In light of everything else we know, hell yes it does.
Taken alone? No, no big deal. I don’t think I’d think it was odd if anyone else had these books. But if I met someone who admitted that they liked spending the night in the same room with unrelated young boys and who had never expressed any romantic interest in an adult female and who’d fielded several accusations of child molestation? :dubious:
Wouldn’t his parents have been the ones to sign off on whether or not that section of the documentary could be used due to likeness rights and whatnot?
All taken together, the (circumstantial) evidence is overwhelming that M.J. is a pedophile, in one stripe or another.
All the “nothing was ever proven legally” arguements in the world cant stop the “smoke=fire” common sense conclusion that something very dark was going on with Jackson and those young boys…
Hopefully, after tomorrows circus in L.A. the world can get back to the important stuff, like who Paris and Lindsay are sucking on this week.
Legally, sure. But it makes him an asshole of the highest calibre to go on TV touching that boy in that way. Most people watching it assumed that he was screwing that kid–even if he wasn’t, that’s not a good position for a thirteen year old to be in.
It’s worth noting that the family wasn’t paid not to testify against Michael Jackson. How can that be proof of his guilt when they were still free to testify against him in a criminal trial? Or are you suggested that he actually bribed them with full knowledge of the court, the police and the prosecuting attorney and none of them figured out that bribery of a witness is illegal?
This is more or less the point I wanted to make.
How many pedophiles do we know of in the history of the world who displayed the same behavior pattern as Michael Jackson?
Pretty much all of them.
How many non-pedophiles in the history of the world have displayed the same behavior pattern?
No one but Michael Jackson to my knowledge.
I think the odds are pretty heavy that the guy was getting his jollies in one form or another from having those kids around. I would say the odds are heavy enough to all but exclude every other explanation if we can’t find even one other example in the entire history of humanity that displayed the same behavior.
There are lots of ways pederasts can get their fix. It may have been as simple as him having a camera in the bathroom or just having close physical contact that he could remember and fantasize about later on.
Maybe some of the parents tried to shake him down or extort him as well. What else would you expect from the kind of people who would let their children have a sleepover with a grown man in exchange for a Rolex? This is how a pedophile could screen for people who would likely have a lot of issues if anything ever went to trial. Normal people of decent morals wouldn’t do such a thing (nor would people of even average intelligence) so you could be pretty sure you could impeach these particular parent’s testimony at trial. You wouldn’t have to set a detective up to look into them in advance. They would screen themselves. You get a passel of kids and keep moving the line a little further until they or their parents balk. You only go over the line with the ones who pass the screening. When they get old enough to no longer be of interest you have another batch at the ready.
Neverland would be the perfect mechanism to move kids through and provide cover. If he wasn’t a pedophile he did everything exactly as a rich, powerful and intelligent pedophile would have done… except for the part where he consummates his efforts. I am not buying that for a second.
See this is where it all falls over for me - Michael is being portrayed as some sort of super cynical mastermind that can pick and choose where to get his jollies, how to go about it and control himself well enough at other times. Yet he is still stupid enough to do this when he has so many resources at his disposal that he could get his jollies countless other ways?
I mean, if he really was a pederast how hard would it be for him to pop off to Thailand for a bit of buggery in much more safety? Or simply start buying chinese babies in almost complete safety and setting up pederasty places all over hell and gone in third would countries where he could indulge himself to his heart’s content in relative safety?
He was obviously getting his jollies somehow, but does that mean it rises to the level of child sexual abuse? I would have much more reservations about this.
He was too famous to go on sex tours. I think he also had a notion (and again, this is common), that he was forming real relationships with these kids, that he truly “loved,” them, etc.
Yeah. Maybe he really fooled himself into thinking it was all just platonic cuddling or something. You know, like the way he only had two surgeries on his nose to help him sing better.
I am looking for facts. Not “I heard”, “I assume” or “I have deduced.”
DIO, as someone in the law, yes 22 million is a lot to settle a case, but I have had clients settle for very high amounts to eschew further litigation and reach resolution with a strong belief that there was no liability.
Some cites would be nice and an article from Vanity Fair that does appear slanted and wiki entries are not enough.
Facts would be nice.
Obviously, nothing but a video tape is going to convince some people, so why bother. If you don’t want to believe it, then don’t. If you find it credible that everything he did was perfectly innocent, then you find it credible. I don’t.
I read Orth’s Vanity Fair coverage and it is indeed “extremely damning.” Do we necessarily have to accept every word of testimony from Jackson’s housekeepers and former employees? No. And you have to admit that the Chandler and Arvizo families both come out looking like idiots at first, and greedy monsters at the end. (Orth reports that early on, Jordan Chandler’s father considered dropping his allegations in return for a rich movie development deal.) In its own way this isn’t surprising because, like Voluble said, you would have to be some combination of naive, stupid, and greedy to let Michael Jackson get this close to your child, particularly in the Arvizo case, which happened so many years after Jackson’s proclivities became so public.
But even considering all that, his admitted behavior, let alone what he was accused of, is hard to explain if you don’t think he was attracted to children sexually. That’s true of his eight-figure settlement with the Chandlers, the sketches of his naked body, and the fact that Jackson continued to sleep with children for years, even though he’d just been taken for $20 million or something and settled other accusations. He had delusions about himself and crazy issues, he may not have known where he was half the time, but the non-pedophile explanations make even less sense.
I don’t find that funny at all. There was hard DNA evidence, which we know about. It was just confusing for the jury. Nothing near that in way of proof regarding Michael Jackson. Also, is it funny every time people think someone who was acquitted is innocent?
The only point I want to make is: if it weren’t for MJ’s fame–if he were just some rich dude who did the same things with boys–nearly 100% of posters in this thread would be certain of his guilt and some would probably be calling for execution or some kind of horrific punishment.
We’ve had threads in the SDMB just like that, where someone no one knows is accused of pederasty, with less actual evidence than in MJ’s case, and people jump in from all over with their outrage and assertions of draconian punishment.
But with MJ, oh no. Oh, no. He was “special.” He “loved” kids, but not in that “special” way, oh no. How could such an artist be evil? (etc., etc.) None (or at least precious few) of you would be saying stuff like that about the case if it were virtually anyone else.
Only the deluded and naive can say that it isn’t likely that MJ was also a pedophile.
If some other filthy rich person had done all of the same, known things that MJ did, what would you say about that person?
No it might not be “proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” especially since witnesses were paid off, but come on … if it quacks like a duck … OJ was acquitted as well, wasn’t he?
It also seems like he doesn’t care about what the kids themselves want. It may be harmless to stay in the same room overnight as a child who isn’t yours or a member of your family. But wouldn’t you want to protect the child from any hint of that? If he really loved kids in an unselfish way, I think he would have done things differently. No one who really cares about a child goes on TV and says that they sleep with this kid and it’s all good. Even if the kid says they’re okay with it, it’s going to be humiliating for that child when people find out because most people are going to assume it’s creepy. There are many other celebrities who care about kids. And there are even celebrities who had fucked up or weird childhoods because they were stars, but they don’t go around telling the world how much they love sharing their beds with kids.
And only those who lack the capacity to make an argument on the merits would resort to washing their hands of anyone else’s argument by merely relegating people who think otherwise as being deluded, or naive. Instead of rhetoric, how about some evidence? If you have some, it should be of no moment to throw it out there.
It’s surely possible he was one, but there has yet to be any persuasive evidence to say that it’s likely. In case I’m just slow and haven’t caught on that it’s out there, again, I invite you to simply delineate the proof that it’s likely true.
The whole “they slept in the same bedroom” line won’t work; his bedroom was bigger than most people’s homes.
He himself said he slept in the same BED with them, not just the same bedroom.
So, it must be the case that sleeping in the same bed with someone involves sex of some variety? Boy will my cat be in for a surprise. And in retrospect, now knowing this, I guess my cat’s been getting the better of me for a long while.
Sleeping in the same bed doesn’t imply sex. While it’s unusual given this circumstance, that’s a far cry from being evidence that he’s even likely guilty. It just presents opportunity. Alas, opportunity doesn’t mean likely happened, or had to have happen, it just means possibly could have happened. And a jury has already said that the evidence wasn’t persuasive.
While not guilty doesn’t mean innocent, it does imply there’s some defect in the evidence that makes it not a necessary conclusion that something happened. Or even a highly likely conclusion.
Even if the person claims that no molestation takes place, do you really think it’s totally harmless for an adult male to share a bed with a 13 year old boy who’s not related to him? And then to go around telling people he does this?