Mr. Jackson, uh… …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.
Are you familiar with a person named Jordy Chandler?
-Who? -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.
Michael Jackson is sitting there smiling.
Of course he knows Jordy Chandler.
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?
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.
Michael!
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.
…the Jackson jury to hear past trial sex claims.
This is a critical ruling.
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
It's very compelling evidence.
And every time I have done that on a child molest case, I've won.
Michael, innocent!
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?
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.
We wanted the jury to know what they saw.
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.
Michael!
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.
Each day, we're going to hear disturbing details
of what people claim that they saw.
Michael Jackson knew what they had seen.
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.
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…
…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.
Testimony just keeps on coming.
Another ex-employee took the stand.
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.
Question, why didn't you go to the police?
Quote, "No one would have believed me."
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.'"
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.
It really got to me.
His testimony really got to me.
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.
Jackson's lead attorney, Tom Mesereau, counterattacked ferociously.
The defense skillfully took each one of these witnesses
and put them in one box,
and it was a box of grifters.
Some of these people were paid money by the media for their stories.
The housekeeper reportedly sold her story to Hard Copy for $20,000.
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."
Yeah, you know, in my opinion, money hungry.
People wanted Michael Jackson's money,
no matter how to get it.
I think we cross-examined effectively.
They put on witnesses who were lacking in credibility.
Every one of these prosecution witnesses
has their own little ax to grind to some degree.
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…
They made a pretty strong case here.
All about credibility, not physical evidence.
All of this is hanging in the air for the jury to consider.
I think the prosecution needs to pull something really big out of the bag.
Michael, innocent!
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.
When we discovered that June Chandler was going to take the stand,
there was pandemonium, okay?
It came back to haunt us.
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.
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.
Sources in Los Angeles say a 13-year-old boy's claim of sexual abuse
led to the criminal probe of Michael Jackson.
It's the LAPD's Sexually Exploited Child Unit
of their Juvenile Division that is handling this case.
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.
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.
The body warrant was served to photograph Michael Jackson.
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.
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.
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.
We knew that we had a good case,
but the victim did not want to pursue the criminal case.
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.
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.
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."
Michael, innocent!
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.
She said she and her son and small daughter
traveled the world with Michael Jackson.
It was a whirlwind existence.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
Michael. Michael, do you think June Chandler told the truth?
There'll be no comment. There'll be no comment.
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.
The prosecution is wrapping up the molestation part of its case,
moving on to conspiracy,
alleging the Arvizo family was held against their will.
Janet Arvizo, the mother of the accuser, is on the stand.
Innocent!
-Innocent! -Michael!
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.
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.
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.
Emotional testimony revolved around the charge
that Jackson falsely imprisoned her and her three children.
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.
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.
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."
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."
From the very beginning,
things did not make sense about this family.
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.
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.
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?
Today at the Jackson trial,
Jackson's attorney begins cross-examining his accuser's mother.
Now the defense came into play.
Michael, are you looking forward to the cross-examination of this witness?
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.
It did bother me.
To me, it was…
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.
She was on the stand several days in a row.
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.
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.
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.
I think it was a really important moment for Michael Jackson.
The case was going very well for him.
Michael, are you pleased with the way the cross-examination is going?
It's going well.
Michael was real excited and jubilant, as a matter of fact.
It made it a good day.
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.
A key prosecution witness is expected to testify, Jackson's ex-wife.
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.
Debbie, Michael Jackson's ex-wife, now she's going to be a witness.
I'm thinking, "Oh man, what's going to happen?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sparks could fly later today
in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial with the singer's ex-wife.
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.
I think she'll be given instant credibility
because of who she is and what she may know.
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.
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.
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.
There's a limit to what you can do to neutralize something like that.
You just have to live with it.
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.
He kind of just looked at me, "Okay, that's my Debbie."
"I love her too," you know?
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.
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.
Michael, was it good to see Debbie again?
Michael, what was it like to see Debbie Rowe?
-No comment, sir. -No comment at all?
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?
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.
Forty-five days and 85 witnesses later,
the prosecution in the Michael Jackson case rested.
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.
-Hi, Larry. -Go ahead.
Do you think they should let Michael get on the stand?
If I were defending him, absolutely not.
After ten weeks of taking pot shots at the state's case,
the defense kicks off.
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?
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."
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.
Culkin called the allegations absolutely ridiculous.
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.
Wade says, "No, Michael never touched me."
"He never did anything
that was even remotely associated with these accusations."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Ron Zonen, the prosecutor, did an absolutely magnificent job
of taking this witness and turning him to his own witness.
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."
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.
The prosecution did score some points.
Was it enough? Well, that was up to the jury.
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.
There were so many ridiculous aspects to this trial
that I think our witnesses blew them out even more.
Jackson lead attorney Tom Mesereau,
he simply said, "The defense rests."
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.
Innocent! Michael! Innocent!
Michael's innocent!
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?
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.
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.
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.
There are ten counts against Michael Jackson.
Go back to all of the charges.
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.
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.
Diane is on fire!
We don't need the water! Let the bitch, bitch burn!
It got really tense in that parking lot.
Stop child predators!
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.
Innocent! Innocent! Innocent!
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.
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The jury verdict is to be read when he arrives at the courthouse.
His motorcade, as you see from this helicopter shot live.
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.
"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.
One moment. Wow.
This is taking me back.
This is taking me back to that very moment.
Michael Jackson is a few moments away from hearing his fate.
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.
Michael!
You see there Michael Jackson's team arriving here at the courthouse.
So many fans, media, all just in a crush.
This could be the last time
that Michael Jackson is a free man for a long time.
I just remember seeing his face.
I'm just like, "Wow," you know.
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.
A live audio feed, which the judge has agreed to.
And we will be hearing it all at the same time.
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.
All lawyers standing up.
Michael Jackson standing up, waiting for the verdict to be read.
We're all in listening mode here.
First word, first audio we hear from inside that courthouse.
The microphone's on.
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.
Michael Jackson is now free.
-Yeah! -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.
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.
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.
No evidence! Not guilty! No evidence!
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.
The man's innocent. He always was.
Defense attorney Tom Mesereau said,
"If you have reasonable doubt about this family accusing Jackson,
you must acquit," and they did.
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."
I went over to Michael.
"Congratulations, Mike, you know, you did it."
And he kind of looked right through me.
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.
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."
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.
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?"
Above-entitled case find the defendant not guilty of conspiracy…
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.
The album is still number one after 57 weeks in the charts.
Our obsession with fame, celebrity, and status…
…balanced against suspicion of our icon.
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.
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. -Innocent!
What do we believe?
And what don't we believe?
And in the end, it left us looking in the mirror.
And I'm not sure that we like what we saw.