Michael Jackson sexual abuse victims reopen trial

2023-08-19 19:04:22

Michael Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50. Four years earlier, a court in Santa María (California) acquitted him of the ten charges against him for abusing a minor. The artist was facing an 18-year prison sentence and was accused of 10 crimes, including four sexual abuse of a minor, who at the time of the alleged events, in 2003, was 13 years old and convalescing from cancer. .

Fourteen years after his death, other alleged victims of Jackson’s sexual assault have been able to get their cases to trial. Three judges of the Court of Appeals for the Second District of California ruled last Friday in favor of the plaintiffs, two men who affirm that the singer sexually abused them when they were children, and accuse two companies of the artist of complicity.

Wade Robson and James Safechuck remained silent for years until their testimonies came to light through the HBO series ‘Leaving Neverland’, released in Spain last year. The documentary explores the accusations of sexual abuse against the author of ‘Thriller’ and the alleged tactics that he carried out to win over families and gain control of the children.

Trailer de ‘Leaving Neverland’.

Robson and Safechuck had been battling in court against the companies that handled Jackson’s estate for a decade. The singer is estimated to have generated $2.27 billion since his death. In April 2021, a judge threw out Robson’s accusation, finding that the two companies owned by Jackson, MMJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, had no legal responsibility to protect them from the artist, who knew them as children.

The litigants allege that these companies were complicit in the abuse: they had a responsibility to protect them and failed to take the necessary steps to do so. Now, the judges of the court of appeal have determined that the corporation of the singer was not excused from the responsibility to protect the children by the fact that the perpetrator of the abuses was also the owner of the company. “It would be perverse if there were no obligation when the accused corporation has only one shareholder,” they conclude,

This is the second time the case has been reopened thanks to a new California law that expands the time scope of sexual assault cases. Wade Robson and James Safechuck have the right to be heard in a trial, which will unite the two lawsuits, filed separately at the time. The date for the process has not yet been determined.