following molestation allegations against the singer. Jackson was booked on child-molestation charges that month and released on $3 million bail. Formal charges against Jackson were filed in December 2003.
A grand jury indicted the 46-year-old pop star in April 2004 on charges of molesting the boy at the center of the trial, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003.
Jackson pleaded not guilty to the charges and did not testify during the trial.
Jurors had deliberated during the course of seven days. Testimony and closing arguments stretched nearly 14 weeks before the jury got the case.
Prosecutors alleged that, following the broadcast of the Bashir documentary in 2003, Jackson and five associates plotted to control and intimidate the accuser’s family to get them to go along with damage-control efforts, including holding them against their will at Neverland. The molestation charges relate to alleged incidents between Jackson and the accuser after the Bashir documentary aired.
Jackson’s lawyers, however, consistently portrayed the singer as a naive victim of the accuser’s family, who, they claimed, were grifters — schemers — with a habit of wheedling money out of the rich and famous.
The Jackson trial was full of salacious testimony, dramatic moments and celebrity defense witnesses.
Among the more than 130 people who testified were former child star Macaulay Culkin. He disputed testimony from earlier witnesses who claimed they saw Jackson behaving inappropriately with him in the early 1990s.
We do have some extensive thoughts on this case, but let’s leave it at this:
Under our system of justice, a jury has decided this case (unless there is some kind of civil case in the works and there is no indication of that) — and decided it in a definitive way, with no hedging. Michael Jackson has been found Not Guilty and cleared of these allegations.
If this was a just verdict, this will be the end of the affair and more info may even come out supporting the defense’s case that this was a shakedown. If this turned out to be a flawed verdict then there will be new allegations in the future.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.