new, detailed and helpful article from TheMichaelJacksonAllegations
NOTE: This article includes lots of screencaps of legal docs, photos and links which don't appear below.
Differences Between Leaving Neverland/interviews and the Robson/Safechuck lawsuits
Posted on March 17, 2019
While the story in “Leaving Neverland” is based on Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s lawsuits, there are some differences between the film, their interviews during the promotional campaign of the film and their complaints. Here I will post a list of those differences:
1) In the film Wade Robson makes the allegation that Michael Jackson made him get rid of a bloody underwear after attempting to anally penetrate him when Wade was 14.
Robson does claim the anal penetration attempt in the court filing, but does not claim anything about a bloody underwear and Jackson allegedly making him get rid of it. This is all that is alleged in the complaint about the alleged anal penetration [1]:
Is this yet another example of Wade Robson’s ever evolving “memories”?
2) In interviews during the promotional campaign of the film, James Safechuck made an allegation that Jackson supposedly made a video tape of their alleged sex acts. Safechuck, conveniently, alleges that Jackson then destroyed this evidence.
“Both men claim Jackson never wore condoms during their sex acts. They allege he often plied them with alcohol and pornography before molesting them, and even recorded one of his sexual encounters with Safechuck.
“He immediately freaked out when he realized what he just did and taped over it,” Safechuck says. Although he was aware Jackson was filming, “it was fun at the time, and when you’re having fun, (Jackson) isn’t thinking about it. But later, he’s like, ‘Wait a minute. I just documented this.’ He was very careful, but that was his one sort of slip.“ [2]
This claim was neither in his complaint, nor in the film. It was first alleged during the promotional interviews of “Leaving Neverland”. There is no evidence of Jackson ever making or having such tapes. Keep in mind that his premises were raided and thoroughly searched in both 1993 and 2003 and also that he was a disorganized hoarder. No sex tape was ever found in his possession either with Safechuck or any other child.
(Maybe we should take a mental note of the fact that when Safechuck first started claiming this, the R. Kelly case, that heavily features sex tapes, was very prominent in the media.)
3) James Safechuck alleges in his court filings that Jackson showed him child pornography – movies in which children were masturbating [3].
Safechuck made the claim in the film that Jackson showed him pornography, but there was no mention of movies with children masturbating in it or any kind of child pornography.
There is no evidence of Jackson ever having such movies. No such movies were ever found at his premises during the extensive house searches in both 1993 and 2003.
4) In the film Wade Robson alleges that what finally convinced him of protecting Jackson in Court in 2005 was a dinner that they had together before Wade’s testimony where Jackson looked very sick and Wade felt sorry for his children and was worried for them that they would be left without a parent if Jackson went to jail. Wade tells about this in a dramatic tone where he attempts to seem compassionate for Jackson’s children.
Here you can watch that part:
https://streamable.com/bkqkd
In his complaint this was never mentioned as a motive for him to testify the way he did. There his reason was Jackson’s alleged role playing of him on the phone and him not understanding that he was abused [1]:
Moreover, Michael Jackson’s nephew, Taj Jackson claims that Robson is definitely lying in this clip as this dinner actually took place AFTER Wade Robson already had testified. Taj was there, along with other witnesses, such as the Barnes family. [4]
5) Although Robson in the film mentioned Jackson calling him on the phone before his 2005 testimony, but he leaves out the part where Jackson told him: “They are making up all these lies about you and me, saying that we did all this disgusting sexual stuff.”
Probably because – although Robson now, in the hindsight tries to characterize this as some sort of “role play” -, it actually looks like something that an innocent man would say, not an abuser to his victim. Jackson calls the allegations “made up” and “lies”, and calls them “disgusting sexual stuff”. Not love. Not romance. Not a beautiful thing.
It defies Wade’s claim of him believing it was love until 2012, because he was allegedly brainwashed into that by Jackson. Here he quotes Jackson himself telling him that such acts would be “disgusting sexual stuff”, so how would that not, at least, ring a bell to an adult man, like Wade was in 2005, that something was wrong with the “love” angle, after all?
6) In the film the narrative is that these two men protected Jackson for so long because they were brainwashed to be “in love” with him. However, in their lawsuit there are other angles that are omitted from the film – possibly because they would contradict the “in love” narrative.
For example, in Safechuck’s complaint there is also a strong narrative of alleged constant intimidation and threats by Jackson. In a declaration he claims that Jackson constantly checked on him over the years by calling him once or twice a year and reminded him to keep his mouth shut or else his “life would be over”.
This narrative in his complaint was used to support an equitable estoppel argument. Equitable estoppel is a legal doctrine that prevents that someone could take advantage of his wrongdoings in court. For example, in relation to statutes of limitations, if a claimant or plaintiff fails to file a timely claim because the defendant threatened or intimidated him, then equitable estoppel can be invoked and in that case claimant’s/plaintiff’s complaint would not be dismissed even if statutes of limitations have already run.
For this argument and to get around the statutes of limitations Safechuck needed to establish ongoing threats and intimidation by Jackson, so he filed a declaration in which, next to the “love” narrative, he is also going on and on and on about alleged threats and intimidation by Jackson, although the exact nature of it remains vague. He writes:
“During the entire time I knew [Michael Jackson], he continued to intimidate and threaten me in a manner that can be described as subtle only in the sense that he did not threaten actual physical violence – but his intimidation and threats were no less real and effective. He told me over and over again that my life would be finished if anyone found out about what he/we had done, and I believed him. I had no reason not to, because he trained me to believe that and I had no reason to doubt or question what he said. And because of who [Michael Jackson] was – his power, his iconic status around the world, his fame and fortune – I knew that he could see to it that my life would be over if what happened ever came out.” [5]
Let us note here, that there is no record of Jackson being a vengeful, threatening, intimidating character who would “see to it” that people’s life were over if they crossed his path. On the contrary, he was a pretty meek guy. But Safechuck needed to claim intimidation and threats for an equitable estoppel argument to try to get around statutes of limitations, so he claimed intimidation and threats.
7) A LOT is left out of the film about the legal proceedings of both Robson and Safechuck. In actuality, the fact that they are both suing Jacskon’s entities (Estate and companies) for a monetary compensation is only mentioned fleetingly. It is mentioned in the film that the lawsuit was dismissed “based on technical grounds and not merit”, but it fails to explain the legal background to that and that the ruling does include implicit judgements about the truthfulness of some of their claims.
For example, to get around statutes of limitations, Robson claimed that he did not know about the administration of the Michael Jackson Estate before March 4, 2013, which proved to be a blatant lie – and that under oath.
Safechuck’s complaint never even got past the demurrer phase, because, unlike Robson, he was never even employed by Jackson’s companies during the time he claims sexual abuse. To be able to even sue, he needed to make up a very contrived theory about how the fact that he danced with Jackson (and other children) on stage during the Bad Tour was somehow “employment” by Jackson’s companies.
Considering that they claim this is not about about money, it is interesting that they both go lengths to get to that money in Court, even if they have to lie or twist things for that.
Both men’s lawsuits allege that Jackson’s companies, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, were “the most sophisticated public child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation organization
the world has known” that knowingly and deliberately “facilitated” their alleged abuse.
They make up contrived ways to try to blame their alleged abuse on the companies just to be able to sue them, calling Jackson’s personal assistant at the time, Norma Staikos a “madam” or “procurer” of child sexual abuse victims for Michael Jackson”, all the while never mentioning their own parents’ responsibility in their lawsuit.
While doing this, they make several false claims which were inadvertently destroyed by Wade’s own mother, Joy Robson in her 2016 deposition.
For a detailed discussion of Robson’s civil lawsuit see this article (like mentioned, Safechuck’s lawsuit never even got to this stage, but he made similar allegations about the companies as Robson).
To be continued…
