Counterspin

Here's a page for countering several of the erroneous, misleading, and I suspect occasionally outright fabricated "evidence" that Jackson supporters post in a variety of forums. Many of them are based on incomplete media reports, false syllogisms, wishful thinking, and selecting presentation of proven facts.

I've no doubt that a majority of Jackson supporters pass on these tidbits in good faith, but once they've taken root, they continue to distribute them: even when the contradictions and fallacies have been pointed out.

Since new spins seem to surface with every day's testimony, this page will almost always be in a constant state of outdatedness, for which I apologize in advance. The apologists have a major advantage over me in that they merely have to repeat what the pro-jackson propaganda machine tells them too, whereas I have to attend to minor details like research and fact-checking and little things like that:) What can I say, I'm just one guy.

Anyway, on with the show:

Micheal Jackson was cleared by a 3-month investigation by the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Dept. prior to being arrested.

The "3-month investigation" consisted of a single phone conversation between Det. Terry Flaa and Brenda Blackburn of the DCFS, and one follow up interview with David Arvizo (Gavin's father). Blackburn told Flaa that the DCFS had already interviewed Gavin and his family and were satisfied that no abuse had taken place. she refused to make any information from the DCFS investigation to the SBSD, she did summarize the results of that investigation to Det Flaa (who recorded the call). Therefore the SBSD never even met, let alone interviewed, the alleged victim. They never interviewed the alleged victims family, nor the alleged perpetrator (Jackson). They never contacted or interviewed either of the parties that complained in the first place (Carole Leiberman and an unnamed administrator at Gavin's school)

The "3-month investigation" can more accurately called a "3-hour investigation spread over 3 months", and it doesn't require a lot of intensive analysis to conclude that the apologists are vastly overrating it's significance.

Rather than going to the police when she discovered that her son had been molested, the mother immediately contacted the same civil lawyer who represented the Chandlers in the 1993 case.

Here we have two spins for the price of one. Let's start by separating them:

Janet Arvizo went to a civil lawyer rather than going to the police

The impressions that the apologists are trying to give here is that the woman went to the civil lawyer instead of going to the police, and that she went to the lawyer with a claim of molestation against Jackson. Both of these impressions are false, and combining them is even more misleading.

Arvizo went to Bill Dickerman initially in an attempt to have further airing the Bashir interview (there is a paper trail supporting this). Later she asked him for help in retrieving items that she claimed Geragos had placed in storage and was refusing to return to her (there are letters supporting this too). After exchanging several letters with Geragos, he referred the family to Larry Feldman. After hearing that Gavin had been "acting out" at school he sent the family to a therapist. After more than a dozen meetings the boy disclosed that he had been molested. The mother and the therapist learned of the molestation at approximately the same time, and the therapist was legally required to inform the police of the allegations.

Despite Defense claims to the contrary, Gavin never spoke to his lawyer about molestation prior to disclosing to Dr Katz. Both Feldman and Gavin have testified to this under oath.

Janet Arvizo retained the same lawyer who sued Jackson in 1993

False: The mother initially retained Bill Dickerman who sent several letters to Geragos on Arvizo's behalf in an attempt to retrieve the belongings that Geragos had allegedly placed in storage and was refusing to release to Arvizo. This cannot be disputed, as both Dickerman and Feldman have confirmed this under oath. In addition the letters between Dickerman and Geragos provide conclusive proof that this was so. It was Dickerman who referred the case to Larry Feldman, who accepted it having no premonition that accusations of sexual misconduct would arise.

Larry Feldman sent Gavin to the same psychiatrist as Chandler.

False: The psychiatrist seen by Chandler was Richard Gardner, since deceased. Arvizo of course was seen by Dr Stan Katz. There's no ambiguity--the story is false.

Gavin's DNA was not found on Jackson's mattress.

Well, yes that's true. However no-one has yet offered any explanation as to what exactly DNA would have proven if it had been found.

Another thing to note is that Gavin spent time in Jackson's bed--not even the Defense is denying this--yet no DNA was found, which raised two possibilities. The first is that it is possible to not leave DNA traces on the mattress, in which case the lack of DNA is hardly the earthshattering revelation that the apologists claim. The second is that at some point between Gavin's last vist to Neverland and the mattress samples were taken, the mattress was cleaned or replaced

Janet Arvizo has had one lawsuit in the past, against JC Penney¡¦s, which Penney¡¦s settled. This hardly constitutes a "history" and directly contradicts the claims of "several" such suits. As to whether the suit was based on false claims, since non of the details of the suit or the settlement are available to the public at large there is no basis for the claim that the suit was based on false claims. I find it odd that despite the other negative information about the mother that the defense has access to through discovery (such as the DCFS memo) making it's way to the public fairly rapidly. Yet information concerning the Penney lawsuit has not; just the unsupported assertion that the claim was based on falsehood and was launched solely for personal gain.

If a security guard stops a person for shoplifting and then the store declines to press charges, then they are leaving themselves open for a false imprisonment lawsuit. If (as the apologists claim) the male security guard frisked a female for stolen merchandise, then he has definitely overstepped his authority and left himself open for a sexual assault charge. This may or may not be an accurate representation of events (it probably isn¡¦t) but it does illustrated why no one can make blanket statements without possessing the records of the case.

I'm not saying the lawsuit wasn't motivated by money, or that the woman's story was credible or true (I've never heard the woman's story; and neither have you or anyone else). All we've heard are hearsay anecdotes about what the story was, usually spread by Jackson supporters and heavily biased against the woman. My point is that until the official records of the lawsuit are made available, or the incident is placed before the court for examination, there is no justification in claiming that it was a false lawsuit, as if it was a proven fact.

Janet Arvizo has a pattern of scamming money from celebrities

Well, it depends on your point of view. There are certainly instances in the past of Arvizo receiving money from celebrities, and there are a couple alleged instances of her asking for money from celebrities. There's no crime in either. And then there is Jay Leno, who is the only celebrity we know of (so far) who has actually suggested that she was a scam artist, even though she never asked for nor received any money from him. It should be noticed though, that the only ones so far who are suggesting that she was a scam artist are the one's with close personal ties to Jackson: and they have not done so under oath. So far all of the celebrities who have actually testified have had nothing but good things to say about the mother, although they have stated quite emphatically that it was the father who appeared to be the greedy one.

Janet Arvizo is mentally ill and has spent time in a mental hospital

The only source for this is Dave Arvizo's divorce attorney, and he has offered no proof for this statement. In fact he was forced to admit that on at least one occasion he told reporters that Janet Arvizo was currently in a mental institution when she wasn't, and he had no credible information before making the claim. This attorney is also the source behind the completely unproven claim that Janet Arvizo is a drug abuser and/or alcoholic.

The accuser's brother has admitted lying on the stand/in court/under oath

The accuser's admitted to lying under oath, yes. It was in a deposition in connection with the JC Penney case. It was not in a courtroom, it was not on the stand. And the lie he told has been told by countless other abused children, whether under oath or not. When asked if his father ever hit him, he said "no".

The flight attendant admitted that the idea of putting alcohol in pop cans was hers

Yes, the flight claimed in her testimony that she believed herself to be the first person to serve Jackson alcohol in cans so that no one would know that he drank. However the apologists phrase this to suggest that she introduced this subterfuge on the Miami flight with Arvizo. They conveniently omit the rest of her testimony, which is that she introduced Jackson to that practice on a previously flight, years before the Miami flight in question. It doesn't matter who first came up the idea (and Frank Tyson has claimed that it was him who first told Jackson to do it). The fact is that by the time of Miami flight, it was a common thing for Jackson to drink alcohol from pop cans: something that he has in the past repeatedly denied ever doing.

The Prosecution admitted that no pictures of children, naked or otherwise, were found during the raids at Neverland.

This comes from a press release released by the Defense after news stories surfaced claiming that pictures of naked children were found in Jackson's bedroom and bathroom at Neverland ranch. Although the Defense release claimed that the Prosecution agreed with this, the Prosecution never confirmed that, and never commented on the veracity of these claims either way. The release may very well be true about the pictures, but to claim that the Prosecution admitted anything on the basis of that release is stretching things at best, deliberate misleading at worst.

Dr Katz was involved in the McMartin Daycare case. That case resulted in people being wrongly accused of child molestation-implying that the Jackson case parallels the McMartin one.

Although Dr Katz was involved in the McMartin case, he was not the therapist who developed or employed the flawed techniques that resulted in false accusations being leveled at employees of the daycare. Actually what little detail we have about his involvement in the case suggests he was one of the few who questioned the validity of those techniques. Certainly as the Director of Training and Educational Programs at the Children's Institute Internation Dr Katz would have been responsible for initiating safeguards to ensure that such an event did not re-occur. The fact that the CII rebounded from the McMartin farce to enjoy an exemplary reputation in the field of child abuse would strongly suggest that he was successful.

In any case, the McMartin case does not even faintly resemble the Jackson case in a single detail (it would take an entirely separate page to list all the differences between the two, and I'm considering doing just that). What the apologists fail to explain (or even mention) is that the police involved in the 1993 admittedly (and unfortunately) used some of the discredited techniques used in the McMartin case, yet failed to discover more than 3 potential victims. This is far short of the dozens that could reasonably have been expected to surface if the cases really were that similar.

In the current case, those techniques were not used; in part directly because of lessons learned during the McMartin fiasco. And ironically one of those most responsible for those lesson was Dr Katz: the very therapist the apologists are accusing of employing them here.

The Chandler Case

The five security guards that sued Jackson for wrongful dismissal admitted under oath that they had made up stories for Hard Copy. Jackson won the case because the judge ruled that the guards were lying and therefore they have no credibility and should not be allowed to testify in the current trial.

This little gem is an almost perfect example of spin. Take a kernel of truth, leave out some bits, add a minor but significant untruth, and then use the result out of context to support a false conclusion.

The kernel of truth: Five security guards sued Jackson for wrongful dismissal. Jackson won
The bit they left out: Jackson invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. In other words he refused to answer any questions about Chandler or the 1993 case. This reduced the case to a single issue: did the guards break their non-disclosure agreements by selling their stories to the media. The answer was definitely yes. However the decision reflects or represents no judgement whatsoever as to whether the guard¡¦s stories were true or not.

The minor untruth: The guards admitted under oath to making up stories for Hard Copy in return for money. This is simply not true. The only thing they admitted to was accepting money from Hard Copy in return for their stories. The never admitted, under oath or otherwise, that those stories were lies. The only basis for this part of the spin is the fervent apologist belief that anyone who says anything negative about Jackson is automatically lying.

The result out of context: Claiming that the trial result is proof that the judge did not believe the guard's stories and by implication that Michael was innocent in the Chandler case. As stated before, because of Michael's invocation of the Fifth Amendment, this trial had nothing to do with the Chandler case. The judge made no ruling on the truth or credibility of the guards' claims to Hard Copy¡Xhe probably never even heard them, as they were irrelevant to the case.

The judge was not interested in the content of the stories, only in the circumstances under which the stories appeared. And the decision in the case was straightforward and correct as this summary shows:

Did the employees sign agreements not to talk to the Media about Michael? Yes, they did.
Did the employees subsequently talk to the media about Michael? Yes they did.
Were the employees in violation of their agreements? Yes, they were.
Was the judge's decision the correct one? Yes, it most certainly was.

The false conclusion: That the guards are not credible and that they should not be allowed to testify in the current case. It's obvious that the wrongful dismissal suit has no bearing on whether the guards should be allowed to testify. The only officially valid account of the guards' stories is the grand jury testimony that was given under oath. Under California Evidence Code 1108 that testimony is admissible in the current case at the discretion of the judge. As for the guards' the only people who can judge the credibility of their testimony at this point is the jury: which is their job. Not the prosecution, the defense, or even the judge.

Everyone else is of course entitled to make up their own mind, but to do that both sides should at least hear what the guards have to say.

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