Michael Jackson was ruined after child molestation trial - Tito Jackson
Exclusive by Martin Fricker in LA 16/07/2009
The phone rang at Neverland - and it was crunch time for Michael Jackson as he was told the jury had reached their verdicts in his child molestation trial.
Calmly, the entire Jackson clan climbed into cars for the 30-minute drive to Santa Maria. Jackson was in a black Cadillac Escalade SUV, accompanied by mum Katherine and dad Joe.
Not long into the journey, he leaned over and whispered in Katherine’s ear.
“If this doesn’t go right, take care of my kids,” he pleaded. “Make sure my kids are fine.” It was the first time the King of Pop had openly acknowledged that he could be going to jail.
But less than three hours later, he was back home a free man after being cleared of all charges. For Michael’s brother Tito, the not guilty verdicts came as no surprise.
Asked if he ever doubted the singer’s innocence, Tito told the Mirror: “Not one time, not for one single moment. I knew exactly what was going on, what people were playing at, planning.
“A few of the brothers knew what was happening. It’s a wicked world out there.
The whole thing was totally motivated by greed and money.”
Child abuse allegations first surfaced in the early 90s when Jordan Chandler claimed Jackson sexually assaulted him.
Rather than face a potentially embarrassing courtroom showdown, Michael paid off his young accuser. Tito reckons it was the biggest mistake of his life.
“I wished Michael never did it,” he said. “But when you are in this business sometimes you don’t think for yourself. You have advisers and lawyers - all these people thinking for you and telling you why you should do this and that. They felt at the time the easiest thing for him to do was to give them money and make them go away - don’t drag yourself through a case.
“I felt he should have fought it, but Michael is a private person and he did not want the media in his life and all these other things he would have probably had to go through.
“He was advised just to give them what they want and get rid of them. I believe it was Johnny Cochrane, OJ Simpson’s lawyer, who told him to do that.”
Jackson’s family feared the pay-off could tempt more accusers to crawl out of the woodwork. So when, in 2003, Gavin Arvizo went to police and said he had been sexually abused by Jackson, Tito was not surprised.
But again his loyalty and belief in his brother did not waver. “Michael didn’t have to say anything,” he said. “He just walked up to me and looked at me.
“I knew my brother, I could look in his eyes and see what he was thinking.
“He said to me, ‘TT, I never did all these terrible things they are saying I did. I could never hurt a child’.
“He said this in the middle of the trial - that’s the one and only time he spoke to me about it. It was a couple of weeks before the closing.
“I knew all along he didn’t do it, and he knew we knew it. It didn’t even need saying. People make up things.” Tito recalled how mentally strong Jackson was throughout the gruelling three-month hearing in 2005.
“I don’t think he was 100% during the trial because it was the strangest thing to go through,” he said. “Michael didn’t know if the jurors were believing the stories that were being said in court. I remember at the time thinking, ‘Gosh, he is so strong. I could not go through this’.
“Physically, I was always much stronger than Michael, but mentally he had to be so strong to go through that. “When it was announced that the jury had reached a verdict, we were all at Neverland.
“We rushed down to the courthouse. I could tell Michael was a little bothered, a little nervous - that was only to be expected. But he was more concerned about his children than himself. In the car, he told my mother, ‘If this doesn’t go right, take care of my kids. Make sure my kids are fine’.
“It was a natural thing to say. He had to face up to the possibility that he was going to jail but he never spoke to me about his fears.
“I think he believed in the system, he wanted to believe in the system. He wanted it to work for him.
“It may have been on his mind but he was never terrified he was going to prison because as the case went on you could see that there was no validity in the allegations.”
Asked if Jackson would have coped with prison, Tito replied: “I don’t think anyone copes with prison.
“Even the toughest guy doesn’t really cope with prison, he just deals with it. You just have to deal with it, no matter what.
“I don’t think Michael was the weakest man on our planet and he would not have been the weakest man in prison, but I bet the weakest man is dealing with it.”
Tito described the moment the verdicts were announced as the “worst time” of his life.
“As they read them out, it got to five not guilties - they just kept coming and coming,” he said.
“From the first not guilty, right through until the last, it was the most frightening thing.
“The verdicts alone should tell the world that something was not right about the case.
“As Al Sharpton said, there was nothing strange about Michael. The only strange thing was what he had to go through.
“After the verdict, we went back to Neverland. Michael thanked me so much for supporting him. He told me he loved me so much and said he was especially proud because I never wanted anything from him but love.
“He said to me, ‘TT, I have a gift for you’. I said, ‘Michael, you don’t have to give me a gift’.
“But he said, ‘No, I really want to give you something because you never ask for anything.
“He was really persistent and kept saying, ‘Come here, come here, come here’.
“He walked me over to his garage and he had two Bentleys and he said, ‘Pick the one you want’.
“That’s the kind of guy he was. I chose the one that he had signed inside the car. It’s beautiful. I’ve still got it.”
Despite his upbeat mood following the not guilty verdicts, Tito said the trial ruined Jackson’s life.
“Michael was never the same again,” he said. “It changed him a lot.
“He became far less trusting of people, even children, because they had hurt him. From being so relaxed around them he became a lot more cautious. In some ways, the trial ruined his life.
“He left Neverland and went on this search to find a comfortable place - somewhere he could relax and get over everything.
“Sadly, I don’t think he ever did find that place. He was searching right up until he died.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/07/16/michael-jackson-was-ruined-after-child-molestation-trial-tito-jackson-115875-21522795/
this article is so sad