Michael Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50. Four years earlier, a court in Santa María, California, acquitted him of 10 charges of molesting a minor. The artist faced an 18-year prison sentence and was charged with 10 offences, including four of sexually abusing a minor, who was 13 at the time of the alleged events in 2003 and was recovering from cancer.
Fourteen years after his death, other alleged victims of Jackson’s sexual assault were able to bring their cases to court. Three judges at the California Second Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, two men alleging that the singer sexually abused them as children and two of the artist’s companies alleging complicity.
Wade Robson and James Safechuck remained silent for years until their statements were exposed by the HBO series Leaving Neverland, which aired in Spain last year. The documentary examines the sexual abuse allegations against the author of “Thriller” and the alleged tactics he used to win over families and gain control over children.
Trailer for “Leaving Neverland”.
Robson and Safechuck had been fighting the corporations that managed Jackson’s estate in court for a decade. It is estimated that the singer has earned $2.27 billion since his death. In April 2021, a judge dismissed Robson’s allegation, finding that the two Jackson-owned companies, MMJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, had no legal responsibility to protect them from the artist who knew them as children.
Those involved in the lawsuit allege that these companies were involved in the abuse: they had a responsibility to protect them and failed to take the necessary steps to do so. Now, the appeals court judges have determined that the fact that the perpetrator also owned the company did not absolve the singer’s company of her responsibility to protect the children. “It would be perverse if there were no obligation if the accused company had only one shareholder,” they conclude.
This is the second time the case has been reopened thanks to a new California law that extends the time frame for sexual assault cases. Wade Robson and James Safechuck have a right to be heard in a proceeding combining the two lawsuits filed separately at the time. The date for the trial has not yet been set.
