Airdate: Jan 2, 2004

MJJF Talk Radio Interview with Gary Dunlap, Part 1

RON: With us today is Gary Dunlap. Gary is an attorney in Santa Barbara, California, who recently filed a 10 million dollar lawsuit against the Santa Barbara DA’s office for various causes of action. Welcome to our program, Gary.

GARY: Thank you very much, Ron.

RON: Gary, we haven’t had a chance or an opportunity to read your complaint. We haven’t got a copy of it yet, but apparently it’s filed against Santa Barbara District Attorney, Thomas Sneddon, and it’s a 102 page filing alleging 22 counts. Can you briefly describe for us the filing of the complaint and who you’re filing it against and against what causes of action?

GARY: Yes. Yes, I can, Ron. We filed an action against the County of Santa Barbara and the District Attorney, Thomas Sneddon, and a number of his assistants and deputies, including a couple of his investigators, a 22 count civil complaint alleging various violations of 42 USC 1983, which are civil rights violations, and then a number of state tort actions in addition to that, and then three counts of civil RICO violations pursuant to 18 USC 1961 through 1968.

RON: For the people who are listening to our program who aren’t attorneys, can you give us a little bit more detail about, you know, in layman’s terms, what exactly did they do? I know that you had to go through about a year long trial where they were accusing you of various actions against you and you think those actions were taken against you maliciously and that’s why you’re filing your complaint. Can you just give us a little bit more detail on specifically what they did for a cause of action here?

GARY: Well, they engaged in a sting operation, which they manufactured and allowed to get out of hand, and it essentially became just a real witch hunt. There were a number of violations of my rights in the investigatory stage as well as during the prosecution stage. And we’ve additionally alleged, because of other cases in which I’ve been involved that in other cases that we have information that he has done the same thing in. We have alleged the civil RICO violations, which are essentially engaging in racketeering conspiracy by public officers.

RON: You mentioned other cases. Can you, you know, without naming names if you don’t want to, can you tell us a little bit more about what happened in those cases? Were they similar? In what ways were they different?

GARY: Well, I don’t feel comfortable talking in too much detail about them, but in one instance there is a gentleman in Santa Maria who had announced his candidacy for a public office and shortly thereafter he was illegally detained by sheriff’s deputies on what were pretty clearly bogus charges, and instead of the district attorney acknowledging that, the district attorney attempted to cover up the police officers excessive force by filing charges against him and attempted to prosecute him on those charges and essentially ruined his opportunity to run for public office. He ultimately sued the district attorney as well as the law enforcement officers and won a judgment in the federal court for several thousand dollars and several hundred thousand dollars in attorney’s fees. And in other instances, my practice has been, for the last few years, been specializing in excessive authority cases, or exercise of excessive authority by the district attorney’s office because of what I have seen as a practice of engaging in office that I’ve seen over the last few years, and ultimately I think I became such a thorn in his side that they just decided that the easiest way to handle this would be to take me out of the picture.

RON: So you think it was intentional. You have no doubt in your mind that there was something intentional about what they did.

GARY: What I think is that they got a legitimate complaint. They got a complaint, which they had to investigate. However, rather than looking at that complaint and doing a straightforward and honest investigation, they saw it as an opportunity to prosecute me. And what they did, is they tried to add legitimacy to an illegitimate charge.

RON: You filed the case in federal court in L.A., the southern L.A. county federal court, because you’re claiming your civil rights were violated. Can you tell us in a little bit more detail about the illegal searching of the property then and the other civil rights violations that you’re alleging?

GARY: Well, they engaged in unreasonable search and seizure during the course of the investigation by - essentially what they did was they illegally recorded my phone calls.

RON: They did?

GARY: They sent in people wearing wires under the pretext of being supposed clients who made up false scenarios, and they recorded some of the conversations and did not record others of the conversations in order to basically cover up their misconduct and created this false scenario in order to get me to give what they alleged was illegal advice and assistance.

RON: What evidence do you have of the illegal recording of the phone calls, you know, were you able to obtain that somehow?

GARY: Well, yes. Because the calls were all recorded and so, during the course of the prosecution, during discovery, we obtained the phone calls which they had recorded.

RON: Without your knowledge or permission?

GARY: Right.

RON: So, obviously they weren’t able to use that as evidence, correct?

GARY: Well, that is correct. Although, some of the phone calls we allowed them to bring in because we wanted to demonstrate what they had done.

RON: Right. I understand.

GARY: But that didn’t make them legal.

RON: I understand. Okay. Trish, go ahead.

TRISH: Hi, Gary. You represented Agustin Salas, Jr., hopefully I pronounced that right. And he was arrested in June of 2002. Now, can you clear this up for me? Is it that the FBI recruited his mother and she wore a recording device during the discussion of her son’s case, apparently trying to engage you in an extended conversation that would record your alleged willingness to commit perjury? Can you fill us in on that? Can you give us some clarification?

GARY: Sure. Agustin Salas was a young man who was probably 16 when I first met him and his mother, and he was a young man who was at significant risk of - he didn’t have a criminal record but he was associating with gang affiliated people and was just generally on the peripheral of getting into trouble and had a number of close calls with the authorities. In any event, he was arrested for second offense drunk driving just after he had turned 18, and he had led the police on a several mile high speed chase through two incorporated cities, and when he was finally apprehended he resisted arrest, and those were the basic charges against him. And so the FBI had previously engaged Barbara Buontello, his mother. Her name is Barbara, and the district attorney was working with her to try to get proof that I had suborned perjury in a previous case. Does that make sense so far?

TRISH: Yes, it makes sense.

RON: My question, Gary, is who solicited her to the FBI? Was that the DA’s office or the FBI?

GARY: She went to the FBI for their assistance in an unrelated matter which we understand had to do with her efforts to secure the FBI assistance in basically doing something to her ex-husband, who was a federal employee. And in the course of that, as we understand it, the FBI was not of much assistance to her in that regard. But out of that she became, she wanted to get in to the Federal Witness Protection Program and become a paid federal informant. She then made some allegations against me to the FBI in order to enhance her credibility to them. They didn’t know what to do with that information by themselves, so they referred it to the district attorney’s office for the district attorney’s investigation or comments or whatever. That’s how it all began was with the allegations of Barbara Buontello. Subsequent to that, her son got in trouble. So the district attorney decided that what he would do is send her in to my office to have me represent her son on this drunk driving case in order to get evidence against me of my criminal activities. And that’s sort of how the scenario all, that’s how it began. Does that answer your question? Do you follow me?

TRISH: Oh, I follow you. I’m wondering since the FBI was involved, does that mean that you are also under federal investigation?

GARY: Well, I don’t think that, you know, I was ever under federal investigation. The FBI has always contended that all they did was refer the matter to the district attorney’s office. And then, during the course of the investigation, they cooperated with the district attorney’s office and lent assistance to the district attorney’s office under the district attorney’s supervision. And that is why the FBI has not been named in the lawsuit. Because it has been and is their position that they really didn’t have anything to do with it other than to lend cooperative assistance to the district attorney. Barbara was always talking, herself, about this previous case that I had done a couple of years before. Okay?

RON: Okay.

GARY: And she would always make remarks in the phone calls about things that she had done or things that she had done or seen or that I had done. And during the course of those conversations, I never said anything. I just let her talk. And even in the phone conversations it was clear that frequently I would have interrupting phone calls or I would be talking to somebody else and I just basically had her on an open line, and I just sort of let her talk, and I never said one thing or the other. And so there were never any incriminating remarks or anything incriminating by me. But there were a lot of suggestive remarks by her. Well, anyhow, the bottom line is, when court came along for young Mr. Salas - you have to remember Barbara, the mother, was working with the district attorney, okay? So she wanted to extend out his case as long as possible because that’s what the district attorney wanted her to do. My obligation was to Agustin and my interest was to arrange a disposition of his case that would allow him to enter the Marine Corps. Now, at this point in time, young Salas had no idea that his mother was on the district attorney’s payroll.

RON: Sounds like a conflict of interest to me, Gary.

GARY: A horrible conflict of interest, okay? Yeah, I mean, right from the beginning, okay? So, I moved forward and at the first court hearing, unbeknownst to me, the deputy district attorney had been instructed to make it as hard as, as tough on Salas as possible in order to force me to continue his case and not to give him a reasonable disposition on his case but to make it as hard as possible so that I couldn’t accept any offers. Well, I have been a lawyer a long time, and the bottom line is I was able to prevail on the court to give him a disposition on his case that would require him to do some jail time but to be out of custody with no probation about three days before he was due to go into the Marine Corps. So that he would be able to enter the Marine Corps legally on his scheduled report date. Okay?

RON: Okay.

GARY: And, even though his mother his mother was telling him not to do it, I managed to separate him from his mother for a few moments and get him to enter the plea that was necessary in order to accomplish that. I did that. And as soon as that was over, the district attorney had them illegally and secretly recording the court proceedings.

RON: This is Tom Sneddon you’re talking about?

GARY: Well, his deputies.

RON: Okay, his deputy in this case?

GARY: I mean, he is the district attorney but the district attorney isn’t sitting there with a recording device or isn’t doing it personally.

RON: It’s obviously under his authorization, you would assume.

GARY: Of course it’s under his authorization, and he was familiar with the people who were investigating me, and the things that they were doing, and all of that. And so the first crime they committed, you know, was illegally recording the court proceedings. And the reason they were doing this was because the district attorney, the deputy district attorney who was investigating me wanted to have instant access to everything that I was doing in court so that they could figure out their next move against me. Okay? So as soon as those proceedings were over and the deal was done and Salas was going to go to jail for about 60 days or thereabouts or whatever period of time it was that would allow him to get out in order to still meet his Marine reporting date without any legal restraint, they told his mother to create a ruckus with me to get that plea set aside. And so she did that, and she got him to say that he wasn’t happy with the plea and that I had forced him to do it and all this kind of thing. And so, I don’t know if you’re a lawyer and so I’m not sure how much of this you fully understand.

RON: Well, I’m not a lawyer, but I do understand that it sounds a little bit shady and conflict of interest, and I’m wondering if you’re special or if this happens on more occasions than we’re aware of.

GARY: I think this happens routinely.

RON: This is probably one of the reasons you’re filing the suit and want to see it through to trial as opposed to a settlement because you want to, you know, kind of bring it out in the forefront and make them answer to it and hopefully make them stop it?

GARY: Absolutely.

RON: Okay, that makes sense.

GARY: The bottom line is they went and they talked to the judge privately, which is against the law and in violation of the rules of professional conduct. They have an ex parte conversation with the court, told the court about the fact that they were investigating me for criminal activities, and they tried to get the judge to release Salas from custody. Which would have been an illegal activity on her part because once a judgment is entered it’s final, and the judge loses jurisdiction, but they wanted her to do it anyway. Fortunately, she did not do it. She thought about it and at first agreed to do it but then she realized that she was being put in a very compromised position and so she refused to cooperate with that.

RON: Is this the, and I’m not going to name her name, but is this the same judge that you told me about that was originally cooperating and then basically became a whistle blower and now they’ve basically stripped her away from a lot of the cases she was handling?

GARY: Right. They have put her in an impossible position.

RON: And as I understand it, again, not naming any names, but the way that it’s working now they have some kind of, you know, for lack of a better word, trumped up charge that if she comes forward with any kind of flack to them, they’re going to try to slap this on. Didn’t she have to go through some kind of trial herself and was acquitted?

GARY: Yes. They had bogus charges on her. Again, she was involved in, apparently, a domestic case with her significant other, but it was the way they processed it, the way they handled it and stacked the charges on her and just took an unreasonable position towards her and added charges for which they had no significant evidence. They just about ruined her career because she had to go through a very public trial for several months. She ultimately was also acquitted and then after that, immediately after being acquitted, they announced a further investigation, which doesn’t have any more merit than the first charges, and they’re holding that over her head. They haven’t prosecuted her for it but they periodically announce that they’re still investigating it and they’re still considering it.

RON: Sounds familiar, Gary.

GARY: Yeah. Very familiar.

RON: We’re going to get to the issue of the stacking of the charges in a little bit. I have one more question before we turn it back to Trish. A couple of days ago, you and I were talking about how the DA had tried to get you disbarred while the trial against you was still pending, which, I mean, you had not even been convicted yet at that point, and they obviously instigated some kind of complaint to the State Bar of California, presumably, to try to get you disbarred. Do you want to comment on that? Tell us anything about that?

GARY: Well, that’s what they did. They tried to get the state bar to take action against me just based on their charges.

RON: Their unsubstantiated charges.

GARY: Their unsubstantiated charges, and the state bar essentially took a hands off position pending the outcome of the case. That’s pretty much it. I understand the charges have been filed now with the state bar for their conduct for some of their conduct in my case - those against some deputies and the assistant district attorney who supervised my prosecution, but I haven’t had anything personally to do with that.

RON: Sounds like the tables have been turned a little bit, though.

GARY: I think the tables have been turned. And, well, it’s not even the tables being turned, it’s just a case of the light being shone where it needs to be illuminated.

RON: Okay.

GARY: It’s a very bad situation here in the north county, and the general public is very unaware of it because Tom Sneddon and his assistant up here have pretty much dominated the justice system in Santa Barbara County for several years. And he has run several terms without even any opposition and he’s very powerful. His office is very powerful and public officials are intimidated by them, court personnel are intimidated by them, I mean, they just have had it their own way, and they pretty much do whatever they want. And the problem with it is, they do not take any kind of a leadership role with regard to law enforcement in the sense of protecting the public interests against excessive force. Rather, they promote excessive force by the various law enforcement agencies, by their attitude of protection and prosecution of cases that are clearly inappropriate.

RON: We’re going to cover that in detail. I’ve got some questions for you on that, you know, based on a couple of things that you mentioned to me right before the holiday. But, Trish, why don’t you go ahead and take off your plate what you were thinking of?

MJJF Talk Radio Interview with Gary Dunlap Parts 2 & 3

Airdate - January 2, 2004


TRISH: Okay, an excerpt from your complaint was included in a recent newspaper article, and I’m going to quote you here, "In fact, it is difficult, if not impossible to discern any ethical standards on the part of the defendants. They appear to have been intellectually destitute and morally bereft during the entire sequence of events giving rise to these complaints." Do you have any comment on this?

GARY: Well, Trish, what I would probably do with that quote is refer you to my lawyers in Los Angeles who are prosecuting the case on my behalf against the district attorney and they have experience with the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office on previous cases and so they are very familiar with this issue, with the problem in the district attorney’s office in Santa Barbara County. And Joe Freeman is just an excellent attorney in Los Angeles which is handling the case and, you know, at some point I can give you his phone number and you can call him and ask for more of an explanation of that quote because that’s really – he drew the complaint and that’s his conclusion based on the clear facts. See, what’s unusual in my case is that almost everything they’ve done has been revealed during the course of my trial, and so it’s not one of these cases where you have suspicions that they have done something but you can’t prove it. My criminal case, the attorney who represented me in my criminal case was excellent and he just discovered and brought out and got into the record, you know, all of the things the district attorney had done. In fact, before my trial even began, one of the big advantages that we had is that the California Supreme Court appointed a visiting judge, a former, a retired court of appeals justice to hear my trial and Judge Kenneth Andreen retired from the Court of Appeals and before my trial began, my lawyer made a motion to dismiss the case based on outrageous governmental misconduct and there was a three day hearing on a dismissal motion. At the conclusion of it, it was very interesting because Judge Andreen indicated that there was, in fact, governmental, substantial governmental misconduct. And, in fact, he said that their conduct, the district attorney’s conduct was so bad that it read more like a John Grisham novel than it did a criminal prosecution.

RON: Who was playing your part in the movie?

GARY: I don’t know who’s going to play my part in the movie. But that was Judge Andreen’s take on it. But then he went on to say that because the charges are so serious, both against me as a member of the bar as well as the conduct of the district attorney, that it was all so serious that he didn’t feel that he could dismiss the case because he felt that a jury needed to resolve it on it’s merits.

RON: You’re talking about the one that was brought against you, correct?

GARY: Well, in the prosecution against me before my trial began there was this motion to dismiss the charges against me, and the judge agreed that there had been, you know, a lot of misconduct. And, in fact, so much misconduct that he said that it read more like a John Grisham novel to him. However, because the charges were so severe and he felt that it needed - that the case needed to be tried. And that’s why I ended up in trial and ultimately the jury did acquit me. And so, that’s where, you know, that’s where that was. And in the civil case, I think that my lawyer in the civil case, you know, he basically has picked up the same things that the criminal court judge picked up on, is that their conduct was just very inappropriate, I mean, and blatant.

RON: Did it seem like they did their due diligence enough to justify the severity of the charges?

GARY: Well, enough to justify, I don’t know if you realize how difficult it is when they throw the kitchen sink at you, I mean, when they throw seven felonies against you, how difficult it is to get an acquittal on all charges. You know, I mean it’s one thing to be charged with one crime and have a trial and be acquitted on it, but the district attorney in Santa Barbara has a policy that if they throw enough charges against you, the jury is bound to convict you on something.

RON: Well, we’re going to get to that in a second. I do have one quick question before Trish picks up, and you mentioned Joe Freeman had some experience against filing various cases against the Santa Barbara DA.

GARY: Yes.

RON: Are you aware of the success rate in terms of what they have been able to successfully try?

GARY: Well, the cases all settled. What they do is they settle these cases. They don’t take them to trial. They settle them, and they settle them with confidential settlement agreements, which I think is highly inappropriate. So that the public never is aware of these cases, of these various excessive force cases, excessive prosecution cases because they settle them under confidential agreement.

RON: Because they don’t go to trial.

GARY: I think that it’s a misuse of public funds, frankly.

RON: Because they don’t go to trial the public doesn’t find out about it because they never get into the court.

GARY: Well, yes. The people are paid so much money but one of the conditions is that they cannot reveal the amount or any of the circumstances about the case.

RON: That is interesting.

GARY: Yeah, very interesting.

RON: Maybe that’s why they don’t have a, well, should we say this, Trish? Remember at the press conference against the Michael Jackson case, Mr. Sneddon made various jokes, and one of them was the fact that they didn’t have much of a budget to pay for the lunch.

GARY: Yeah, right.

RON: And I’m wondering if they don’t have much of a budget because they’re spending a lot of their money, you know, doing all of these confidential settlements because of their abuse of authority.

GARY: That plus the fact that he’s hired a publicist, and I think that’s a misuse of public funds.

RON: How so?

GARY: I mean, why should tax payers pay for his media consultants?

RON: Well, as I understand it, they’re doing it pro bono, but between you and me only, a public relations firm doesn’t typically, they’re basically doing it to promote themselves and their clients. So they’re not getting any direct payment from the Santa Barbara DA, but they’re getting tons of free publicity just by attaching themselves to this case.

GARY: They’re getting consideration.

RON: They’re certainly getting consideration, whether they admit that or not.

GARY: Absolutely.

RON: Okay, Trish, go ahead.

TRISH: In a recent newspaper interview you stated, "Economically I suffered and I continue to suffer, but the major loss is the pressure I felt and the emotional aspect of what this did to my family. It went on for a year, and that was pretty disconcerting." Can you tell us a little bit more about what it was like to spend more than a year of your life fighting for not just your reputation but to avoid what could have been a 12+ year prison sentence?

GARY: Yes, well, Trish, I’m 62 years old. I’ve been a lawyer for 37 years all in the same community. I’ve raised my family in Lompoc and Santa Maria and, you know, this area. And I’ve had a very successful law career and I’ve had a very successful business career. I’ve owned a number of businesses outside of the law practice and my whole social life as well as my professional life has all been and is in Santa Barbara County and particularly in the north part of the county. My wife is an employee in the county of Santa Barbara. As a matter of fact, she is the executive assistant of the Superior Court. She has a very delicate position in the court system and this was humiliating to her. It was humiliating to my children. I can’t tell you how stressful it is at my age to all of a sudden be charged with all of these crimes and to be looking at 14 years in the penitentiary. And essentially what they wanted, was they wanted me disbarred. They wanted me out of practice because I’m one of the few lawyers who is not financially dependent on my law practice. So that I don’t have to, I don’t calculate the amount of defense that I can give based on the size of the fee that I receive. I mean, I pretty much charge clients whatever they can afford, and I’d rather look for the merits of the case. And I have been particularly interested in excessive authority cases where I think that either the prosecution is trumping up the charges or even if the charges, if there is some basis of a charge, that the penalty that they are seeking is just grossly out of line with whatever it is that the person has done. Here is the thing. What you have to remember is northern Santa Barbara County is pretty much a government dependent economic base in that we have Vandenberg Air Force Base as the primary employer and then all of the aerospace industry that is related, you know, to that. And so, what they have done over a period of time is, they have given felonies for practically nothing to a generation of young people who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum and have locked these kids out of any kind of meaningful employment forever. Because once you get a felony conviction you can’t get a job with the police department. You can’t get a job with the fire department. You can’t join the military service. You can’t work at Vandenberg Air Force Base. You can’t have a security clearance.

RON: You can’t be a DA.

GARY: Well, yeah. You couldn’t be a DA if you wanted to. And essentially, when you have people, and we also have the prisons in Lompoc, the federal institutions in Lompoc, and so you have a large population of young people who are sort of at risk anyhow, socially and economically. And then, it’s almost like they take some of these kids right out of high school and they start throwing felony convictions on them for relatively minor offenses, and it ruins their lives and their opportunity to turn their lives around. And I’ve always opposed that and I do oppose it. And so the district attorney and I are always at odds with one another about the excessiveness of the way that they prosecute their cases and the way they punish what, in most jurisdictions, are relatively insignificant types of cases or, not insignificant, perhaps, but certainly not at the level at which they prosecute them and punish them.

RON: Gary, when we talked a couple of days ago, I’m not going to try to put words in your mouth, I’m just going to try to articulate what it was that you were saying to me for you to comment on. You mentioned some kind of, you know, give and take relationship between the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and the DA. The fact that there is a lot of excessive force claims issued against the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and in order to get those claims reduced or dismissed, in some cases the Santa Barbara DA has, you used the word overstack or stack charges above and beyond what would be a normal "level of prosecution for them to go after", giving them more jail time or what have you, and getting them to plea bargain down to dismiss the charges of the excessive force. Can you comment on that? Do you have any specific cases? How common is this?

GARY: Yeah. I have a lot of cases. I can cite the case of People vs. B.J. Taylor as an example. That’s a case maybe not five years old, People vs. Bartucci. Yes, I mean, those are the cases that I specialize in, that I am particularly interested in, and I have a number of those cases.

RON: Typically, how does that happen? Can you describe the process? The basic….

GARY: Well, for instance, you have an uncorroborated informant, for instance who, to get out of trouble himself, tells the police that somebody’s doing something wrong, that they’re selling drugs, or whatever, okay? They send a SWAT team in on an uncorroborated charge. They engage in all sorts of excessive force. They arrest the person and they don’t find any drugs or any evidence of this criminal activity, but they arrest the person anyway. Then, rather than the district attorney reviewing the report from any kind of responsible position, instead they automatically file the charges. They file numerous charges, I mean, you know, in a case like that, resisting arrest. I mean, a guy gets beaten up by the police so they charge him with resisting arrest and obstructing justice, and because his 3 year old child is in the line of fire, between the SWAT team that has broken into the apartment illegally and the individual who’s still in bed, they charge the individual with child endangerment.

RON: Was that a real case that you’re talking about?

GARY: Everything I’m telling you is a real case. If you follow my trial, if you follow my case, you’ll see, you’ll have the names and the dates and the places and the times and the whole thing. Then what they do, is they prosecute this guy, they prosecute these people, and in the particular case I’m drawing these facts from, but it’s not just his case. It’s not just B.J.’s case. This happens on a regular basis. And they prosecute them and they threaten him that if he doesn’t plead guilty to one of the charges and if they convict him on all of the charges, he’s going to go to jail for 20 years or go to prison for 20 years. So in most cases, he gets intimidated and he takes a plea. When my clients do it and I realize or I have the facts to back up the defense, we go to trial and we get acquitted.

RON: It sounds like you’ve got experience in this area.

GARY: Yes. Yeah, I’ve had a significant amount of success. If I lost every case they wouldn’t be nearly as upset with me. But I’ve had a significant amount of success in these cases. But you get to the position where most of the guys here are so intimidated they end up taking these deals that are terrible. It sends them off to prison but only for a few years instead of a whole bunch of years type of thing, when, in fact, they shouldn’t be charged at all.

RON: So let me understand it. Is it sort of like a cover their own butt in terms of they knew that because of the excessive, the physical force that the sheriff’s department or the police department has when going after somebody, the DA, to kind of compensate for that, will stack these charges up so that they’re never really liable for the excessive force because they….

GARY: Because they had ultimately pleaded guilty to something and so that basically lets the excessive force case go away because what lawyer is going to take an excessive force case for a guy who’s already in prison because he was convicted or pled guilty to a charge. So in that manner they protect the law enforcement agency.

RON: I see.

GARY: If they build up a lot of indebtedness in law enforcement to the district attorney’s office for having protected them and at the same time they save the county, you know, a lot of money on what would otherwise perhaps be excessive force cases, they do it at the expense of the people who are least able to defend themselves. The people who, for the most part who have to go with an overworked, understaffed public defender’s office that doesn’t have the horsepower to fight these cases.

RON: Trish, why don’t you go ahead and ask him any, Gary, with your permission, have you heard about the Michael Jackson case?

GARY: Yes, I’m familiar with the Michael Jackson case.

RON: It happens to be going on in your county right now. Trish, why don’t you ask the questions that you’d like to and then, when you’re ready, just turn it back to me.

TRISH: Okay. Well, as you said, you’re familiar with the Michael Jackson case filed by the same district attorney, Tom Sneddon. What are your thoughts about the case so far and what’s going on, what we’ve learned from Court TV and newspapers? What do you think about the case?

GARY: I can’t hear you too well, but I got the impression that you want me to comment on the Michael Jackson case?

TRISH: Yes. I would like you to comment on the Michael Jackson case.

RON: And especially in the ways that it is similar to your own.

GARY: All right, well, first of all, let me say I have no opinion one way or the other whether or not he is guilty because I don’t know, I don’t really know very much about the facts. I don’t think any of us do. But what I will tell you, the very fact that he’s being prosecuted by Sneddon’s office does not cause me to have any reason to believe that he’s guilty in that, because of what I know about the district attorney’s office, I know that they do vindictive prosecutions on a routine basis. And I know that Sneddon has been, you know, chafing at the bit because he wasn’t able to prosecute him ten years ago. And so I don’t think that there’s any question that he’s being over targeted. Now, you know, whether he did whatever it is that they’ve charged him with, I don’t know. I’m highly suspicious of it. I mean, it does not fit in my experience, and I have defended some cases of similar, you know, of similar nature. And he does not fit the pedophile profile regardless of what Greta Van Susteren and Diane Dimond can talk about on their Court TV program, he does not fit the profile of a pedophile. I know that he has had hundreds and probably thousands, but certainly hundreds of young people at his ranch, and I know personally that scores and scores of those kids have stayed overnight and have had personal relationships with him. And when you take that into account and then you only have two allegations in ten years of this kind of activity, it’s highly suspicious to me. Does that answer anything?

TRISH: Yes, absolutely it answers.

GARY: I mean, and I have no personal investment in Michael Jackson’s case. As a matter of fact, I sued Michael Jackson a couple of years ago.

TRISH: Oh, you did?

GARY: You know, on a case, in a civil matter.

RON: Was it about those freaking animals, Gary?

GARY: No, no it had to do with a wrongful termination of one of his employees. What I discerned out of that case, even though my client had charged that she had been wrongly terminated, okay? She never doubted his innocence on that case ten years ago or on this case.

RON: Was she working for him then? I’m just curious.

GARY: Yes, she was working for him during that time.

RON: Was she a maid or something like that?

GARY: No, she was an executive employee at the ranch.

RON: I see.

GARY: And even though she did not, I mean, she had her own problems with him, arising out of her termination and we were suing him, even throughout all of that, she never once doubted his innocence with regard to these charges ten years ago or, in fact, I’ve spoken with her since these new charges have come up, and she continues to be supportive of him. She says it’s absolutely not true.

RON: Well, that says a lot.

GARY: She said the problem with Michael is he marches to his own drum and he does act impulsively, and that’s what happened in her case that resulted in her wrongful termination. And so it’s not that she, you know, it’s not like she’s trying to cover for him or anything. If anybody would have a reason to say something bad about him with regard to these charges, it would be her, and she says it’s absolutely not true. And so, because of that, because she knows him and has even had some adversary relationship with him and has been intimately involved with the ranch and with out the ranch in an executive capacity during the thing ten years ago, the fact that she is so confident in his innocence leads me to believe that this is just, just another district attorney effort to get publicity for his own purposes.

RON: Well, he’s certainly getting that, if nothing else.

GARY: Well, I don’t think he’s getting the publicity he expected to get or the reaction that he expected.

RON: Well……..

GARY: Sneddon is used to having it his own way and for the media to fall right into line with him. And it’s always been that way, and I think that, all of a sudden, with my case and with Michael Jackson’s case, people are beginning to question the integrity of his office.

RON: So it could end up backfiring on him.

GARY: All of it could end up backfiring on him.

RON: Okay, well I have a couple of questions regarding the case against Jackson that they’re filing.

GARY: Pardon, what was that?

RON: I have a couple of questions regarding the case against Jackson, you know, not specific, but in general. Are you aware that the attorney general is now investigating the investigation and the procedures that have gone on both in terms of the investigation from day one, the legitimacy that the case should ever have been filed in the first place, the charges. And secondly, with respect to the way that Michael Jackson was treated, or allegedly treated, when he was arrested. And that includes the marks that we were talking about in the photograph that we saw that was allegedly taken after he was arrested, you know, and being locked in the bathroom for, they say 15 minutes and he says 45 minutes, and you and I talked about that as well. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, first of all with respect to the injuries, the handcuffs and so on? Can you tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that?

GARY: Well, my experience is well, first of all, Jackson would not have had a watch on when he went through the booking process. They would have taken his personal items off. So even if he wore a watch in, he would not have had a watch with him, so when he says that he was detained in the bathroom for 45 minutes, I think that that’s the way it feels because it’s absolutely true that he would have been locked into that bathroom and it does feel probably longer than it really is. I know that in my own case it is not uncommon that when you go into that jail, particularly, I know in my own case…..

RON: Are you talking about the Santa Barbara…

GARY: If you go in to visit one of your inmates, unless you go through an extraordinary procedure weeks in advance, you cannot have what they call a contact visit with your client. That is when you can sit in the same room with him and talk with him face to face. You have to talk through the glass just like any other thing, which makes it very difficult for a lawyer to develop a relationship with his client and to go over documents together and this type of thing. And when they put you into that room sometimes you have to wait an extraordinary period of time for them to bring the inmate in. And then after you’re finished with your interview to get out of the visitation room, your side of the visiting room, can take as long as they want it to take.

RON: Do they do that on purpose, do you think?

GARY: Well, I don’t want to say it’s on purpose, Ron, I mean, you know, they say we’ll get there as soon as we can. But sometimes that seems like a very, very long time. And I’ve noticed in my case it does seem to be extraordinarily long and I frequently have to call several times and ask for a supervisor before I’m released from the visitation room. Now, is it intentional or are they just busy, I mean, they are busy, you know. So it’s not something that you can prove. I don’t think that the AG is going to find any misconduct because it’s not the kind of misconduct that you can prove.

RON: Are you talking about being locked in the bathroom or are you talking about in general?

GARY: I’m talking about the extended period of time type of thing. I do know that they have officers there, some of whom are very nice and very helpful and very professional. They have others who have reputations for being impolite, aggressive, and forceful – overly forceful. It sort of depends on what officer is assigned but what Michael Jackson alleges I know has happened in other cases.

RON: Are you talking about the injury now?

GARY: The injury as well as the delay as well as the inappropriate remarks to him while he was in the bathroom. And I know that those things have happened to others. So when he makes the allegation, I have the tendency to believe him because how else, I mean, how would he even think to say those things? Because I’ve had several of my clients make those identical kinds of complaints to me. And so, when he said that, I have a tendency to believe him based on my own experience. But, on the other hand, in any given instance, you can’t prove it. One of the things that Greta was talking with Diane Dimond and they were pooh-poohing Jackson’s remarks, they were talking about, well Geragos was right there with him throughout that whole procedure. That’s not true.

RON: Well, I think they were there too, though, weren’t they, Gary?

GARY: Well, the media was all there, I mean, it was a circus. But the point is, once you go into the booking process nobody is with you. They don’t let your lawyer go in and stand next to you while you’re being booked. And I would be extraordinarily surprised, in fact, I know it did not, I can’t believe that it happened. Geragos was not allowed past the closed doors of the booking room.

RON: Well, did they videotape that as a normal course? I know that they had some audio tape and video tape of, you know, of the booking process, how he was arrested and handcuffed in the car, and so on. Do they videotape the entire process? Do they videotape only parts of it? Do they videotape the whole process and then edit it out to the parts that they want you to see? Or how does that all work? You would think, especially in this case –

GARY: Well, the jail system has a video surveillance system in the booking room. Now, what they release, you know, I don’t know. To regular people they don’t release any of it. As long as we’re talking about videotaping it and the press and some of this kind of thing, one of Michael Jackson’s biggest complaints was the fact of the amount of coverage and the number of officers and the amount of coverage.

RON: Are you talking about the search of the property?

GARY: Yes, it was at the search of his property. And I will tell you that it is against the law for information to be disseminated regarding a search warrant until after the search warrant has been executed and returned to the issuing magistrate.

RON: We did talk about that and I was going to mention that. You mentioned your case.

GARY: In my case, I know that the district attorney, I know that the district attorney’s office does leak that kind of information out, which is illegal.

RON: To the press?

GARY: To the press, to certain members of the press.

RON: To certain members of the press.

GARY: Right.

RON: I see.

GARY: And, in my case, they got the magistrate to issue a search warrant both of my home as well as my office. They then executed both of those warrants simultaneously. My home is in Solvang, California, which is about 30 miles away from my office in Lompoc. I’ve lived in Solvang for the last five years or so because when I began to realize that I did not feel safe in Lompoc anymore because of what I felt was going to be authority problems. I really felt that something like this was going to happen for a long time. And I moved out of Lompoc and I moved to Solvang, although my practice was still in Lompoc. In any event, they executed the warrant on my house and my office simultaneously. And while I was at my home with the officers, at least I came to my home from court and found them rummaging through my home and I was at my house from then on. While that search was going on they were breaking into my office in Lompoc under the position that my office was locked. And they went around to all of my tenants in the building, because I owned the building at the time, and they went around to all of my tenants trying to get a key to my office. Thereby telling all my tenants that they were getting ready to execute a search warrant on my office.

RON: I’m sure that made you feel great…

GARY: And they had a number of police cars surrounding my building and they had a member of the press and a photographer from the local paper taking pictures of breaking into my office. So that the next day there was a headline, "Dunlap’s Office Raided by FBI and Local Police".

RON: Was that another Diane Dimond exclusive?

GARY: I don’t know if it was a Diane Dimond exclusive – it was the local paper exclusive.

RON: Was she there waiting for you at home?

GARY: They were already in my home when I came in from a court appearance in Santa Maria. But when I was waiting for them to finish up in my home, they were in my office doing the same thing, breaking into my office with the press present. So that, that’s improper. I mean, they aren’t supposed to do that. But they do it anyway. They do it because they can get away with it, and they’ve always gotten away with it, and nobody can stand up to them.

RON: The attorney general, as we mentioned, is investigating this. A couple of questions, first of all….

GARY: They won’t come up with anything. There’s going to be a whitewash.

RON: Okay, assuming that there is video tape that we have not seen yet, would they be able to access that video tape before the police could actually, you know, have a little bit of fun with it? I’m not accusing anybody of anything there. I’m sure they’re fine officers, but my point is, if that is internal and it’s not turned over to the attorney general, there could be some tampering with that evidence by them or by somebody else.

GARY: Well, there could be. But you would expect that if they have video surveillance in the booking room or in the bathroom, I don’t know if they have it in the bathroom, but they certainly have it in the booking room, then they should have it when he was in the bathroom behind the door, behind the actually booking facility doors. And it should even be, there should be a video camera even in that bathroom. And if they have that, you have to also assume that they have a time clock on that. And if they have a time clock on it, then they will be hard pressed to tamper with it. But whether there is, you know, what there is, I don’t know. But I just don’t believe that there will be a very extensive investigation.

RON: When you say whitewash are you inferring that they’re not going to really do their due diligence because they’re going to, you know, take care of their own, or am I – I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, I’m just wanting clarification on what you mean by that.

GARY: These are law enforcement agencies that work hand in hand with one another on a regular basis and unless, if it’s an internal affairs investigation, if it’s in the nature of an internal affairs investigation then I think it may be on the up and up and it may be thorough. However, if it is just one of these review these procedures and tell us if you think anything was done wrong, then it won’t be. It will just basically be something to give, you know, to give to Diane Dimond and let her….

RON: Well, I’m sure she won’t find out about that from the DA.

GARY: Well, it depends on what the result is.

RON: Right. Right, exactly.

GARY: So it’s very difficult to take on law enforcement. They have all of the, they have the power. We, as citizens, give them the authority and we assume that they will exercise it responsibly for all of our benefit and protection.

RON: And obviously when they abuse it…

GARY: When they decide that, when the prosecutors decide that they want to be the judges, then law enforcement gets the break down. And what you have is you have law enforcement that have taken on the role that they are the judges as well as the prosecutors. And they are no longer doing an investigation. They are attempting to build an airtight case.

RON: That they can’t lose.

GARY: That they can’t lose and to protect the law enforcement agencies. And when you have a chief law enforcement agency protecting the subsidiary agencies, the policing agencies, with that kind of an attitude, it’s very difficult to do anything about and to catch them.

RON: Trish, are you still there?

GARY: You have the judges – the judges are intimidated. The judges can’t watch what they did to Judge Hall and not be intimidated. They have an extraordinary input as far as the selection of judges. It’s not, you know, it’s not a good situation.

RON: We talked about that, how Melville was assigned to this, the Jackson case, was atypical because, you know, first of all he’s not a criminal judge he’s a civil judge and he, you know, the typical methodology you had mentioned was a random selection. And that’s a random selection of criminal judges of which he is not one. So that would lend you to question how and why he was assigned to the case.

GARY: That is correct. But the only other thing I can say he is probably the most capable of all of the judges on the bench in the north county. So in many respects, Michael is probably well served having him.

RON: That’s good.

GARY: I don’t think that’s the issue. I think, rather, the issue is the selection process was not followed. You know, and if it wasn’t followed it should have been explained both to the public as well as to Jackson and his lawyers why it was not being followed and allow them to have input. But the way it came out it was just like as if it’s a normal kind of a thing. It was not a normal kind of a thing. Does that make sense to you?

RON: It does. It does make sense to me.

GARY: I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Melville handling the case. In fact, Jackson, I mean, the public and Jackson and everybody are probably best served by having him do it because he is an excellent judge.

TRISH: It’s just the process of how they….

GARY: It’s the process. It’s the process the way that it was handled.

RON: It kind of makes you wonder if they are going to, you know, kind of do as they will on that and not inform people, you know, there might be other things going on that people are not informed about that are much more……

GARY: Right. That do cut against the defendant’s rights.

RON: Trish, did you have any other questions?

TRISH: Yes. I do have a question. It was just reported on MSNBC that Thomas Sneddon would like to have a grand jury for the Michael Jackson case. Now, is it typical for the district attorney to go for a grand jury after a defendant has been charged with a crime?

GARY: Well, here’s what I can say about that is that they indicted me. They did not take me through the regular process. They did a grand jury investigation on me. The downside of…..ordinarily, with a grand jury proceeding, they do not have – the defendant does not know there is going to be a grand jury. I didn’t know there was a grand jury being convened in my case until after the indictment was handed down. When you have a grand jury proceeding, it’s essentially a rubber stamp for the district attorney’s charges and allows him to avoid a preliminary hearing, a probable cause hearing. There is no defense lawyer in the grand jury. There is no cross examination in the grand jury. There is no judge in the grand jury room. It’s just the grand jurors and the DA. And in my case, if you read the grand jury transcript and then you compared it with the jury trial transcript, there is virtually no similarity. In my own case, the grand jury indictment transcript is farcical. I mean, the grand jurors asked questions because my case, it sounded a little fishy to a few of the grand jurors and they asked for an explanation. And the district attorney basically said, that’s not important. There were some things that sort of stood out as exculpatory or, you know, exonerating towards me. And a few of the grand jurors asked about, well, what about this? Or, what about that? And the district attorney said, well, you’re just supposed to ignore that. Don’t worry about that. You know, we’ll try to get around to explaining that later, which they never did. And they basically just control it. And that’s why someone famous, and I can’t remember who it was, someone said, you know, in a grand jury proceeding a district attorney can indict a ham sandwich.

RON: A kosher ham sandwich? (laughter)

GARY: A kosher ham sandwich. (laughter) And I think in this case, the DA wants to avoid the glare of a probable cause hearing. Because it will be extraordinarily embarrassing to him if he can’t even get past a preliminary hearing. And so he doesn’t want to have a regular preliminary hearing where his officers will be subject to examination. And so that’s why he wants the grand jury to indict if he can. Now, I have reason to believe that he may have already tried to get a grand jury.

RON: Does he get a grand jury just by requesting it, or does it have to be approved by the judge and if so, based on what criteria?

GARY: He has the right to notify the judge that he wants a grand jury convened.

RON: So he will get it by just asking for it.

GARY: Right.

RON: I see.

GARY: He will get his grand jury convened. Now, what we know is that a few weeks ago, right at the beginning of all of this Michael Jackson stuff, there was a rumor circulating in the north county that a grand jury was being convened.

RON: Against Michael Jackson?

GARY: No, just that a grand jury was being convened.

RON: Oh, in general. Okay.

GARY: And nobody could find out whether that was true, or if it was true, to whom did it pertain? Was it another charge against Dunlap? Or was it a charge about Judge Hall? Or was it the Michael Jackson case? Or was it something unrelated – to some new person? But all of a sudden, the rumor then went away. There was no more talk about a grand jury convening.

RON: Well, like you said, isn’t it basically in secret, so that if it did, in fact, happen, you know, it could have already happened and we would not even know about it, at this point?

GARY: We would not even know about it. There was no indictment. Only if there was an indictment would you know about it. Because the jurors are instructed under their oath, they can be prosecuted if they even discuss that they were on a grand jury. So, grand jury proceedings are all conducted in secret.

RON: Isn’t he taking a risk, though, because if the grand jury does not find enough evidence to proceed to trial, couldn’t that be the end of his case there, or does he have other recourse after that?

GARY: Well, that’s a good question. I believe that if they did not grant an indictment, he could still file charges and go through the preliminary hearing process. However, if he can’t get an indictment from a grand jury then he’s got no case. He’s got no chance of getting through a probable cause hearing because in a probable cause hearing you have the right to cross examine the witnesses.

RON: So it could be viewed as some desperation tactic if he didn’t get that already. You would think that by now we would have heard something if the arrest was November 20th.

GARY: I think that because there have been so many of the news media people around that you would think that it would have leaked out somehow. But, on the other hand…..

RON: I haven’t heard it from Diane yet, so…if I don’t hear it from her I don’t believe it.

GARY: You would only hear it from her if there had been an indictment issued. You wouldn’t have heard it from her if there was such a proceeding and there was no indictment.

RON: Right.

GARY: So there’s really no way of knowing other than through the rumor avenue. But when he says that he would rather have an indictment process, now that doesn’t surprise me because Sneddon and his office prefer to do things in secret. That’s why they hate this media focus that’s been put on this case. Because they operate best, you know, under the covers. That was one of the things that I accused them of.

RON: I’m not going to even touch that one, Gary.

GARY: Well, that was probably a poor choice of words. Probably a poor choice of analogy.

RON: If they don’t like the media, why does it seem that they try to use it to their advantage so much? Without naming names, it’s obvious, you know, that Mr. Sneddon does have some favorites in the media that seem to get information before anybody else does. Obviously, that’s suspicious.

GARY: Up until my case ended in an acquittal, he was able to pretty much control the local north county press, I don’t know about the south county press. But the north county press he was pretty much able to control because the courtroom reporters for the two local north county newspapers would rely on law enforcement and the district attorney’s office to give them, you know, information about cases. And so they had a very cozy relationship. Now, after my acquittal, I think the local newspaper in my community, in Lompoc, began to question whether or not they were getting totally accurate information from the district attorney’s office, and it seems to have changes significantly recently. But up until then, he had a real control over the press. I’m telling you, this guy has had control over a lot. He’s about the most powerful politician. Him, through his office, has been extraordinarily powerful, in the north county particularly.

RON: Trish, did you have any other closing questions?

TRISH: One closing question. I’m reading right now and Associated Press release stating that Mr. Geragos, Michael Jackson’s attorney, is expected to file a motion soon asking the judge to remove both Sheriff Anderson and Tom Sneddon from the case because he believes his client cannot receive fair treatment, and that the criminal investigation was legally flawed. Do you have any comment on that?

GARY: Well, Jim Anderson, I’ve known him for many years, and personally, Jim Anderson has always been a fair law enforcement officer. But you have to remember that he’s a new sheriff, newly elected sheriff, and the structure of his office is left over from his predecessor, who is Jim Thomas, who is a crony of Tom Sneddon. And he also is the one who is going out and doing the interviews with Diane Dimond.

RON: I saw him, actually.

GARY: Yes, well, the sheriff’s office, well, he was sheriff for a long time, and he and Sneddon were very tight. And so, while I think Jim Anderson, individually, and I think he is rebuilding his department and I think you’re going to see a significant improvement in the sheriff’s department in Santa Barbara County over the next few years, but he inherits an infrastructure that was built by his predecessor and that is a big problem for any new coming elected official such as a sheriff.

RON: Gary, you told me a couple of days ago when we talked that Sneddon doesn’t even prosecute his own cases, for the most part. Why would he even have a problem if he was "removed" unless he had some kind of personal interest, i.e., vendetta? I hate to use that word, it’s so strong, but, you know, if he wasn’t so personally attached, why would he even care? Since he doesn’t, you know, personally prosecute?

GARY: I think this is his personal baby. He’s been waiting for this for ten years or more, and Tom Sneddon is a good prosecutor, I mean, don’t kid yourself. He’s an administrator and an elected official and as such he prosecutes very few cases, if hardly any. However, a few years ago, I mean, he went to Israel and prosecuted a couple of murderers in Israel who had committed a murder in Santa Barbara County and he did an, as I understand from reports, a terrific job. And when he was coming up through the ranks, before he was a district attorney he was a very effective prosecutor. Tom Sneddon is no fool and he’s no pushover. I think he wants this case bad. He knows it’s a big publicity case. He knows his reputation is on the line, and he wants to be at the controls of this case. And whether or not he should be allowed to do that, I don’t know, but I don’t think the judge is going to remove him. I think that, in some respects, this is his case and, you know, he probably should prosecute it. But I also know that the truth has a way of coming out in these cases and when you have the financial ability to defend, you know, I think that we’ll, I think that things will work out the way that, I think we’re going to learn a lot through this Michael Jackson case.

RON: I hope you’re right.

GARY: And the very fact that he is so personally involved in it will cut, certainly, both ways. He’s going to get his personal attention and his, you know, imprint. But also, you know, whenever you’re emotionally involved in something you’re less……

RON: Objective?

GARY: Objective. And so it will be interesting. On the one hand, I worry about Michael Jackson’s case only because, Mark Geragos is an excellent lawyer, no doubt about that, he’s, you know, as good as they come. At the same time, he’s from Los Angeles and he doesn’t know Santa Maria. Santa Maria is a unique community, and I hope that he is alert to the personality of the community where the case is going to be tried.

RON: Gary, in closing, I have one quick follow-up question to the one that Trish asked regarding the removal of Sneddon and/or Anderson. What criteria would be justifiable, if any, and what criteria do you think that Geragos is using for, you know, justification to remove them from the case?

GARY: Well, you know, I don’t want to second guess a lawyer as good as Geragos.

RON: Well, generally speaking, what criteria could be used for the removal of a prosecutor from a particular case, you know, as far as conflict of interest, personal attachment, what have you?

GARY: Well, at the least reason for which we attempted, we attempted to have the district attorney’s office removed from my case and our theory was that the prosecuting attorney, the guy who was trying the case against me, and actually there were two of them, but the one who had conducted the investigation was leading the prosecution, was leading the trial against me, was the one who had committed a number of the inappropriate acts. And as such, we intended to call him as a witness, or we wanted to call him as a witness. He couldn’t prosecute the case and be a witness. However, we lost on our motion to have them removed. We always felt that that was an error that they had committed, and had we been convicted that would have been an appellate issue because the personal involvement of McBeth in my case, he should have been a witness. We should have been able to put him on the stand. So we wanted him off of the case. And the same with a number of the other attorneys in that office had also engaged in a lot of misconduct in my case, and because they were potential witnesses, we wanted their office removed. However, when we made the motion, the attorney general, rather than sitting on the sidelines to see whether he was going to be appointed, appeared with the district attorney and argued against being appointed. And because they argued against being appointed and basically rend the motion, the defense of that motion, it was denied. I mean, the case still worked out for us fine. However, that’s why I’m very leery of the supposed investigation because I know in my own case we tried to get the judge, we wanted the judge, who had been improperly contacted, we wanted her to appear as a witness in my case and also to reveal the e-mails that she had communicated with the judicial council about the ethical issues involved in the district attorney coming to her ex parte. And the attorney general, who should have been a disinterested observer, and even more than a disinterested observer, they should have been watching it because with a founded to be illegal act, they theoretically, well, not theoretically, when they found that the district attorney had illegally taped the court proceedings and had made an illegal ex parte conversation with the court, they should have prosecuted those DAs. But instead of sitting back and waiting for the judge to make a decision and then acting on that decision, they went to the district attorney’s defense and argued against our being able to put the judge on the stand to question her about the ex parte communication and they went and they argued on the behalf of the district attorney and with the district attorney against the release of those e-mails, and they argued on behalf of the district attorney against the district attorney being removed from the case and them being substituted on behalf of the district attorney. And so, I don’t want to pick a fight with the attorney general’s office but what, in my own case, the attorney general did not sit back as a fair observer of the conduct or as an examiner of the district attorney and his conduct, instead they came aboard as, law enforcement is under attack and we are on the side of the district attorney.

RON: Right.

GARY: And so that’s why I am very leery about the objectivity of any AG investigation of the district attorney. I have another case that’s pending right now where the attorney general has taken over the prosecution of the case at the request of the district attorney and it has not been a clean operation, let me just say that. I don’t want to say any more about it or give a case name until the trial is over. But it’s coming up next month, and the AG is prosecuting it. When it’s over, depending on how it comes out, I think it’ll be a new chapter in this whole mess, this whole stinky mess.

RON: Well, Gary, we certainly hope so, I mean, obviously we don’t like to see any kind of improper behavior, especially with the authorities. I mean, you put so much trust in them in protecting you and it just seems a little bit medieval to have to fear the people that you’re putting trust in. I mean, it’s almost as bad as Washington from what we’re hearing here, in terms of the possibility of corruption.

GARY: We give law enforcement so much authority over us because we need it for our security, but in giving up that authority over ourselves, we have to trust in their integrity. And when their integrity is not there, I mean, it’s a horrible situation. And I don’t know if this is unique to Santa Barbara County, and particularly northern Santa Barbara County, or whether this is just the way things are going. But God help us all if this is the way it’s going in other parts of the country or in other counties in the state.

RON: Agreed. Well, thank you very much for joining us, Gary. We really appreciate all of your time. You’ve been very generous in giving us all of this information, you know, pertaining to your case and to other cases in the Santa Barbara County area.

GARY: It’s my pleasure, and I hope you’re able to cull something productive out of our conversation.

RON: I think we will, Gary. Thanks so much for your time. Gary Dunlap, attorney in Santa Barbara, California. Thanks for joining us.

GARY: Anything that you publish, Ron, would you be kind enough to e-mail me so I sort of know what my words are that are going out and that kind of thing?

RON: I certainly will. I’ll probably send that to you tonight.

GARY: Okay, that would be great.

RON: Thanks so much, Gary.

GARY: My pleasure. Goodbye, Patricia, thank you.

TRISH: Okay, thanks, goodbye.

Airdate: Jan 1, 2004

MJJF Talk Radio Interview with Geraldine Hughes - Part 1

RON: Okay, Geraldine.

GERALDINE: Yes.

RON: What we’re going do is a little bit different this time. Trish and I are calling this a coffee cup or a coffee table type interview. In other words, we want it to be conversational. We don’t want it to be like a standard Q & A, you know, we ask you a question and you respond, then we ask you another question, like a typical interview. We want it to be just like we’re sitting down at a table discussing all of this, asking you questions, making our comments, and so on, even though we’re in three totally different places across the country, you know, with a modern wonder of technology we’re able to do this. So I’m just going to go and then we’re going to do this. Are you guys ready?

GERALDINE: I’m ready.

TRISH: Yes, I’m ready.

RON: Okay, with us today is Geraldine Hughes. Geraldine’s upcoming book, "Redemption: The Truth Behind the Michael Jackson Child Molestation Allegations" details her inside knowledge of the allegations that were made against Michael Jackson ten years ago. Welcome to our program, Geraldine.

GERALDINE: Thank you very much for having me.

RON: Happy New Year to you.

GERALDINE: Thank you, and Happy New Year to you two as well.

RON: Geraldine, both of us have had an opportunity to read your book, Redemption. Can you begin by telling us, first of all, who you are and how and why you came to write this book?

GERALDINE: I am the secretary, I was the sole secretary that worked for Barry Rothman, who was the attorney that represented Evan Chandler, the father of the little boy that accused Michael Jackson of child molestation in the 1993 case.

RON: Okay.

GERALDINE: And you want to know how I came to write the book?

RON: Yeah, how did it come about? I mean, one of the things that we’ve been asked by people to ask you is that ten years ago this happened and the book is just coming out now. What inspired you to write the book? Why did you decide to write it? When did you decide to write it?

GERALDINE: My main reason for wanting to write the book was because I initially came forward on the very onset of the allegation that they were charging Michael Jackson with child molestation. I watched in tears like the world with the allegation, when it broke. And my first thought was, "Oh, my God, no, they didn’t do this to him!" So I’ve known from the very beginning that Michael Jackson was innocent of these allegations all along. I initially, on the onset as well, went and talked to the defense investigation team and gave them information as to why I felt that, you know, that the crime was being committed against Michael. But because the case settled and the attorneys, the first set of attorneys wound up quitting or resigning from the case, all the information that I provided them and because it never went to court, it is a wealth of information that has yet to come to the public’s attention, and missing links is information that points towards Michael Jackson’s innocence.

RON: Can you also describe how you, you know, the process by which you wrote the book? I understand that during the time you were the secretary to Mr. Rothman you actually made notations in your diary and so on and used that as a basis to write the book. Can you just describe that in brief detail to us?

GERALDINE: I, you know, from being on the inside of the Chandlers camp, when I started believing that something was really not right that was going on around me, I , for some reason, you know, and I’ve come to know exactly clearly why I did it now, but I just started jotting information in my calendar book. They call it a diary but, you know, it’s a calendar book and, you know, I just started jotting information down, but when I saw that it concluded to him being falsely accused of the child molestation allegations and the case settled, I was walking around for years not really knowing, you know, what avenue, what do you do at this point? How do I, you know, I know something that the world does not know, but how do you get this information out? I will say that the idea to write the book did not come to me until 1997. I actually started writing the book, or started the journey of writing the book, in 1997. And I completed writing the book in the year 2000. So, okay, now we have three years, right?

RON: Yes, it was three years. I guess you had stated in 1997 was when you went to the conference where you kind of got the initial idea to write the book. Trish, are you still there?

TRISH: Yes, I’m still here.

RON: Okay, and then when you got the idea to write the book, you started going back through the notations and, you know, went back into doing the research, you know, the public information. One of the things that I found interesting is when we were talking yesterday, Geraldine, you said 75% of the information that’s in your book is public knowledge.

GERALDINE: It’s public knowledge and, you know, the part that’s so interesting is that, you know, to me the most damaging information that I’ve, really, I’m just throwing it back out there, and that is the conversation that Evan Chandler had with David Schwartz, which was the stepfather of the little boy. He didn’t know he was being recorded, but Schwartz was tape recording, so he was freely talking. He didn’t know he was being recorded, where he just literally said blow by blow what his motive was, what his intention was, and if he didn’t get what he wanted what he was going to do, why he hired Rothman, which was the attorney I worked for, and he did everything that he said he was going to do. But Pellicano, the investigator on the defense, Michael Jackson’s investigator, he got ahold of that tape. He gave that tape to the network. They played this tape all over the networks, and they let everybody hear Chandler with his own mouth say, you know, and to anybody else that’s like premeditated, because he didn’t just say it. When you just say it and you don’t act it’s just an allegation or you’re just alleging something, but when you say it and then do it, it becomes a fact that is exactly what, you know, he did just what he said he was going to do. And if, like, that whole thing just got swept under the rug, and I’m like, you know, why weren’t we listening? We’re trying to make Michael Jackson out a pedophile. We’re trying to make him a child molester. We had this man say out of his own mouth, "I’m going to destroy him if I don’t get what I want."

RON: It’s interesting that you mention that, Geraldine, because I actually have a couple of quotes that I wrote down from the transcript. Now, as an aside, before I read them, this would not have been admissible in court because at the time Evan Chandler denied knowing he was being recorded, is that correct?

GERALDINE: Right. That is correct.

RON: Okay, these are a couple of the excerpts from Geraldine’s book, the transcript that Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Chandler had a conversation, I assume this was in early August of 1993?

GERALDINE: I believe so. Let me check to get the exact date of that. I believe it was, yes, it was early August.

RON: In the conversation, Mr. Chandler alleges, "seduced by this guy’s power and money there’s no way I can lose. I’ve checked that inside and out. There are other people involved. I paid them to do it. This guy is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way he can do it". At that point, allegedly referring to Mr. Rothman. Correct?

GERALDINE: Right.

RON: "I’ve given him full authority to do that". And then one other thing that I found interesting is when Schwartz asked, what about, you know, what is in the best interest of the child? Do you remember what Mr. Chandler’s response to that was?

GERALDINE: He said it wasn’t important to him, that that was irrelevant or not important to him.

RON: Right, and that is probably atypical for somebody who supposedly, their child has just been abused by somebody.

GERALDINE: Right.

RON: Trish, why don’t you go ahead and ask Geraldine some of the things that are on your mind?

TRISH: Well, I want to talk about the cast of characters involved in the 1993 case, but before that, Happy New Year, Geraldine.

GERALDINE: Thank you. Happy New Year to you as well.

TRISH: Okay, so let’s talk about Barry Rothman, your former employer. Can you share with our listeners a little bit about the character and personality traits of the two main characters, Mr. Rothman and Dr. Chandler?

GERALDINE: Mr. Rothman, I do really, I spent a lot of time really explaining Rothman’s character because in order to understand how someone could have done this, you gotta know the person, you gotta know the person. So I spent a lot of time in the book really explaining Rothman’s character, and he was an attorney. I had been in the legal field for a number of years when I came to work with him, and I had never ran into any, I can say I never ran into an attorney like him. And I can honestly say I’ve never run into a human being like him. It was the most incredible experience that I have ever encountered. It was very, very - it was the type of character that could have done, you know, could have done - he was the attorney of choice that Chandler referred to when he said - I’ll use Chandler’s own words, "I found someone who is devious, who is" - can we do it like that?

RON: Why don’t we use the direct quote from your book? An encounter with Mr. Rothman was "like meeting a real life demon straight out of the pits of hell".

GERALDINE: Yeah. And that was an understatement. But that’s about as clear as I can put it. That it was really, it was just an encounter that I’ll never forget. I’ve never had that type of encounter with anyone, and I hope I never encounter anyone like that again. But it was just totally incredible. I just could not believe that, you know, what I experienced as far as him as a person, and I was even more shocked that I was able to actually, you know, endure it up until that point. I didn’t have that much tolerance for certain characters, but I just thought that that was just amazing to me. I’d never met anyone like that.

RON: Can you tell us a little bit about the fact that Chandler may have hired Rothman because he had, the year prior to that, been engaged in another similar child abuse case where there were false allegations made? Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

GERALDINE: You know, I was - for lack of better words - I was trying to explain to the reader of the book why he hired Rothman and why Rothman, his choice in selecting Rothman was important. It had nothing to do with litigation because Rothman was not a litigation attorney. Rothman was an entertainment attorney. When you’re an entertainment attorney you’re not doing so much with the courts, you’re dealing with contracts, agreements, letters. And so an entertainment attorney could have very little litigation experience. So it didn’t have anything to do with that. He was not a family law attorney at the time. When he hired Rothman they were engaged in a custody battle at the time. Rothman was not a family law attorney. The only thing that made sense as to why he hired him during a custody battle was because Rothman had just represented - well, it was a client that he had where the lady wanted custody of her child and so they accused the father with child molestation. This was a case just prior to him representing Chandler, where they accused the father of child molestation, which gave the woman who was Rothman’s client full custody of her child and barring, you know, and limiting, restricting the father’s involvement with the child. So that was the only thing that really, you know, to me this is the only thing that makes sense because at the time there was a custody battle that was going on. But the part that just was so, you know, that was a little bit appalling was that the same thing that just had happened with a prior client was the same thing that happened in this case.

RON: Interesting. Trish? Go ahead, Trish.

TRISH: That’s amazing. You know, in your book, you don’t talk a lot about Larry Feldman, the attorney that was brought in to file the civil suit against Michael Jackson. Do you know if he was privy to the extortion attempts from Dr. Chandler and Mr. Rothman, which you have detailed in your book? What was his working relationship and the frequency of contact between himself, Rothman, and Chandler?

GERALDINE: During the time that I was working with Rothman, I did not personally see where Rothman had a lot of involvement with Feldman. Feldman, he was basically the attorney for the child in the civil case. So therefore most of his involvement had to do with, you know, basically representing the child in the civil suit. Once he did start representing the young boy, instantly he filed that civil suit, so there wasn’t that much involvement. I don’t know a lot about Feldman. The only information that I have about Feldman came from the document from the court. I mean, you can tell when you read an attorney’s work, how they’re pleading cases, and what points. I mean, that tells you a lot about an attorney. That’s my only knowledge of Feldman, but I can say my best answer to your question is that I believe with all my heart and soul that he was not privy to the extortion end of it. I believe that he was moving forward believing what was being given to him. I really don’t think that he’s a party or have anything to do with the extortion part of it. I think that he just was representing that young boy based on the information that was given to him from the father and the little boy. And I think that he was just in the best interest of his client representing him, you know, believing full well that he had been molested, or like he would have represented any other client. So that’s why I don’t say too much about Feldman other than, you know, what I’ve learned from him through his pleadings that he was filing at the time. I believe he was not privy to any of what was going on as far as the extortion, but he was representing him based on what he thought was the truth.

TRISH: In your book, you talk about how Dr. Chandler was a nervous wreck, and the child was always at ease trying to calm his father down, and, you know, that’s quite odd to me. Do you think that was odd as well?

GERALDINE: I thought it was very odd because, I thought it was odd because usually it’s the parent, you know, that’s usually the role that the parent takes with their child as, you know, we’re the ones that keep them. But I did witness behavior between the two that was just totally the opposite. I mean, Chandler was a nervous wreck, but I was kind of, you know, I was a little taken by the fact that it was the son that was constantly checking up on him, and when he would have outbursts, the son would go and calm him down. The little boy appeared to me to be perfectly normal, perfectly fine, and I even really, you know, saw something quite charming and kind of cute about him. Also, I can understand why someone would be drawn to him because he was a sweet kid, a nurturing kind of kid.

TRISH: So the roles were reversed. He was more of the father and Dr. Chandler was more of the child. This is really interesting.

GERALDINE: Yes, it was a complete role reversal going on with those two.

TRISH: Now you also talk about a meeting that you walked into between Mr. Rothman and Jordan Chandler. Can you describe that for us?

GERALDINE: I had, forgive me, this is New Year’s.

RON: You were out too late last night, weren’t you, Geraldine?

GERALDINE: You know, it’s just that I have some calls. People are trying to get ahold of me now to say "Happy New Year". I walked in to Rothman’s office without knocking. We were always under the threat of death about walking into his office without knocking. And I was on my way home one evening and, you know, just thinking I’m gonna let him know I’m gone and walk out the door, and so I forgot to knock. I just opened up the door, and I noticed that - that was my first time seeing the little boy, the Chandler boy. He was in the back of Rothman’s office, but we did not see that little boy come in the office. For some reason, he got him into the office without anyone noticing that he had came in, and then he had him behind closed doors. But what struck me really interesting was that the father was not there. It was just Rothman and the little boy. At first, I thought that was kind of strange, but the thing that made me feel that there was really something weird going on was the look on the little boy’s face when I turned around and saw him in Rothman’s office. For some reason, he put like a puzzled look, he put the most funniest look on his face. And when I - Rothman snapped at me, of course, for coming and barging in, and I told him I was just letting him know I’m on my way out. And when I turned around and shut the door, that put a little question mark in me. I said, something just in me said something was really weird about that particular scene right there. You know, something wasn’t right about that because he just had the look that was on his face just looked like I wasn’t supposed to have seen that meeting right there. So that’s why I call it a secret meeting, and I elaborate, but the information that I do state in the book was that it is my opinion, it’s not a fact, but I kind of tie that in because I thought it was important to this case.

RON: Geraldine, one thing that we know about the current criminal case is the importance of the timeline, you know, when certain events happened, you know, when things took place, when things were stated, and I took very good notes as I was reading your book when things started to happen. And on August 4th is the date that you give as when the negotiations between Michael Jackson, Anthony Pellicano, etc., and Rothman and Chandler took place. I found it interesting that between August 4th and August 17th, during that time of the negotiations, those three weeks where the back and forth demands were going, you know, between Rothman and Pellicano, essentially, the child never went to the psychologist. And can you talk a little bit about that? I found it odd, reading the book, that if you’re a father and your son has been abused one of the very first things that you’re going to do is report it to a third party. You’re not going to try to extort money from an individual because of that. You’re certainly not going to spend three weeks if the child is going through trauma. Can you just tell us a little bit about your thoughts on, you know, the timing there?

GERALDINE: The thing that I thought was really key that was like you said, during that time we all know that first he queried this doctor. Rothman first queried the doctor, gave him a hypothetical question about what would happen if, and so the doctor actually wrote him a two page letter telling him, well if this was a real case, you know, this is what, you know, he gave him his advice. It would have to be reported and so instead of doing what that doctor told him to do, you’re right, there was three weeks after that. Instead of taking that doctor’s advice, he just merely took that letter that the doctor gave him and was using that letter as a bargaining tool to go to Michael and say, either you give me this money or, see this letter? I’m going to expose you. All he had was the doctor giving a response to a hypothetical question, but he used it as a bargaining tool, and it was his leverage that he first went to Michael with about giving him the money that he was requesting, which was 20 million dollars. But he didn’t just say, give me 20 million dollars. He was very clever. He said, what I want is four movie deals and they need to be 5 million dollars each. That’s the way he asked for it. So if he would have said give me 20 million, of course we would have said, oh that’s extortion. But still, when we really look at the definition of the word extortion, it is still extortion, even though he said give me four movie deals at 5 million because otherwise I’m going to expose you, because that’s the essence of what extortion is, using some undue influence to try to get someone to do something and if they don’t do it then, you know, there is a consequence that’s going to happen. So, you know, I kind of thought that was really interesting as to, you know, why he didn’t do what the doctor said to do. Instead, he used that. That was his leverage in going to Michael and asking for the 20 million in "terms of a movie deal".

RON: Kind of makes you go "hmmmmm".

GERALDINE: Oh, absolutely.

RON: It’s interesting that it was a hypothetical letter. It’s interesting to know that the letter was not based on any kind of meeting with anybody in the Chandler family. It was based, you know, Rothman obviously had his plan in mind, and if we’re going to believe everything as you’re laying it out, they had "the plan" that Chandler referenced several times. And the plan apparently was to use this letter as the tool, the bargaining chip, to say, look, all we need to do is to bring this kid to the psychiatrist because he’s going to report it to the cops and your career is over. I mean, it was essentially that simple.

GERALDINE: Right. And they did it just the way, you know, he made a point that he was moving according to a plan. And he also said, "I’m being advised". You know, meaning that this was coming from someone else. "I’m being advised. I’m moving according to a plan". And he said, one of the other comments was, "and I cannot lose".

RON: It sounds like, in this case, he was right.

GERALDINE: Oh, he was right.

RON: One thing that I found interesting, Geraldine, when we talked a couple of days ago, you mentioned that you actually typed the letter that Mr. Rothman wrote to Dr. Chandler in terms of the procedure for a parent to report child abuse charges without any risk of liability. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

GERALDINE: I explain that in the chapter titled "Third Party Disclosure", and that does tell in detail that it was Rothman that actually advised Chandler about how to report child abuse by using a third party without liability to the parent and I did type that letter. I did not copy the letter, you know, that is a breach of whatever, but what I did was, I did note that in my calendar book because there were some codes that he had attached to the letter and just, you know, I’m not even thinking at that time that he’s getting ready to get charged with child molestation or they’re getting ready to accuse him. But there something that was so, my curiosity just really, you know, made me wonder, I mean, I was so curious that I decided to note it in my calendar book, and I also noted the codes and I put the codes in the book as well.

RON: Another interesting element of the timeline that I thought was really key in the book is the whole child custody battle between Evan Chandler and his ex-wife, June Schwartz otherwise known as June Chandler. In late July, and I don’t have the exact date in front of me but it was like the third or fourth week in July, Rothman, on behalf of Chandler, negotiated with Bert Fields, who was Michael Jackson’s attorney at that point, to get the custody of the boy for one week. And that custody was held by Evan Chandler for five weeks. And, coincidentally, and I’m sure it was pure coincidence, Geraldine, on August 17th, the day Evan Chandler had to appear in court via an ex parte motion on behalf of June Chandler’s attorneys to get custody back of Jordan Chandler, was the same day, you know, that he was going to have to be doing this, it was the same day that he took Jordan to the psychiatrist where the infamous allegations of child abuse happened. And obviously, you know, us being a biased party, to us it looks a little bit suspicious, you know, that the day that you have to turn over your son after holding him four weeks longer than you were supposed to have him, you’re now basically accusing the mother in this case of being an unfit mother because the abuse that allegedly happened occurred while he was under her care. So can you just comment a little bit about, you know, how suspicious or awkward that seems to be?

GERALDINE: I guess that to me that’s one of those points that goes to the heart of this whole case because, you know, to the public it just looked to them like, you know, Chandler just took the boy to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist questioned him and came up with a few details that he felt he needed to report, that was child abuse and he needed to report it. And behind the scenes it went nothing like that. The day that he took the young boy to the psychiatrist, like you said, that was the day that he had to go to court on a custody issue, where June had filed an ex parte. That meant that when you file an ex parte document that means that you have to go to court the next day. So you only have one day’s notice and explain, you know, why you’re doing this or, you know, and you’re asking the court for an order, and so they didn’t have a lot of time to think that one through. That was the curve ball on June’s part, and remember, they’re moving according to a plan, right? And so I’m at the office just, I’m on pins and needles, I’m like, just dying to find out the outcome because I knew what that was all about. I’m like, oh, God, I need to find out, you know, I can’t wait to find out what happened. Well, what happened was, the court ordered him to return the boy back to the mom. And so, you know, when I heard that that’s what happened, I said, oh, okay. You know, I’m thinking this thing is now over with because now the boy is back with the mom and all that Chandler was doing would come to an end. But that was also when I found out that he took the boy, instead of obeying the court order and returning his son back to the mom, he, instead of doing that, that was the day he took the boy to the psychiatrist that was already queried that if I do this and if this happens then, you know, we’re going to do this. That’s when he did it on that same day. So he never did return the boy. He went on and sent the boy to the psychiatrist, you know, which was the doctor that made the report to the Department of Children’s Services for child molestation, you know, the allegation of child molestation. And, you know, from the inside I’m like, wait a minute, you know, something is really wrong with that because he knew three weeks prior to that. He had already gotten that query that, you know, if this is this and if A is A then B will happen. But for him to have waited three weeks and not to have - oh, and I’ll tell you another thing, Ron, this is another little added point. And the added point that we talked about was that……….

MJJF Talk Radio Interview with Geraldine Hughes 2

GERALDINE: oh, and I’ll tell you another thing, Ron, this is another little added point. And the added point that we talked about was that……oh, Lord, help me, we just talked about that yesterday. What was that other point? About the…..oh, I just lost it. Bad, bad, bad…

RON: Give me a hint and I’m sure I’ll remember what it was.

GERALDINE: It had to do with what is just not ordinary or, okay, maybe it’ll come back. If it comes back I’ll bring it back up, but I’ll just continue with point A. But, you know, just that he took the boy instead of returning the boy, that was when he took the boy to the psychiatrist on the same exact day, and that is just suspicious. I mean, to me that just goes to the heart of this whole case, you know, that he executed the plan. It’s just like now – oh! I know what it was! It just came to me. The other point was that, because he – oh! The part that was so key to this – now I’m excited because I don’t want to lose it again. But the part that was so key to this was, he went to court on a child custody issue about returning the custody of the boy back to the mom. Now, come on – you’ve been negotiating for three weeks prior your suspicion of child molestation and then you go to court, your attorney allows you to go to court. There was no mention in the court document, in the court papers, even to the judge. He made no mention that there was any, any – that he had any knowledge of this boy being molested or of some sexual improprieties as a result because you know if you say that to a judge, the judge is going to do anything in his power, even if he’s wrong in doing it, until he finds out that it’s unfounded. That’s the best place to put that information because a judge will do everything in his power to protect the welfare of a child. That’s his job to do. And he went to court on a child custody issue, made no mention to that judge that he had any suspicion, you know, just had any idea that there was any type of allegation of child molestation or sexual impropriety. He made no mention. And I contend the reason why he didn’t say anything was because June had just thrown a curve ball, she threw them a curve ball. It was too quick. They only had one day to figure out what to do. Well, they just went on and went to court. And because he didn’t say anything, the judge ordered that child to be returned. So now he had to go to Plan B because now the child was being required to be taken back to the mom, and that would have ruined, you know, messed up all of his plans. And that would have really messed up his plans – he needed the custody of the boy in order to execute the charge of child molestation. Otherwise, whatever would have come out of it would have been over in June’s side of the field. And plus, all of this happened while the boy was in the custody of the other father.

RON: Yeah. We had talked about that yesterday, and I was going to bring that up. That, you know, the reason we had discussed it being relevant was that it wasn’t according to their plan. It was something that was unexpected, and I guess it just slipped his mind, you know, during that time would have been a perfect time to do it during that three week period, you know, when he was in court, to mention it then rather than wait until the 17th. Because he did have ample opportunity to mention that earlier.

GERALDINE: And it’s not a slip of the mind when you’re talking about child molestation. It’s probably the most serious crime that anyone can commit against a child other than murder, so it’s not a slip of the mind when you go before a judge and you do not advise that court about circumstances that you believe could be true, that’s harming to that child if that child stays in that parent’s…..that is just not a slip of the mind, you know, that’s the place that you put it because the court will, they would have done the full investigation. They would have assigned an investigation. They would have gotten a social worker. I mean, the court is the one that does the most extensive investigation when it comes to charges like that, so that would have been the best place to have put it.

RON: I think I know why, just off the record, just between me and you, why he might have waited, is because during this time he was still negotiating to try to get his 20 million dollar deal and he didn’t want to blow it because that was his ace in the hole, so to speak.

GERALDINE: But it was on the 17th when he took that child – it was about a week past after the last meeting after they knew that Michael’s camp was not going to buy into it. So it was actually past that time. It’s just that it was not according to their plan, and they were moving according to a certain plan, and they were not going to deviate from that plan and so that’s the little loophole that did not make sense. You don’t go to court on a custody issue regarding a child that you suspect that someone is being abusive, and you don’t say anything to the court? That’s why the judge ordered the child to be returned. There was nothing said to let him know that that child was in any danger or had encountered any type of danger being in the care of the mom.

RON: Right. Well, the next question that I have for you, Geraldine, first of all I would like to mention for the record, because I didn’t hear you mention this earlier, you were a legal secretary for 20 years, correct?

GERALDINE: Correct.

RON: And, reading your book, there’s several chapters and several mentions on there, one of which is called, "Legally Speaking", where you reference a lot of legal precedents. I just want, for the record, for people to know who are listening to this who might not know you that you kind of know what you’re doing when it come to the legal profession. It’s not like you’re shooting from the hip when you’re talking about some of the things that we’re discussing, you know, the court procedures and so on. One of the things that I wanted to mention before Trish asks a whole bunch of questions for you, is the level of professionalism that the investigation was conducted with, and specifically I’m referring to a couple things that you mentioned in your book. Bert Fields sent a letter to the then L.A. police chief, Willie Williams, criticizing him for the way that the interviews were being conducted. I want to mention that you include in your book that Michael Jackson’s, during the search warrant that was issued, the police found and confiscated his address book, his telephone book, his personal book of, you know, friends and people and so on. And they interviewed everybody. As you mentioned in the book, they even went out to different countries, like the Philippines, and interviewed, as I understand it, 400 witnesses. Now, I think that’s relevant for people to know about because a lot of the children and a lot of the people who were in that phone book were referenced specifically by Jordy Chandler as being allegedly abuse. All of them were interviewed and not one of them confirmed on record that any abuse happened. So it’s sort of like, I’m thinking about the boy who cried "wolf", you know, if he says that five people were abused, including himself, and the other four people deny it, then doesn’t that make your claim a little bit less valid? But the thing that I really wanted to point to is the way that the L.A. police department interrogated, I guess is the word we could use with a little bit of leeway, "we have nude photos of you. It’s okay if you come forward and tell us about the abuse". Obviously not a very professional tactic. Do you want to comment a little bit about that?

GERALDINE: And they were reprimanded for that tactic as well.

RON: Can you describe a little bit about the information that you have, and so on, on that?

GERALDINE: Basically, they did do some things that were really questionable like a lot of the precedents that, you know, should have applied didn’t, but a lot of things that have never been done like – you know, they really call that witness tampering and that’s not a good thing. That’s a pretty serious thing to start. And plus they were doing this with the children, like trying to trick them. Like, well, we’ve got someone and they’ve already confessed. The thing I think is so important about using that tactic that they use in trying to get the kids is, they weren’t just questioning the kids. They were really trying to trip the kids up. You know, trying to get them to admit certain things and the fact that these kids never, you know, it didn’t work because there was nothing there for them to admit and I think that worked in Michael’s favor because, like you said, they questioned at least 400 witnesses and they did not have anyone to corroborate with the little boy. And the reason I think it’s so key is because everyone keeps saying just because they settled the civil claim that that’s why he walked away but see if they just had what Sneddon and Garcetti, at the time, what they were looking for was corroboration. If you just have someone saying without physical evidence you really, in order to get past the jury, you need something more than I’m just accusing. You need a witness, you need something. Otherwise, you may be getting ready to waste a lot of taxpayer dollars to go on and pursue that thing, so if there was just one other witness, if there was someone else who could have corroborated, and I have to say this – that we do have the finest police agencies in our nation and out of all our police agencies there were four police agencies that were investigating and they were looking for any type of corroboration. And out of our fine staff of men and women investigating….

RON: Hardworking, underpaid…..

GERALDINE: I mean, probably working on their own time. They could not corroborate that little boy’s allegation of child molestation and, what I’m saying right now, that’s not an allegation is a fact.

RON: And two grand juries, for the record.

GERALDINE: Two grand juries.

RON: Twelve people on each. Twelve people in L.A. county and twelve people in Santa Barbara County. Not enough evidence to bring a trial.

GERALDINE: And a lot of people, they’re saying that he paid off. You need to know that civil and criminal are two separate issues. Just because they paid off the civil – if they could have found anything to corroborate that little boy’s statement it would not have stopped that criminal charge because they literally kept it open for the statute of limitations, which was six years. Six years waiting for anything else to come and in six years there was nothing that came to corroborate with it. So the public really needs to understand that just because he paid off that civil case, that had nothing to do with the criminal case.

RON: Trish?

TRISH: Now, is the criminal case closed? The original Jordan Chandler case closed? Because I’ve heard so many things, that the case is in suspension but not closed….

GERALDINE: Let’s see, now who was the one who said it? It was either Garcetti – I’m not sure which one said it, whether it was Garcetti or Sneddon, but the statute of limitations was six years, so after the six years ran out and they really could not find anything else and they did keep it open for the duration of the statute of limitations – for the whole six years of the statute it was open – but legally, after six years it is closed. If you haven’t brought him up on charges from the 1993 in the six years, then it is technically closed. In order to bring him up on charges now, it has to be a new charge. Which is what they’re doing right now.

RON: Well, we’re going to get to that a little bit later on.

TRISH: In your book, you referenced an outburst you overheard from Evan Chandler, which was directed at Rothman. Here’s the quote, "It’s my ass that’s on the line and in danger of going to prison". And you recorded that in your diary. Can you tell us what was going through your mind and why you think Dr. Chandler may have been upset?

GERALDINE: When I heard it, I could only hear an outburst. I could not hear if it was something that was being said in a normal level of speaking, but if it was an outburst, someone got heated and they just shouted out. I could hear that. That was one of the comments that I did hear and I just kind of thought it was strange for someone to say that if they’re the victim. That didn’t sound like a victim’s statement to me. It sounded more like a perpetrator’s statement.

TRISH: Right. Right, because if I would have heard, "it’s my ass that’s on the line and in danger of going to prison", the first thing that I would have thought is somebody’s in trouble. And it’s very interesting. Even in the recorded call between David Schwartz, Jordan Chandler’s stepfather, and Evan Chandler, he never mentions abuse. He always states his son had been "seduced by this guy’s power and money" and "there’s no way I can lose. I’ve checked that inside and out. There are other people involved. I’ve paid them to do it. This guy is going to destroy everybody in sight and in any devious, nasty, cruel way he can do it. And I’ve given him full authority to do that". And when Schwartz asked, what about the best for Jordan? And Dr. Chandler said, "That’s irrelevant".

GERALDINE: Absolutely.

TRISH: It doesn’t sound like he was concerned about his allegedly abused son. You detail how both Chandler and Rothman sought criminal representation and were very nervous about the investigators who were interviewing them for extortion and at one point you overheard Rothman tell Chandler that they needed to meet over the weekend to make sure our stories are the same. Can you tell us about that?

GERALDINE: That was when the charge of extortion – when they started calling to investigate the charge of extortion against Rothman and Chandler. I’ll say that up until that point, they were very poised and they pretty much had a handle on things, but when someone from the investigators office starting calling about wanting to meet with them, and they were not going to want to meet with them together. You know, these were going to be separate meetings. Rothman just, you know, he was on pins and needles one day because normally Chandler would call our office three to four to five times a day and his calls were always priority. This particular day when he knew he needed to meet with the investigator, I believe it was going to be that upcoming Monday, and this was like maybe a Thursday or Friday, well, he hadn’t heard from Chandler to give him that information so he was like, when Chandler calls – find me. It was like, find him wherever he was at, interrupt him no matter what’s going on, so when the call finally came from Chandler, he was – normally he would take calls and march all the way back to the office, shut the door – take it behind closed doors. This particular time, he took it in an attorney’s office kind of close to where I was located. He took it in that office and he didn’t shut the door this time. So I was like, he’s just like on a different plane today. He wasn’t thinking. He didn’t have it all together that day. And I heard him, and it was an outburst – it needed to be an outburst as well. I heard him tell Chandler, you know, he was telling him something and then he said this part loud. He wanted to meet him on a Saturday. No other employee would be in the office. It would have been just him and Chandler. So that made sense to me, they wanted that kind of privacy. But he was trying to tell him that the reason was so that we can make sure we’re saying the same thing – so that we’re both saying the same thing. He reiterated it really loud – maybe Chandler was probably trying to say, come up with another day or something – so he said this really adamant. You know, we both have to make sure that we’re saying the same thing. To me that’s a little different than let’s get together and let’s go over certain facts. But for him to have said that the way he said it, I said, wait a minute – that was another point – there’s something really wrong here.

TRISH: Now, you mentioned that you were never subpoenaed with regards to the extortion trial or members of the press, they didn’t even try to interview you about this. How are you able to justify in your own mind that you were cooperating with the investigators researching the extortion plot while you were working with Rothman and when and why did you leave Rothman’s employment?

GERALDINE: You mean the investigator that I was working – okay, the investigator I was working with was the defense investigator, Michael Jackson’s investigator. And my reason, I wasn’t the initial one, it wasn’t my bright idea – you know, during this whole case I would just go home not putting what was going on or what I was experiencing in anybody else’s ear but moms, you know, are usually privy to what their children are going through and I was sharing with her, I was, you know, just kind of saying, "I can’t believe this" and just sharing certain things with her. So when the charge hit, the charge of child molestation, she was just as bothered by the charge, knowing full well, because of the information I had been kind of sharing with her, that he was innocent all along, that these charges were not true. And so my mom was glued to the news, all the different news. And through that she found out who the investigator was on Michael’s side, which was Pellicano. My mother called him and said, you gotta talk to my daughter. She works for Rothman but she’s got some information. Well, she came back to me and said, you’ve gotta talk to the investigator. She said, they wanna talk to you. You see, at first, honestly, I thought it was the investigation team wanting to talk to me to know, you know, what I knew concerning this case. It wasn’t until we actually went to talk with Pellicano that I found out that he was not the DA’s investigator, that he was a private investigator on Michael’s side. I didn’t find that out, and I probably didn’t even find it out until pretty much the meeting had concluded, and he let me know who he was and kind of broke it down and let me know exactly what side he was standing on. So I actually thought I was talking to the DA’s investigator, you know, I thought they were talking to me even though I knew my mom had kind of like spearheaded it. But my reason for doing it, I really thought I had no choice but to go talk to him and the other part was that I really believed in my heart that I was really being a witness to a crime that was being committed against Michael Jackson.

RON: Geraldine, a lot of people ten years later are still questioning, you know, one of the questions in their minds, especially those in the public who aren’t necessarily Michael Jackson fans, why would an innocent man settle a law suit when it would make him look guilty? And in the chapter titled, "Legally Speaking", you cover this in great detail. Can you give us a little bit more detail about this for our listeners?

GERALDINE: I kind of thought that was really important because in my best estimation, I believe that 95% of the reason why he settled the case had to do with what was going on in the court system. There was a lot, I mean, I didn’t even really realize what was going on, I mean, a lot of this writing I went to the courts and I pulled the records and, you know, being a legal secretary and knowing motions and knowing a lot of legal terms, it was real easy to know what was going on down there just by going through the paperwork. But I wanted to put it in a way that the public, you know, someone that has no legal knowledge, could just read it and see, ah, so this is what was going on. But the court system was not working for Michael Jackson. He lost four motions that they had put before the court, and I believe that two of them he should have won. And they were key motions that had to do with the case as far as – one, in particular, was that they were asking to stay the civil case. There’s a difference between civil and criminal. Civil is the one that Feldman had filed while the DA’s office was pursuing the criminal case. Well, the two are under two different standards. The criminal case requires – well, the standards are a lot stricter. You can’t, you know, just acquire any kind of information in any kind of way. You’ve got to do it according to standards and codes, but on the civil end the standards are a little bit more lenient. You know, you can bring into evidence things in the civil case that you cannot bring into on the criminal case, but it was important for them to try to stay the civil case because if you allow the civil case to precede the criminal case, then all the DA had to do was just to lay in wait and obtain the information – it’s like a form of self-incrimination breaching your Fifth Amendment right. You know, you have a right not to incriminate yourself, but they filed the motions asking to stay it until the criminal case had a chance to conclude, and he lost on that motion. And that put Michael in a position where he was not going to receive a fair trial because by them allowing the civil case to go forward and to precede the criminal case, and we’ve seen this happen before in the O.J. case, you know, that criminal case had to go first and then once it concluded then it came back, the families came back, and went after the civil case. And that’s the proper order. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen, especially when the allegations are the same. That was the same case in Michael’s situation, but they allowed that civil case. They allowed Feldman to go on and move forward. Then Cochran came in and he tried to put a protective order. He said, well, if you’re going to let it go forward, we want to protect discovery. He was trying to stay the trial again through a protective order, and he did not win that case either, and when he did the protective order, there were three oppositions that came in from three different sources that kind of came in and said, no, this is why it’s got to be. So it was just a lot of what was going on in the courts, and it wasn’t working in Michael’s favor, and these attorneys knew that the system was not working in Michael’s favor. Now, they could have gone on and went to trial, but they really did what they had to do based on what they knew was kind of going on, and it is an attorney’s place to kind of gauge how things are going so that they can represent the client to their best ability. Hence, settling that case had nothing to do with him being guilty. He really almost had no choice but to settle based on what was going on, based on the advice that was being given by his attorneys, I mean it would have been foolish at that point to have went on and let it go to trial, knowing you’re going to spend even more money with court costs, high attorney’s fees, and taxpayer dollars, and then there was no indication that – it hadn’t been working so far – why think it’s going to work on the other end? You know, after going through all of that. It was just easier. It was the best advice that his attorneys, I’m sure, gave him, and that’s what they did. And it had nothing to do with him being guilty.

RON: Geraldine, I want to mention a couple of things that you reference in your book as to why he lost those motions. Feldman, obviously, is a very experienced and aggressive attorney. I guess we can say that nicely. One of the things that he uses in there, he wants to expedite the entire court process, the entire trial. And I think it was a 120 day window, and he was using some kind of precedent because of the fragile "memory" that a young child has. Even though this child, at the time, was, I think he had just turned 14. That, the court ruled, was more important than Michael Jackson’s constitutional right not to "self-incriminate", based on using the same testimony that the DA was going to use, that he was giving in the civil case. So I know that had a lot to do with it, as far as why he lost those motions. The thing that, as far as the financial standpoint that we talked about earlier and is referenced in your book, that if the trial, estimated to go on at eight months, it would cost him four times as much money, because he wasn’t hiring, you know, "Joe Attorney" just graduated law school, he had Johnny Cochran and some other high powered guns that weren’t, you know, red dot specials. They were charging, I’m sure, several hundred dollars an hour. And to pay four times more, have your life totally spread out for the entire world to see, and Michael Jackson very obviously a very private person with no guarantee of victory, that’s really, I think, as you were saying, just to kind of reiterate some of the things that you were saying the reason why he decided to settle the case.

MJJF Talk Radio Interview Transcript (Part 3)

GERALDINE: And one of the other motions was they immediately wanted to take the deposition of Michael Jackson and along with a deposition you can ask for a document, you know, for them to produce documents. Well, let me tell you, with documents they were very, very interested in producing, this is before you even established somebody’s guilt, they were asking for financial information.

RON: Right.

GERALDINE: That was almost the first thing they were asking for – assets, finance, you know, they wanted to know what his assets were. And it’s like, they were trying to block that one as well. They lost on that one too.

RON: Well, obviously they were very concerned about the child’s well being at that point. I mean, that the universal truth in this matter.

GERALDINE: Or Michael's financial well being.

RON: One thing that we wanted to ask you, I think, was a question posted on our message board. We know that he lost the four motions. And we know the trial was scheduled for some time in March, I think March 24th, you know, off the top of my head. We know the case was settled in January. Given what we know about the facts in the case from what your experience told you when you were working there as the secretary, do you think that he would have won? Do you think that he would have prevailed in court, you know, in terms of the civil case and/or the criminal case, the criminal case that was never filed, by the way?

GERALDINE: Right. I think he should have won because, like I said, the first set of attorneys, they really had compiled, they had a lot of the factual information. They knew, you know, who had perpetrated this against him. He should have won, but because they were really - the way Feldman was portraying this as a little boy who, you know, he’s a victim, and they seemed to be buying into this portrayal. He wasn’t a little boy. He was a teenager, 13, you’re a teenager, but he was pleading it as a little boy who, we’ve got to go to trial quick, otherwise he’s going to lose his memory. That’s what this law is for. No, the law is for little kids who do have short-term memories.

RON: I think Feldman was just saying that if the kid – the younger the kid was the more money they were going to get out of it. He probably searched out some precedents on that. So the younger more pathetic and weaker memory that he had, the more money they were going to get out of it. But, go ahead, I’m sorry, continue.

GERALDINE: He’s a litigator.

RON: He’s the guy who gives attorneys a bad name.

GERALDINE: No, but Feldman is a good attorney. I can’t say nothing about a good attorney, you know, he’s a good attorney. He was doing what he knew to do.

RON: What about the separate case involving the alleged extortion that was going on that the press hardly reported on? Do you Michael Jackson would have prevailed on that? I guess the two are, you know, you can’t really lose one and win the other. I mean, if you won the extortion case, you wouldn’t have won that case if the allegations were true. Do you have any comment on that?

GERALDINE: Well, the comment is that had they really investigated the extortion charge with the same vigor that they did the child molestation, they would have gotten a lot more answers, and it would have cost a lot less money. The answer was right in their backyard. They didn’t have to go overseas. They didn’t have to panel two juries.

RON: They didn’t have to call Diane Dimond?

GERALDINE: Only if they wanted to confuse the case, yes. But they didn’t have to. The facts were just too plain, too simple. I’d say about a good 75% of my book is based on information that was already either exposed, that was already in the public’s eye and was already brought to their attention. You don’t have to dig deep to find this. You know, they don’t even have to believe me. Go down to the courts and pull the files and see for yourself.

RON: Trish?

TRISH: Geraldine, are you worried about Rothman and Chandler possibly coming after you, you know, via legal recourse? Do you feel that you’re divulging attorney/client privilege?

GERALDINE: Before I started writing the book, I had an interest in knowing if I had a legal right to do this, so I would honestly say that before writing the book I actually started investigating my stand as far as do I have a right to do this and do I have a legal right to do it? And I stumbled across an evidence code that said, you know, I did a lot of research on attorney/client privilege and basically what it says is that if the attorney/client relationship is, if the client hires an attorney to commit a crime, then that relationship is not – there is no attorney/client privilege. And I kind of looked at that and I kind of read it over and over and over again and then I reflected back on the statement that Chandler made in that conversation when he was talking where he said, "I’ve hired someone who is devious, who is nasty, and he’s waiting to destroy Michael Jackson and ruin his reputation and his career". And I’m like, those are not the reasons why you engage an attorney. You don’t engage an attorney to commit a crime or to extort from a person. And when you do and because he said that out of his own mouth, I said, well as far as I’m concerned there is no attorney/client privilege because he stated it out of his own mouth that that was why he hired Rothman.

RON: Geraldine, I just want to reference in your book. It was something I read yesterday. It’s California evidentiary code, section 956. There is no privilege under the article if the services of the lawyer were sought or obtained to enable or to aid anyone to commit or plan to commit a crime or a fraud. And that’s right from the codes, so that’s the direct quote that you’re about, the direct phrase that you’re talking about.

GERALDINE: Absolutely. I’m not saying that he will not try to, but I’m just saying that if he decides to, then I need them to know that that is the code that I’m standing on and that that is my defense. Now, if they want that to be the case that we’re going to prove in the court whether that relationship between Rothman and Chandler, whether it was ethical, whether Chandler engaged Rothman to commit a crime, I’m prepared to defend that. That is the one that I’m prepared to defend, and I think the world would be interested in knowing that as well.

RON: Well, I, at least, would be. And I think Trish would be too.

TRISH: Yes, definitely.

RON: I just want to say a couple of things to you, Geraldine, before I give it back to Trish. You’re very brave. Obviously, you’re very brave. You have convictions that you’re willing to stick by. I remember last night you told me that you will give a copy of the book to Mr. Chandler and Mr. Rothman and you will get an attorney because if they want to come after you, the burden of proof is going to be on them. They’re going to have to prove that their intentions were true. And I don’t think that they’re going to want to invest the time and the money to come after you. But that’s just my own contention. But if they do, they’re idiots.

GERALDINE: Right. And I don’t mind because I really feel relieved that what I’m doing is the right thing to do because before there can be justice in any case, it requires the truth. It requires the truth. And as far as I’m concerned, the truth is not out there. A lot of people don’t know or maybe we weren’t listening. Maybe we heard but we weren’t listening. Maybe we saw but we didn’t see. Maybe that’s what happened. But still, it requires the truth and what’s out there is not the truth. So I toiled, you know, I’m not going to say that I didn’t toil and that it’s not taking courage that maybe I didn’t have but now I do. I don’t know. But I will say that it really boiled down to, if I don’t do it, who will do it? If I could have found any other hand raised, I would have opted out and I would say, okay, let you do it. You know, but it boiled down to if I didn’t do it, I was the only one who was willing or even could have done it. And it just required that, to me it required that it was something that I really had to do. I think in the book I said, one of those assignments that’s given as a part of your destiny and I had to come to terms with it like that before I said it’s something I must do. It had nothing to do with, you know, some people want to say it had to do with, you know, I’m not a public person. I couldn’t care less about being out there in the limelight. In fact, I don’t like it at all. But I just said that if I have to get this information out, if I have to do it, then I’ll do it. Now, my mother is the one with the courage like that, the courage of a lioness. She was about what’s right and that’s it. And I will say that if it required me losing my precious mom and for me to say that this was something she would not let up off of me. I had to do it just to say, mom, I did it. You know, I did do it. This is what you wanted me to do and I did it.

RON: It sounds like it was a redemption and a cleansing for yourself as well as for Michael Jackson.

GERALDINE: Yeah, I had to do it to get it out of me and put is somewhere, so I decided to put it in a book and so that’s why I chose to write the book.

RON: Trish, go ahead.

TRISH: What was your first reaction when you learned of the more recent allegations made against Michael Jackson?

GERALDINE: My first reaction was, I guess it was, I don’t believe they did it again, if I may put it like that. I guess I can explain it best by saying, when someone does something once you tend to think that if they can do it once, they’ll do it again. Well, I know with every fiber in my being that Michael Jackson was innocent the first time so with that same fiber in my being I know he was innocent the first time so I can only assume that he’s innocent this time.

TRISH: Now, we’re all aware of what Michael Jackson is going through this time around and the many parallels involved. Can you compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the case of today and what we know and the one ten years ago, even including the cast of characters?

GERALDINE: Including the what?

TRISH: Including the cast of characters. The people that were involved then and the people who are involved now.

GERALDINE: Well, Sneddon was involved then and he’s involved now. I was told and I can’t say this, don’t quote me on this part, but I was told that they involved Feldman, not that Feldman is representing the little boy but that he had a part in, you know, moving it in the direction where it’s at now, as far as going to the psychiatrist. So that’s another similarity. It’s very similar in that it’s going in the same direction. They’re using the same channels that they used before. That part is all similar. The only difference this time is that the attorney is not involved, Rothman is not involved. It’s similar in terms of how they’re going about it this time as well. It relates to the same way they did it the first time in terms of going to the psychiatrist, but I think Sneddon is a little key in this second time around because he was there the first time and, you know, I kind of believe that, I mean, I’m going to throw this out there because I believe in giving a person the benefit of the doubt. I’m not going to buy into a lot of theories right now, but I will say this, I will say that I believe with all my heart that Sneddon, he’s doing, I mean, what he’s doing, he’s doing based on what he thinks is reality. I don’t think that Sneddon, I don’t know enough about him to say anything about his motive or whatever have you. But I do believe that he’s vigorously moving against Michael because he believes the allegations from the first time was accurate. So like I said, if you think somebody did it one time you’re not going to think twice about it the second time, but the information that he’s moving against was not accurate the first time. So I really have no fault as far as what Sneddon is doing because I believe he thinks that he was really, you know, based on the information that was given to him the first time that he thinks that he’s moving in the right direction. I don’t believe that he’s doing it maliciously but he is vigorously. And I don’t know what depths he’s willing to go to pursue it. Now that part I don’t know. But I do believe that he’s really moving vigorously in that direction based on what he believes to be true.

RON: One thing that I wanted to ask you about, Geraldine, you mentioned a couple of days ago was the quote "mastermind" that was behind the first time around that’s not present this time around. In other words, the Rothman/Chandler strategic plan, and they seemed to have everything, you know, figured out in advance. Where this time around it’s a criminal matter. It’s seems to be totally different from that standpoint. Can you comment on that?

GERALDINE: But it’s the same plan. It’s a different set of characters, but they’re using the same plan.

RON: Can you comment on how the characters are different this time around and how, I think you were mentioning to us earlier that ten years ago they really seemed to know, they really seemed to have everything thought out in advance, and they were really good. They were really a mastermind type, whereas today it’s a little bit of a different scenario?

GERALDINE: Well, because the parties that were involved the first time, it was termed as Pellicano said, that it was an elaborate extortion scheme. And any one of those words are pretty strong and harsh by themselves. Elaborate, that means that it was multifaceted extortion. And the scheme, well, this time around it’s minus that mastermind, you know, that’s not here right now. It’s just not that right now. It’s kind of, I think a lot of people were really surprised because of what came out in terms of the character of the little boy and the family and how they said no one time and all the inconsistencies. It’s hard to fly that by a jury. You know, you really have to be pretty credible and they’ve got to be willing to believe that, that there’s credibility going on here in order to believe something minus any type of physical evidence. And already a lot of inconsistencies have come out even before they filed the charges. A lot of people were really shocked that Sneddon went on and filed these charges in light of the fact of all these inconsistencies that have come out.

RON: Shocking. Totally shocking.

GERALDINE: Oh, yeah – oh, yeah. And he just did it anyway. I think this one is a lot less credible and will be a lot easier to prove to be false, whereas the other, the first one, it was elaborate. It really took a witness to be able to say just what happened. Minus a witness, everyone still would have never known what happened in that first case because it was put together so elaborately.

RON: I just got the picture in my mind of you walking in and seeing the 13-year-old or 14-year-old Jordan Chandler talking to Mr. Rothman without the parent there. It seems a little bit atypical for a 14-year-old to be consulting with an attorney. I’m sure there was no coaching involved but you would think that for the concern of the child, that kid would spend a lot more time in front of a psychiatrist, describing what "did happen" rather than meet with an attorney before to decide to get their story straight to make sure of covering what they want to cover prior to making the announcement. It just, you know, whatever, I mean, obviously we’re a little bit biased. Speaking of biased, we’re very aware of the tabloid media feeding frenzy that surrounded the allegations from ten years ago. How would you contrast that with how we’re seeing the story covered this time around?

GERALDINE: The frenzy is there, but the media is, I’m really kind of surprised that, you know, I think that the media is not really, I don’t know. I don’t really know if I know how to say this. I’m kind of a little bit more pleased with how the media is handling it this time around. I think that they are being fair in reporting information as it comes and I don’t really believe they’re on witch hunts this time. They’re really accurately reporting, not being so quick to jump the gun. Before, they were paying people. The first time, they were paying people for false information without even verifying it. Now, I think I really like how they’re doing it now. The frenzy is there because Michael Jackson, I mean, the story of him took precedence over everything else that’s going on – Saddam Hussein – all of that. He’s taken precedence over everything right now. But I think they’re being a little bit more cautious, a little bit more responsible in reporting information. And it’s still kind of weighing towards, the boat is still tipped too much in the wrong direction, but they are being……

RON: I think it’s more like a raft, actually. I think it’s a raft being paddled by Ms. Dimond, but that’s just my opinion.

GERALDINE: Well, I didn’t say ALL of the media now, I just said, you know, for the most part. I really want to give the media, as a whole, credit in that. For the most part, the media is being pretty fair and they’re not really going on witch hunts and bringing up, you know, just allowing any old kind of thing to come up. But I still think there is too much over reporting and too much under reporting. There’s some stuff that’s out there like the incident where they’re asking, you know, you keep hearing about a 45-year-old man sleeping with children. You know, but they’re asking experts. And experts, if they have children, somebody else may be raising their children because they’re professionals. They need to be asking moms, you know, housewives. They need to be asking just normal families. I’ve worked with kids. I have children that for the last three years that come to my house, that used to come to my house on a weekly basis. And I’m telling you, I’ve done so much with these kids, underprivileged kids, taking them places they’ve never been, doing things that would make any kid just really marvel, and out of all the things that I’ve done with these children, their number one request, they’re on my phone every week, Ms. Geraldine, when are we going to come over and have a sleepover? That is a child’s number one thing, they love it. Then when they come, I don’t think it’s Michael that’s doing anything. Kids will come and take over your house, your bed, your remote control, your TV. You’re lucky if you can just get a pillow.

TRISH: That’s so very true.

GERALDINE: And every parent I talk to is telling me the same thing. But when it gets to the media, everyone is so, "well, it’s just so unnatural". No, it’s not. It is perfectly natural if you are a normal person.

RON: Especially if you’re somebody like Michael Jackson, who seems to have – you know, wanting to get his childhood back.

GERALDINE: Yes, they adore him. They want to be around him. It’s them wanting to be around him and want to just cling to him and just, you know, take over his life.

RON: You mentioned on Scarborough County, Geraldine, a couple of days ago, you were with Jermaine Jackson, you were talking about how the family had, it was a two room, two bedroom house, and I think there was six brothers, three sisters, and two adults, and it wasn’t atypical to have kids sleeping in various capacities coming over, the kids sleeping at other peoples’ places. It was just the way that they were raised in a big family environment.

GERALDINE: Right. And that is normal. You have to look at how he was raised. And a person that would have a problem with that, the only thing I’m cautious of when dealing with children is dealing with the opposite sex. When my boys come over, I keep them separate, but when my boys would come over to my house, I make sure that the boys are downstairs on the floor. You know, just throw out pillows and sleeping bags. But I will tell you, there would be like eight or nine kids down there. And when I get up in the morning time and I go downstairs to wake them, you couldn’t tell where one kid began and another would end. They’re just, one’s leg is on the other one’s foot. Only someone, like Jermaine has said, it’s the people with the sick minds that think that there’s something really, really wrong with that. But you got to look at the person. You got to know who you’re dealing with. If this was a priest and he had children over and kids climbed up in his bed, you wouldn’t think twice.

RON: Except if he was Catholic – just kidding!! I’m going to have to edit that out because now all the Catholics are gonna be sending me hate mail.

TRISH: Thank you!!!

RON: Geraldine, one other thing that I wanted to reference. On Sunday night, when he gave the interview with Ed Bradley, he talks about, you know, when people look at that type of situation they do think sexual, and you and I were talking a couple of days ago. A lot of that is because of what society has presented to them and just, not only the media coverage, but all of the different, you know, crazy people that you hear about again, and again, and again where something improper has happened. They don’t think about it like Michael Jackson describes as the child being the face of God, a child being, you know, just an innocent person that you can socialize with because they’re not looking for anything from you.

GERALDINE: Right.

RON: And, unfortunately, it seems that Michael Jackson got involved in a couple of scenarios where maybe the parents wanted something from him. And that’s another parallel because, I don’t know if we mentioned that, but ten years ago and today, child custody, estranged parents, a broken home, you know, that’s the same old story. Different time, same old story.

MJJF Talk Radio Interview with Brian Oxman.
12-29-03

Ron: With us today is attorney Brian Oxman. Brian represents the Jackson family in various capacities and has served as a legal analyst for various news programs. Brian, we know you’re very busy. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us.

Brian: My pleasure.

Ron: Brian, so much has been said recently about you being a "self-appointed spokesman" for the Jackson family. Can you please clarify for us how long you have been representing the family and in what capacity you represent them, i.e., you know, what areas of law specifically you cover?

Brian: I have represented members of the Jackson family for the past fourteen years. I started with doing Randy Jackson’s divorce, and then he introduced me to his brother Jermaine. I did his divorce. They introduced me to Tito, and I did his divorce. Then they introduced me to Jackie, and I did his divorce, and then they introduced me to LaToya, and I did her divorce. I have represented the mom and the dad and Rebbie, who is the oldest. The children of children, Siggy, who is Jackie’s child, Autumn, who is Jermaine’s child, and Brandi, who is Jackie’s child, and Taj, Taryll, and T.J., who are Tito’s children. So I’ve kind of been around the entire family and been a part of their lives, the birth of their children and the deaths of their spouses. It’s been quite an experience.

Ron: Lots of divorces there, Brian.

Brian: They certainly seem to have kept me very busy.

Ron: Okay. It’s a big family too. We’ll keep that in mind. Can you tell us to what extent you specifically represent the criminal investigation, you know, the family in regards to the criminal investigation against Michael Jackson right now?

Brian: Mark Geragos is Michael’s attorney, and he is the only one who is authorized to make statements on behalf of Michael. And what we see, really, is that Michael is the one who makes statements on behalf of Michael. It is only when Michael speaks that we should really pay close attention because Michael has always chosen to speak for himself.

Ron: Excellent. Okay, Trish, go ahead.

Trish: Hi. Speaking of the family, how is the Jackson family as a whole handling this, especially Michael’s mother, Katherine?

Brian: They are extraordinary people and they have an extraordinary constitution. They’re just tough minded. They see things for what they are, and they tend not to get real upset at the various things which cross their path, including this investigation. But it has been absolutely nerve wracking for them, and it has gotten to them to the point where they really would like to do everything in their power to make sure that their brother, Michael, is vindicated.

Trish: Brian, you saw last night the interview that Michael conducted with Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes. Overall, do you think it helped him or hurt him in any way, and why?

Brian: I think the public demanded that Michael come before them and tell them what it is that went on here. It was more of a greeting of his fans to make sure that we see Michael, because only Michael speaks for Michael. And from that point of view, it was absolutely imperative that he do it, and his discussion was serious, it was reasonable, it was intelligent, and I think a lot of people were impressed with Michael Jackson.

Trish: Now, the interview took place on Thursday night and it’s obvious to everyone that Michael was in a considerable amount of physical pain. How is he doing?

Brian: Michael has not discussed with the family members his physical condition. It is something which has been a matter of rumblings between the family members because of the treatment which he received at the Santa Barbara Police Department, but he has never really described his physical condition.

Ron: Brian, in the interview, Michael Jackson alleges that the police "manhandled him", they dislocated his shoulder, and locked him in a bathroom for 45 minutes, even showing us a gruesome photo allegedly taken after the incident. Do you know what legal recourse Michael Jackson and his attorney, Mark Geragos, would have against the Santa Barbara Police Department, and are they looking to do something, and to what degree?

Brian: There are a number of things which can be done to complain about the type of treatment that Michael had, and only Michael is going to tell us what that is. Mark Geragos has said that he will take the appropriate action at the appropriate time, and I think we need to trust that. I want to say something about the experience of being arrested. It is not pleasant. It is not fun. All the years that I have practiced, I have seen that the defendants complain bitterly that the police have not treated them appropriately. This is another such incident. I don’t think that it’s something which rises to the level of absolute outrage, but it certainly rises to the level of saying that this is the standard operating procedure. This is how procedures are conducted by the police, and they are rough.

Ron: In the interview, Michael also alleges that police "totally trashed" his property, wrecking valuables, cutting open mattresses, etc. He states in the interview that he was not provided a list of items which were seized from his ranch. Now, of course, Brian, we haven’t seen the original search warrants that have been issued in this case as of yet, but what is a typical procedure with respect to searching the premises, and seizing items, and subsequent notification of what was taken? Has that somehow been breached or have they done everything that they needed to do?

Brian: Standard procedure is for the seizing officer to inventory everything which has been seized, and then to leave with the person in charge of the premises that has been searched a copy of that inventory. Now what we’ve heard is that this has not been done. That would be a violation of police procedure, but I think you’re going to have to wait to hear how all of this has taken place, and perhaps this inventory was delayed or has been sent later. We don’t know what the situation is with respect to the inventory yet.

Ron: Okay. He also states that the officers went into places on his property, including his private office, which they did not have search warrants for. If that’s true, to what extent could this potentially be an invasion of his privacy, and could the officers enter these other areas if they suspected something of significance might be in there, even if they didn’t have a warrant specifically allowing them to do so?

Brian: The Fourth Amendment says that the search warrant must specify the particular places to be searched and the particular things to be seized. And what you’re hearing is that this search warrant went far and wide of the particularity which is required of all search warrants. When that happens in the ordinary circumstance, it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of the individual and a civil rights violation which can be redressed in a civil rights lawsuit. Now, what the police have by way of justification for having done that in this case, we’re going to have to wait to find out.

Ron: If they actually found anything, could they use it as evidence if they found in an area where they didn’t specifically have a search warrant to search?

Brian: The Fourth Amendment precludes evidence illegally seized from being introduced into the court during a trial. So there would be a motion to exclude such evidence if evidence was seized beyond the scope of the search warrant. That will result in all kinds of arguments as to whether or not the police then had grounds or reasonable belief that caused them to go beyond the search warrant. It will take a hearing by the judge to sort it out.

Ron: Okay. Trish?

Trish: Michael has gone on record stating that he does not have a problem or see a problem with sharing his bed with children. After the Bashir interview, Sneddon issued a statement that acknowledged that assuming no improper activity took place there is no criminal conduct involved. Brian, specifically what can Michael do to protect himself from a third incident of these types of accusations?

Brian: I think Michael has taken some pretty strong measures to assure that he is being supervised and accompanied by people who are responsible all the time, and that will come out I am certain as this case progresses. So these are the reasonable measures that he has taken. It’s smart. It’s the thing to do. And in Michael’s position I think we’re going to see that evidence being introduced in this case.

Trish: Now so much has been said recently about Michael’s possible involvement with the Nation of Islam. Michael has gone on record saying that he is not a member of the organization. However, to what extent is Leonard Muhammad, the Nation of Islam’s Chief of Staff, exercising control or influence over Michael’s business and staffing decisions? For example, does he have the authority to represent Michael in business decisions such as hiring or firing of staff?

Brian: Michael is the only one who tells us who are his administrative people who are the people who can negotiate on his behalf. And we’ve not heard one word from Michael authorizing anyone except Michael Jackson to do these things. And you have to take Michael at his word. If he would like to change it to have anyone, including people who have particular religious beliefs or faiths, so be it. And that will be Michael’s business and it should not be something which is really an issue in this case.

Trish: There are a lot of rumors that members of Michael’s management have been isolated from Michael, taking the Roger Friedman article today. It goes on to say that his publicist, Stuart Backerman is isolated and Dieter Wiesner, Michael’s manager, has been isolated because of this so called Nation of Islam incident. Is there any light you can shed on this? Is Mr. Backerman still representing Michael and, if not, why?

Brian: I think we need to keep our eye on the ball as to what this case is all about, and that’s the accusation from a young boy who claims he was molested by Michael but who signed under penalty of perjury a statement saying that Michael never touched him. That’s the issue in this case, and not who is working for Michael, whether or not Michael is being controlled by somebody. Those things are business decisions that Michael needs to make on his own and really have nothing to do with this case.

Trish: Right, absolutely. But you know, as a president of a Michael Jackson fan club, I’ve talked to many presidents of fan clubs around the world and they’ve expressed concern, some going as far as to possibly taking down their sites due to reported involvement and control of the Nation of Islam. Given that Michael’s fans represent an eclectic mix of whites, blacks, Christians, and Jews, some of which would be highly offended by such involvement, is there anything you can tell these fans and fan clubs worldwide that could comfort them?

Brian: Michael is one of the most inclusive individuals that I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and that is that he loves people of every race, every creed, every religion. I have never seen anything to the contrary in Michael’s entire experience. There are people who come and go from his employment all the time, and at this point, I don’t think you can read anything into the presence or absence of any particular group among his employees, and the Nation of Islam has been around, has gone to Michael’s concerts, appeared with Michael years and years and years ago, and he has never been co-opted or directed by them. If something has changed, I think we need to wait until Michael tells us. Until then, I don’t think there’s been any change.

Ron: Brian, this is Ron. Based on what you know about the defense’s strategy at this point, what do you think the chances are that the case would be dismissed prior to a trial?

Brian: I think this is a case which shows us the district attorney has battened down the hatches and is ready for battle, because the district attorney just doesn’t want to look at the nature of this case or even see that he has a problem. So I expect this case to go to battle, and the reason I think that is when the district attorney of Santa Barbara says, "Oh, that’s L.A.", it’s almost comical. It is a government entity insulting another government entity and that tells me that this case is going to go all the way to battle.

Ron: Brian, you’re probably aware that Tellem Worldwide, an L.A. based PR agency has volunteered to assist the Santa Barbara’s DA office pro bono in this case. Tellem lists Rent-A-Wreck as a client, and I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but on their website they list Rent-A-Wreck, who is founded by David Schwartz, the stepfather of the boy who accused Michael Jackson of child abuse in 1993. In 1994, the following year, Schwartz filed a lawsuit against Michael Jackson for "breaking up his family". Given these connections, do you think there’s a possible conflict of interest of Tellem representing the DA’s office in this case?

Brian: I not only think that there’s a possible conflict of interest, I think that there is an absolute conflict of interest. The question is, whose interest is the Santa Barbara district attorney seeking to promote? Are they trying to try a case in court or are they trying to try a case in the press? And when they bring in private individuals, whether they are paid for or not, they become the agents of the district attorney and their personal agendas then get infused into the public’s business. That is a conflict of interest.

Ron: Okay. Brian, I know you’ve gone head to head with journalists such as Court TV’s Diane Dimond on more than one occasion. Ms. Dimond has also claimed on various interviews to have "very high, high sources" in the Santa Barbara DA’s office where she seems to get a lot of her inside information before it’s made publicly available to everybody else. If this high source was Sneddon or someone else on his staff, can you tell us to what extent there could be a breach of fiduciary duty or at least some kind of violation of fundamental legal ethics?

Brian: The prosecutor’s legal obligation is to try the case in a court of law and not try to influence jury pools, have public relations people, or to leak to reporters who are their favorites the details of a criminal case. All of those things are being violated here. It is not appropriate for the district attorney to choose a member of the media who is their favorite and gives them all kinds of information that no one else has available. I view that as unethical.

Ron: Okay. Well we’d be inclined to agree, but to what extent is it punishable? I mean, could he lose his license to practice, is it that severe, or somewhere in the middle?

Brian: This is an ethical obligation which is regulated by the State Bar of California and most certainly a claim and complaint can be made to the State Bar. But it also goes as to whether or not the district attorney is violating the constitutional rights of a defendant by engaging in this kind of activity, so it’s certainly an issue that Michael can raise at a point.

Ron: Okay. Brian, I recently spent eight months of my own life going through an ordeal of a lawsuit. How possible is it for Michael to begin to focus on his career, his family, you know, with everything that’s going on around him right now?

Brian: Michael is one of the most strong, single minded, and directed people that anyone would ever want to meet or encounter. He runs a mega-business which has been involved in all kinds of deals and transactions, buying and selling property, so he is no stranger to the legal business of entertainment. This is something which is a little bit more stressful and a whole lot more serious because it involves a criminal charge. He is an amazing man, and I expect him to weather this storm as he has weathered every storm he’s ever faced.

Ron: Excellent. Trish?

Trish: Brian, this is a two part question. Sources close to this case have alleged to us that outside interests, including journalists, supposedly approached the accuser’s family to come forward some time in early February after the U.K. airing of the Martin Bashir interview. Here are my questions. Is it common or legal for journalists to approach or seek out potential victims and ask them to come forward in a case?

Brian: It is extraordinary for a journalist to seek out and create a story by insisting somebody was harmed when that individual has three times said under penalty of perjury they weren’t harmed. So this kind of activity of journalists is really not only a violation of journalistic ethics but also it raises questions as to the criminal law, was this child lying when he lied to a government agency that was investigating him? And indeed, who was it that made him change his mind? I look at the fact that instead of going back to Social Services who was investigating this matter when the child decided to change his mind, instead he went to an attorney, Larry Feldman. And did Mr. Feldman then go to Social Services? No, he didn’t. Did he go to the police? No, he didn’t. Did he go anywhere else? Yes, he went to a psychiatrist. And did the psychiatrist go back to Social Services? No, he filed a criminal claim saying that something had gone on with this child. This smacks of influence peddling, of influence making, of changing claims. It doesn’t pass the smell test. It doesn’t pass the lab test.

Trish: Now if the outside interest is true, what effect would it have on this case? To be more specific, if it came to pass that there was an outside interest, like a specific journalist, that was influential in bringing this case to a civil attorney and the Santa Barbara district attorney, how could the defense use this to their advantage?

Brian: This would be part of the facts which are presented at trial, and I’m going to leave that to Mr. Geragos to determine how, in fact, he wants to use this information. I think it’s plain to all of us that it makes us wonder what in the world is going on and what kind of skullduggery is present here. And I am certain that Mark Geragos will use this information appropriately.

Ron: Brian, during Mark Gerago’s press conference in response to the charges, he mentioned that the charges were motivated by "revenge and money", further stating that the prosecutors involved, seemingly referring to Sneddon, had an "ax to grind" against Michael Jackson. Sneddon has gone on the record denying he has any personal vendetta against Michael Jackson. What comments do you have with regards to how Sneddon has been handling this case thus far?

Brian: The initial press conference here was a grandstanding of monumental proportions where it was more important to tell jokes than it was to get the information out. It was a lot of backslapping and congratulating one another as though this were an opening to a Broadway play. That is not the way prosecutors conduct themselves in the state of California under the rules of ethics. A prosecutor is supposed to supply information to the public not tell jokes and grandstand at a press conference. A prosecutor is not supposed to suggest that another governmental agency is incompetent because they came to a different conclusion than he came to when he held a second press conference and criticized Los Angeles’ Children’s Services Investigation. These are improper by way of prosecutorial conduct and they are questionable by way of whether or not this prosecutor is exercising good judgment.

Ron: Thanks, Brian. Based on the media coverage in this case, do you think it’s even possible that Michael Jackson can receive a fair trial.

Brian: I think that Michael can receive a fair trial and really, I don’t really care where this case is tried. I’m going to leave that up to Mr. Geragos to make the decision. But no matter who the jury is, no matter what the persuasion or constitution of that jury might be, it seems to me that when a jury sees that this accusing witness three times said that Michael did not touch him, Michael did not sleep with him, that this accusing witness signed under penalty of perjury such a statement, the jury is just gonna shake their head and say, "We don’t understand why this case is being prosecuted."

Ron: If that’s the case, wouldn’t Geragos be able to use that as evidence to get the whole thing thrown out before it even gets to trial? Why would he have to go to trial to prove that, I mean, if he’s already said under penalty of perjury that it didn’t happen?

Brian: In the American justice system, everyone is entitled to their day in court, including witnesses who recant their testimony and change it after signing a statement under penalty of perjury. They’re all entitled to their day in court, and if that’s the case in this particular proceeding, so be it. I think we’ll be watching this thing unravel in front of the district attorney’s eyes for some time to come.

Ron: Great. That concludes our interview with Jackson family attorney, Brian Oxman. Thank you very much for joining us, Brian.

Brian: My great pleasure. Thank you.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

MJJF TALK RADIO SPEAKS WITH LAW PROFESSOR LAURIE LEVENSON

RS: Welcome to MJJForum Talk radio

With us is today is Professor Laurie Levenson. Laurie is a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California. Welcome to our program Laurie.

LL: Thank you for having me.

RS: In regards to the Michael Jackson case, the Santa Barbara DA's office announced yesterday that charges against Mr. Jackson were due by Friday morning of this week. Laurie we were wondering since Michael Jackson was originally arrested on November 20th, is it uncommon for a defendant to be arrested, processed through the system, being required to post bail without formal charges being issued for nearly a month later ??

LL: It's not the standard way to go but it's not all that unusual. In fact we've had murder cases like the Phil Spector case or the Robert Blake case where defendants have been arrested on very serious charges and it's until later on that the formal charges are filed. So this is one way the prosecutors can go.

RS: Why would they do this, why would they wait a month ?? Is there sort of reason behind it, do they need more time to prepare their case, do they have a basically a indefinite amount of time or is there any kind of standard to go by ??

LL: They don't necessarily have an indefinite period of time but the reason they did this is because they were still collecting information regarding this case. Don't forget that they arrested him right after they did the search of his ranch. My guess is that they wanted to go through all the evidence from that but it is a little curious. This is the type of case that if they'd been investigating it all along they could have had a complaint ready to go or even gone to the grand jury and then gone out and done the arrest. It's unclesr and we are still waiting for an explanation why they chose to go this way.

RS: I guess we'll know soon ??

LL: That's right.

RS: OK, briefly can you tell us a little bit about how this criminal case that we're dealing with now is different from the civil case ten years ago and why it's more difficult to prove it this time around ?? I'm talking about in criminal you have the beyond a reasonable doubt assessment and then in the civil you have the preponderance of the evidence. Can you describe to us the differences basically ??

LL: Right. You know ten years ago there was a civil case by an alleged victim against Michael Jackson, making some allegations and never actually went to the criminal process but on a civil case all the person on the civil case the person bringing the charges has to prove is that it's more likely than not that Michael Jackson was responsible for the conduct. When the prosecutors however bring a criminal case we have the highest standard of the law that is known as beyond a reasonable doubt. Now we can't put an exact percentage on it. It doesn't mean that you have to be 100% sure but you have to be very very sure because there's the potential of taking away someone's liberty. So usually you’re thinking up in the 90% range. Are you that sure that Michael Jackson was responsible for this illegal conduct?

RS: Speaking of the conduct, the Santa Barbara DA has referenced the California penal code 288 subset A. Can you tell us a little bit about this and the contents of it ??

LL: This is a criminal charge that alleges lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14 and what you need to know about this statute is that it doesn't necessarily mean that Jackson is alleged to have touched the private parts of the young man or even touched him directly. It can be caressing through material not directly on the skin. The key part of this statute that would make him criminal liable is whether he did it with the intent to either cause his own sexual gratification or that of the child. So what the prosecutors need to prove here is probably that there was some type of touching that was inappropriate but more importantly that it was done with that intent.

RS: I see. In general Laurie, how difficult is it to prove a child molestation case ?? Based on the . . .assuming we have the evidence of the child is there any other evidence that's typical to this kind of case that the prosecution might solicit ??

LL: Well it's usually very difficult to prove if all you have is a one on one. In other words the child's word against the adult's word. So what prosecutors typically want to have are other witness who maybe saw what was going on, physical evidence that shows inappropriate types of contact, videotapes sometimes appear, admissions or confessions by those who are charged with the offense, multiple victims usually make it an easier case. We don't know if we have any of this evidence in the Jackson case but that is the type of evidence that would make it an easier case to break.

RS: I see, Trish go ahead.

PB: HI Good Morning professor Levenson, I'm Patricia. With a few questions for you. The department of child family services of LA County and the LA Police department concluded their own investigation in February of this year and the summary was recently leaked. The department determined that any possible molestation concerning the alleged victim was unfounded. How big of an affect will this report have on the prosecution's case at the time of the trial ??

LL: Trish we really don't know the answer yet. I mean it's certainly something the prosecutors have to look into. But there are all sorts of explanations as to why that report was not necessarily the final word. First of all we don't know why the victims might have said what they did. There have been cases were victims have been intimidated or paid off. We don't know that that's the case here but that's one possibility. There's also the possibility that the department of Child family services did not do the same type of investigation, as in depth as the DAs did. Or frankly it may be that the victims turned around and said 'you know, we're not going tell lies anymore, here's what really happened.' So right now it's a hurdle for the prosecutors. I used to be a prosecutor and if I were in this situation I know I'd want to talk to these witness very closely and look at the report but it's not necessarily the end of their case.

PB: OK well, since the LA social services already investigated this case why is the Santa Barbara DA allowed to investigate again ??

LL: They're allowed to investigate again because they are a separate government agency. The department of child family services, their responsibility is to determine whether children who are living with or in contact with Michael Jackson, continue to be in danger and what should be done with those children. But the District Attorney's job is to determine if a crime has been committed and they're not limited by any other agency. So they have an opportunity to start it all up again. It may seem uncomfortable or unfair to Michael Jackson but they have a responsibility, frankly, under the law to make sure they are satisfied no crime was committed.

PB: What avenues are open to Mr. Jackson to have this case dismissed due to lack of evidence ??

LL: At this point since we have no charges, there's really nothing that Jackson's camp can do to dismiss charges. But it terms of lack of evidence, that opportunity will come down the road. When final charges are filed, if they are, if there's a complaint, if that is the way they go, there will be something called a preliminary hearing. Not unlike we've seen in the Kobe Bryant case, when there's almost a summary of what the evidence is. And if that is not enough, then the defense can bring a motion to the judge at that point tot dismiss the case. If it is enough then there next chance to really argue there is not enough evidence will come at trial.

PB: Given what we know, prior to formal charges being issued. How likely is it this case will proceed to trial and how long will that take, etc. etc. ??

LL: It's almost impossible to know how likely this case will go to trial since we don't even know yet what the evidence is and how strong. You know it could range from, the prosecution has practically no case, at which point you know, the question is whether they want to strike a deal and whether Jackson's camp does. To they have a really dynamite case and even then Jackson's camp might say well let's make this go away in another way. So the options range from a full-blown trial, to plea-bargaining to having the case dismissed. And we won't know the answer to what will happen for several months.

PB: OK and again, when is the earliest date Mark Geragos, Jackson's attorney, can file a motion for dismissal ??

LL: Well, if it turns out that the prosecutor files charges that don't even exist under the law, Mr. Geragos could come in very quickly and file something we call a demur. That says hey even if everything the prosecutor says is true, there is no crime here but if what you are talking about is having Geragos making an allegation that there is not enough evidence, then that cannot be done until the time of the preliminary hearing.

RS: Laurie, what criteria is typically considered for the dismissal of a child abuse case such as this ?? You were also talking about the plea-bargaining, what would be involved ?? Is there some type of monetary offer, is there community service, jail time ?? I mean are all these things on the table for that ??

LL: Well to go to your first question in terms of the dismissal of the case. I guess if you had no case at, if this was just speculation, that would be one situation. If they got the charges wrong that will be another but the fact that people will dispute what the victim has to say, that is not necessarily enough to dismiss the case. That’s the jury’s job to decide whom they believe. On the plea-bargaining, I think I should give anyone the impression that the DAs are saying look if you come in and pay off the victims you can walk away. In fact this DA has said very much the opposite. That he thinks it was wrong what happened ten years ago and that this is a case that should go through the process. In an ordinary plea-bargaining situation there could be something ranging from a certain type of lower sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, to some type of treatment program. All of those can be in the mix. Given how high profile this case is and how adamant the DA is I don’t think anyone should be confused into thinking, if you go clean up the freeway or do community service we will drop the charges.

RS: Why do you think they didn’t file any charges ten years ago ?? Do you think it was due to lack of evidence or was it the fact that there was a civil settlement that you know basically the child did not want to testify at that point ?? Do you have any comment on that ??

LL: Well, I think it’s because they didn’t have the child victim to come forward. That may very well have been because of the civil settlement. So, if you don’t have a child victim to testify, you don’t really have evidence to present there’s nothing much to go forward with. This time around, in the press conference the DA made a big deal out of saying he did have a co-operative victim and therefore he was prepared to go forward.

RS: If the case were to be dismissed and let’s say the charges were filed on Friday as they were talking about being filed. And Jackson’s camp comes back and says well this is ridiculous, there’s really no hard evidence here, is there any kind of case Michael Jackson would have to file some kind of malicious prosecution against Sneddon’s office ??

LL: No, not really and the reason is, prosecutors are immune from being charge with what would be basically a civil rights type of case. You know, we give prosecutors a lot of leeway in bringing charges and if they do bring them you can’t later sue. Moreover, even in an ordinary malicious prosecution act, against the police or others Mr. Jackson would have to prove that he was actually innocent. And don’t forget, that is different from saying they couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, were we’ve already had the judge sign off on the warrant, it would be very difficult for Michael Jackson to come in and say I’m actually innocent. The burden would be on him.

RS: How do you prove innocence in this kind of case ?? You know, this is kind of off the cuff so to speak but I mean since this is a criminal trial, how can you prove that something did not happen ?? It’s more difficult to prove that it did happen, right ??

LL: And that is why; in the criminal case Mr. Jackson doesn’t have to prove anything. The prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did commit the crime. If Jackson were to turn around and sue the police officers, he cannot sue the prosecutors or the state because in fact they are immune. If he were to try and sue the police officers then he is trying to get something out of this case. In that case the burden would be on him and it’s a very difficult burden to say, you know there was never any evidence against me. Especially if prosecutors relied on statements by victims, the victims may say all sorts of things but prosecutors have the right to rely on some of those in bringing charges.

RS: I see. Trish

PB: Laurie, can you please explain the Grand Jury process as opposed to the preliminary hearing process and discuss the possibilities of this case being turned over to a Grand Jury.

LL: Sure, there’s two different ways the prosecution can go forward in bringing formal criminal charges. The ordinary way in California is what we call, the complaint process. That’s actually a piece of paper filed by the DA’s office making certain allegations. If that is done then we want a judge to actually hear some evidence to make sure there is enough to bring those charges. So we have something called the preliminary hearing. That would happen down the road. The prosecution would call witness’, in California we can use what we call hearsay witness’. Officers who would relay what the victim had to say; they wouldn’t necessarily have to call the victim at that point. If the judge thought that yes there was enough evidence for those charges then they would go forward to trial. An alternative way of going, which is not done very often but sometimes is done in the most high visibility cases, is the Grand Jury. The county grand jury would hear the evidence that the prosecution gives it. It wouldn’t necessarily have the Jackson people in there to present evidence and if they thought, the grand jurors thought there was enough evidence, they would issue something called an indictment. If there is an indictment in this case by the end of the week, then we won’t have a preliminary hearing. This case will just move on track towards trial.

PB: Can Mr. Jackson request that Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara DA be removed from prosecuting this case, if so, how is this done ??

LL: I guess the defense camp could bring a motion to disqualify the DA. It would be done before the judge, when this case gets to a judge. It’s going to be difficult, he is going to have to show that Mr. Sneddon has an actual conflict of interest and don’t forget, even if he is disqualified there are actually plenty of prosecutors ready to come up through the ranks. So, hypothetically it is possible, I think Mr. Sneddon put himself in a difficult situation by the nature of the press conference he had but most of the time these motions are not granted.

PB: Please explain the significance of having these proceedings moved to Santa Maria ??

LL: I don’t think we should read too much into the fact that the proceedings were moved to Santa Maria. When you have counties like Santa Barbara and Ventura that are big counties, then it is often for administrative reasons that they use court houses in different parts for proceedings, just to keep things organized. And because in case the arrest and the search were done in the northern part of the jurisdiction they’re going to use the courthouse up there in Santa Maria. Now logistically it might make it a bit more difficult for the press. It is not a big courthouse that we are used to for these big cases but it really is frankly a matter of bureaucracy, administrative matter that they moved it up there.

PB: Do you believe that the openness that he has showed with regard to being seen with this particular child will help or hurt the out come of the trial ??

LL: I think it could cut both ways. I think the prosecutors might want to use, if it is the child we’ve seen on the videotape, sort of his conduct with that child to bolster their argument that there is something extra going on in their relationship. On the other hand, I can see the defense arguing that we never thought we had anything to hide because Mr. Jackson wasn’t doing anything wrong and that is why we have all this open conduct with the child. So, not unlike other pieces of evidence, it is going to be in the eye of the beholder.

PB: Given that the family was recently so outspoken about how much of a father figure Jackson was to their children, how important is their credibility to the prosecution in proving their case ??

LL: Well the victim and the victims family’s creditability is always key to proving the case. So you know, if the victims have said conflicting things then the prosecution is going to have to have some kind of explanation why at one point they say Mr. Jackson was acting appropriately, if indeed that is what they said, then why did they change their story. If the prosecutors have the satisfactory explanation that may get them buy but otherwise I can understand the defense camp using that to Jackson’s advantage and saying look, we really cannot believe them because they’ve previously said that he has acted appropriately, as a father figure.

PB: If Mr. Jackson were found guilty, what are his avenues of appeal and how long would the process take ??

LL: Mr. Jackson, like any other criminal defendant in California would have the right to an appeal. He would go up to the court of appeal and in terms of how long the process would take; it would probably take about at least a year. Pleading would be filed called appellate briefs and they would raise any argument regarding errors that were made in the proceedings, errors during the trial, failure to give over evidence and they might even argue there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction. So the trial is just the first stage and there are appellate courts after that.

PB: And if Mr. Jackson is acquitted what are Mr. Sneddon’s avenues of prosecuting again ??

LL: Well, if Mr. Jackson if acquitted, Mr. Sneddon cannot prosecute again on these same acts because of the double jeopardy clause in the constitution. People have the right not to be prosecuted more than once for the same offense. On the other hand, if there are allegations of other acts with other victims, those still could be brought.

RS: Laurie, even though it has been said by both, the family, as well as Sneddon in his press conference, this issue that it’s not about money. There are still quite a few ways the family could profit from this, you know, either during or following the trial and if Mr. Jackson is acquitted will he be able to prevent any of this from happening and if so, how ??

LL: Not necessarily, I mean frankly the victim’s family has separate rights apart from the criminal justice system. They do have the right to bring a civil lawsuit even if Mr. Jackson is acquitted in this case. And we have seen this in other high profile cases. Don’t forget the OJ Simpson case, OJ was acquitted in the criminal case but nonetheless the Goldman family turned around and sued and they were able to get a civil judgment. Likewise as you noted, they may be able to publish books and I don’t think you could have a court say to them that you are not allowed to do that, under their first amendment rights. Now if they start saying things that are untruthful and defamatory there might be ways for Mr. Jackson to respond but if all they do is put out their own story, well that may just be the way the first amendment works.

RS: Laurie we were wondering why you didn’t write a book on OJ, everyone else did back then ??

LL: No, I don’t think that would be appropriate for me. My role I think was just to explain the case as it was happening.

RS: Right. Where do the first amendment rights of the media end, with respect to the individual rights of Mr. Jackson, where do they begin in terms of the defamation that could be going on against him from various journalists and so on ??

LL: I actually think there are two things to keep in mind here. One is in terms of the fairness of the proceedings right now against Mr. Jackson. We do need to be very sensitive and cognizant of the fact that what is said out in the court of public opinion could affect the trial inside the courtroom. So, Mr. Jackson does have the right, come trial time to have the jurors very closely examined. We call it the verdure process, to see if they have been tainted by any of this pre-trial publicity. He cannot put what we call a prior restraint on the media. The judge can’t to the media don’t print anything more about Jackson. There are some counties that operate that way, for example, Great Britain. The United States has this very strong media first amendment tradition, so the best that can happen is that the judge try to make sure whatever is happening outside the courtroom doesn’t affect inside the courtroom. Now, if it turns out that people are just making it up, wildly speculating and saying things with the intent to harm Mr. Jackson, knowing that they are not true, then we do have defamation laws in this country. Because Michael Jackson is such a public figure however, the standard for him to prove a defamation action would be much harder than for example you. He has to show malice. He has to show that the media had gross disregard for the truth. Or knew they were using false statements before he could collect on any defamation action.

RS: So, basically what you are saying Laurie is that celebrities do have a different standard than us you know, normal folk I guess, as it were, who aren’t in the public and you know constantly public attention, is that true ??

LL: That’s right. When a celebrity puts himself out there as a public figure, he knows all sorts of things are going to be written and said about him. There’s going to be all those tabloids out there and there’s going to be TV shows and by and large they are allowed to say it. It’s only in the most extreme cases that they have a chance of stopping them.

RS: OK, considering all the, just in wrapping up, considering all the media attention that we’ve just been talking about is there any trial, is there any juror that could truly be fair ??

LL: My response is, I think so believe it or not because this is not the first high visibility case and we have them all the time. In fact we’ve had very high profile cases, I’ll remind people of OJ Simpson again, where there was a lot of media coverage. I was there, so I can tell you. Yet he was acquitted, he was not found guilty. So it doesn’t always work against the defendant’s interest that there is so much media coverage. It is probably is not going to be possible to find twelve people who’ve never heard of the case or heard of Michael Jackson but that’s not the legal standard. The legal standard is simply whether people can put aside preconceived notions and just decide the case on the evidence.

RS: OK well thank you very much Laurie. That’s concluding our interview. Ms. Laurie Levenson, law professor of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles California, thank you very much for joining us Laurie.

LL: My pleasure, thank you

MJJF Talk Radio interview with Laurie Levenson – Interview 2

Ron: With us again today is Professor Laurie Levenson. Laurie is a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California. Welcome back to our program, Laurie.

Laurie: Thank you so much.

Ron: Laurie, you had mentioned to us earlier today that you saw the 60 Minutes interview that Michael Jackson did with Ed Bradley last night.

Laurie: That’s right.

Ron: Okay. In the interview, Michael Jackson alleges that the police "manhandled" him, dislocated his shoulder, and locked him in a bathroom for 45 minutes, even in the process showing us a gruesome photo allegedly taken after the incident. If this is true, what kind of recourse would Mr. Jackson have against the authorities for this kind of mistreatment, for example, criminal charges and/or civil/monetary damages?

Laurie: Well, first I think there’s the big question of whether it’s true, because it’s somewhat conflicting with what he and his lawyer said after the actual incident. But, assuming it’s true, he could bring a civil rights action in federal court against the officers or bring an administrative complaint against them, or bring criminal charges in either the state courts or the federal courts because it’s a very serious thing when police officers abuse suspects or anybody in custody.

Ron: What criteria would they use to prove something like that, and what would the punishments be?

Laurie: Well, they first have to find out who did what. I mean, in fact, was this some type of bruising that because of the regular placement of handcuffs or did they treat him more harshly? Police officers are entitled to put him in handcuffs, but they are not supposed to use extreme force. So there first has to be a determination of how much force they used and why. Then there’d be the question of who are the witnesses, how credible are the witnesses. Usually, they do not end up bringing criminal charges against police officers, because these are the most difficult cases to prove, and in terms of a civil action, that would be something Mr. Jackson and his lawyers would have to decide to file, and it wouldn’t necessarily affect what’s going on in this proceeding right now.

Ron: I see. In the interview, Laurie, Michael Jackson alleges that the police "totally trashed" his property, wrecking valuables, and cutting open mattresses. He also states in the interview that he has not been provided as of yet a list of the items that were seized from his ranch. We’ve seen that the original search warrants, at this point, have not been officially made public. Given that, what is a typical procedure with respect to searching the premises, i.e., seizing of items, the subsequent notification of what was taken?

Laurie: A search can be pretty intrusive. I mean, the police officers have permission from the courts to go in there and search around and look in every drawer, look in every ________ for what they’re searching for. They’re not supposed to engage in trashing, and usually they have some type of video recorder with them when they do a high profile search so that they can protect themselves against exactly this type of allegation. I don’t know whether they did that in this situation. If the police went further than what was necessary for the search, that is something that Mr. Jackson could raise with the judge. He should have at least received some type of inventory, or his lawyers, an inventory of what was taken. And if he hasn’t received it yet, I am sure that’s something Mr. Geragos will ask for in discovery.

Ron: I see. He also states that the officers went into places on his property, Laurie, that included his private office, which were not on the search warrant, as far as what the original search warrant was. If that’s true, to what extent could this potentially be an invasion of his privacy, and could the officers enter these areas if they suspected something of significance might be there, even if the warrant specifically did not allow for them to do that.

Laurie: Well, ordinarily the search warrant sets the terms for what the police officers can do, but it would surprise me if you had a really narrow warrant in this situation that said you could only go into the living room, the bedroom, but not the rooms next to them. That’s not usually the way search warrants are written. If they went beyond the scope of the warrant, anything they found could be thrown out. Moreover, Mr. Jackson could sue saying it was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. But, once again, that’s something that he would have to have evidence that first the warrant didn’t cover these places and that the officers, as you mentioned, didn’t have another justified reason to go. In other words, if officers see something in plain view, sometimes they can take it. Sometimes on the site of a search a police officer will realize that there is another room or building that they had not asked for permission for, so they’ll get a supplemental, even telephonic warrant, so the one warrant they got may not be the end of the story.

Ron: When do we see that warrant? When is that going to be made public? Is it a presumption that the defense has already seen this warrant at this point?

Laurie: I would have expected that the defense has seen the warrant and frankly should have seen the inventory as well. As for the public, this is the type of case where, especially involving child molestation, the court likes to keep tight reins on it, so it is not at all clear to me that we will see this any time soon. However, I would expect to see it probably by the time of the preliminary hearing.

Ron: Okay. I had heard that there might have been some kind of set time, that it was sealed for a certain amount of time, such as 45 days. We don’t know that to be true in this case or not?

Laurie: Well, that’s possible. We’ve seen that in other high profile cases, for example, like the Peterson case, in which Geragos is also involved, had a set amount of time by which the court agreed to release the warrant, and that gives the officers time to complete their investigation and time for other protective mechanisms to be put in place, you know, to protect the names of the victims.

Ron: Okay. Lastly, pertaining to what we’ve just been discussing in regards to the way in which the police "totally trashed" his property. If they, in fact, damaged items on his property could Michael Jackson hold them liable for that and collect some kind of monetary value for those items that were damaged?

Laurie: I think he has to distinguish between necessary intrusion and unnecessary damage. In other words, if the police officers did something that necessarily disturbed the property, they’re not going to have to pay for that. But if they just went on a rampage and started destroying property, that’s something he might be able to recover in a separate civil suit.

Ron: What about opening up mattresses with knives? I mean, I’m not saying that it happened, but we are saying that Mr. Jackson last night stated that it did happen. Would that be beyond a reasonable scope?

Laurie: Not necessarily. I mean, if you think about, for example, drug searches. That is something that has been done before. Now, if they were unnecessarily opening up mattresses, cushions in the house, you know, scattering the cushions all over. That’s another story. Once again, that would very much surprise me, because from other high profile cases, officers know that there is going to be a great deal of scrutiny, and so far we haven’t seen any photographs from the defense or videotapes from the defense that substantiates what Mr. Jackson is saying.

Ron: Okay. Trish?

Trish: Hi. Good morning, Laurie.

Laurie: Good morning.

Trish: Laurie, charges were filed recently by the Santa Barbara DA’s office against singer Michael Jackson. In the complaint, nine counts were filed referencing violations under penal code 288a. To begin, the prosecution does not offer evidence in their formal complaint, only referencing the penal code violation that allegedly took place. Is this normal and, if so, when would evidence by the prosecution and declarations offered by the witnesses first be made public?

Laurie: Well, this is a very normal way of filing a complaint. Ordinarily a complaint does not detail the evidence. It only gives a general idea of the time and the nature of the charges. In terms of who the witnesses would be, we won’t even know that until closer to trial time because for the preliminary hearing, the prosecution is not required to use the same witnesses that they might use at trial. It could be quite a long time until we know the actual evidence in this case.

Trish: And how does a count define the events that took place, for example, could a change of room location constitute a second count of child abuse?

Laurie: Ordinarily, a change in the room would not do it unless there was a great deal of time, one day it was one room and another day it’s another room. But, for example, changing who the victim is, and we still aren’t sure if there is just one victim in this case. That would account for a second count of child abuse.

Trish: In his press conference after the charges were filed, Santa Barbara DA, Tom Sneddon, stated the findings could make Mr. Jackson ineligible for probation and could substantially affect the amount of time he could spend incarcerated if the findings are found true. He seems to be referencing California penal code 1203.066a8, which is referenced in the complaint as substantial sexual conduct. Further detail is not provided in the formal charges. What exactly could this mean and how is it different from 288a?

Laurie: Well, by charging that enhancement what the DA was really saying is that this is more than just a fondling or caressing type of child molestation case, that involved what they called substantial sexual conduct. That phrase is defined in the penal code under the section you read, and it ranges from actual penetration of the child to oral copulation to masturbation, and we don’t know which one of these is being alleged.

Trish: Referencing counts 8 and 9, which involve administration of intoxicants for the purpose of committing a felony. Are they solely predicated on proof of counts 1 through 7? In other words, if Jackson is found innocent of counts 1 through 7 that counts 8 and 9 are automatically thrown out, or are they somehow independent of each other?

Laurie: They appear to be connected because they have the language "for the purpose of committing a felony", namely the felonies alleged in this case. Now I’m not saying it’s impossible for there to be separate such counts, but as presently structured the complaint seems to tie them together.

Trish: In his press conference, Sneddon confirmed that the investigation against Jackson is, in fact, ongoing. Does the prosecution have the option of filing additional charges as part of this case or amending the existing ones?

Laurie: Absolutely. The prosecutors could still change the charges, add charges, delete charges. These are only the initial charges, and they may or may not be the charges that they go to trial with. As you suggested before, if the prosecution begins to feel that their actual case of child molestation is not that strong, they may fall back on charges we haven’t seen yet. Things like, you know, providing alcohol to minors.

Trish: Overall, how would you characterize the strength of the prosecution’s case, now that the formal charges have been officially filed?

Laurie: I’m not sure we know that much more about the strength of the prosecution’s case. You know, it appears to be just involving one particular boy. We’ve heard rumors that it might also involve his brother, but we still don’t know what the important evidence is in the case. Are they going to rely just on the boy’s testimony or do they have physical evidence? Do they have videotapes? Do they have statements by Mr. Jackson? Do they have testimony by those who work for him? Those are the big questions yet to be answered in this case.

Ron: Laurie, recently on Larry King Live, attorney Mark Geragos, who’s representing Michael Jackson, stated he was hired by Michael Jackson shortly after February 6, 2003. And this was immediately following the U.K. airing of the Martin Bashir T.V. special, when Jackson became concerned that "something was wrong with the family" now alleging this abuse took place. The prosecution’s complaint alleges that the abuse took place between February 7th and March 10th of 2003. And when Geragos gave this interview on Larry King Live, he stated that "after March 10th, we’ve got statements, videotape, audio tape, and everything else of the people locked into statements. We gave them every opportunity in the world to make a complaint and they didn’t." Laurie, you recently stated that "you’d have to believe that he was so bold that after being put on notice of an investigation, he continued the activity." How important are the timelines, especially given the fact that there appears to be some kind of contradictory statements going on here.

Laurie: Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems for the prosecution is a bit of this timeline because if you follow the timeline, it appears that Jackson would have to have been engaging in this activity at the same time he knew he was under investigation by Family Services and by others. Now, the prosecution may argue, look, he was being so bold because he thought he had bought off or silenced the victim, but I’m sure the defense is going to say Mr. Jackson and his people are no fools, and therefore if you want to believe anything to show he is innocent, just look at the timing.

Ron: Okay, great. In the same interview that Geragos gave to Larry King a couple of weeks ago, Geragos recently stated in there that "in California there is a statement that’s read to the jury and it basically says that if somebody lied to you prior or if somebody made a material misstatement prior you can disregard all of their testimony". Can you elaborate a little bit more on this?

Laurie: That’s a standard jury instruction, frankly, used in every case to help the jurors decide whose credibility they will believe. And what it’s saying is what we all know to be true. If someone lies to you about one thing then you sort of pause and say, can I believe anything else they’re saying? Which means that defense lawyers and prosecutors really like to go after witnesses even for small lies, arguing that if they can catch them in a small lie it means that their entire story is a lie, and that might be something that the defense will do when they cross examine the victim and, as we talked about before with regard to Michael Jackson and his statements about treatment by the officers, if he were to testify in this criminal case and he has lied about one thing, for example, how he was booked in this case, the prosecutors would argue, hey, if he lied about that, he’ll lie about anything.

Ron: Laurie, you mentioned the case of lying under oath, presumably, and one thing that we caught from last night is Ed Bradley, when he asked Michael Jackson a question there was a lot of analysis this morning by legal analysts and commentators stating that, you know, if he rolled his eyes a certain way or if he looked down or looked up, how much credence do you put on any of that when somebody’s, you know, facial expressions or eye movements could, you know, basically tell if they’re lying or telling the truth?

Laurie: Well, that’s the type of thing that jurors look for. I mean, that’s why we have juries. Not to decide the law, but to decide who’s telling the truth, and when you look at a person, their body language, their eyes, the tone of their voice, the speed of their voice, who they look to for answers, those are all things that affect whether we believe them or not, so that could turn out to be important. Now, on a TV interview, there are so many explanations for why Jackson looked away. Maybe he was distracted by some of the cameramen, or his lawyer was trying to get his attention. So, in the long run, it may not make that much difference, but in the courtroom how you away is as important as what you say.

Ron: And that’s, of course, why they have, you know, specifically people who consult and tell you, you know, act this way, don’t act this way, is that right?

Laurie: That’s right. That’s really the lawyer’s job, to give the client an idea of how their testimony is being perceived, but now it’s gone on to expert jury consultants who will do practice testimony and show the witness right on videotape how he or she looks.

Ron: Okay. What reasoning could account for why the prosecution gives such a wide range of dates for the alleged conduct, in this case between February 7th and March 10th, as opposed to some more specific dates for each count? Could it have anything to do with not knowing Jackson’s whereabouts on a given day, or the specific recollection of the witness, or perhaps something else?

Laurie: Well, I think prosecutors are trying to be careful. If they don’t have to by law lock themselves in to particular dates, and you’re so right, how embarrassing would it be if they chose a date when Michael Jackson wasn’t even in the country, so they’re allowed to pick a time range that will narrow as the process goes on, as the defense asks for discovery, maybe even something we call a bill of particulars asking for more specific dates. But to start out it’s better to be broader if you’re the prosecutor.

Ron: Okay. Geragos also characterizes this case as "a shakedown, motivated by money", referencing that of all the attorneys in California, and there’s a lot of them, he references 175,000, that the family that we’re talking about here actually went to Larry Feldman, who represented the accuser, of course, in the civil case against Jackson in 1993. Geragos stated that the criminal charges were "shopped around by the family when there was a financial incentive to be made". What is the typical procedure involved in bringing criminal charges in a child abuse case?

Laurie: Well, in a typical case you would expect the family members to pick up the phone and call the police or the sheriffs or, as was done in this case, evidently, call some other government agency like the Department of Family Services. But we have to remember, this isn’t necessarily the typical case, and if you believe your child had been molested by a famous person, you might actually go to a private lawyer first and ask for guidance about what we do because you would know that you’re in for a different type of fight than perhaps some other type of child abuse case.

Ron: Okay. Trish?

Trish: Laurie, the last time we talked, you discussed that, in a criminal trial such as this one, the legal standard is beyond a reasonable doubt even though there have been numerous California cases where the prosecution has relied exclusively on witness testimony to successfully prove the defendant’s guilt. How effective do you think it will be in this case?

Laurie: Well, I think it will be hard for the prosecutors if all they have is the testimony of the victim witness. That doesn’t mean that that young man’s not telling the truth, but it’s a lot of pressure on any given witness, so in almost any case of this magnitude you would expect there’d be some type of corroboration. And, once again, either that’s going to be another victim, maybe another witness who was at the house, physical evidence, did they find alcohol at the house? They were searching for something on that search warrant, and it may have been specific things described by the boy, whether it had been alcohol, photographs, or other devices.

Trish: So there is a danger in relying so heavily on witness testimony, or one witness’s testimony. To what extent can unsubstantiated allegations be used as reliable evidence in a criminal matter such as this one?

Laurie: Well, you know, a witness can come forward and make any allegations they want. That doesn’t necessarily prove the case. There is a danger in relying on that because if the jury decides they don’t believe that person or they might believe them but they’re not sure, that’s not enough to find guilt in a criminal case. The jury really has to come out and say, you know, I believe that young man, and I believe him and therefore I’m willing to say beyond a reasonable doubt that Jackson is guilty.

Trish: Now, switching sides for a moment, what strategies may the defense use to discredit the testimony given by the witness?

Laurie: Well, we can already see what Mark Geragos plans in terms of the defense. I think that they’re going to the victims and the jury that the victims had the opportunity before to make these allegations, didn’t make these allegations, denied any type of abuse, and that they’re only doing it for a particular reason, that is, to get the money. So, by using conflicting statements and allegations of a motive to get money, that will be the defense attack.

Trish: Now, knowing we still have a long way to go here, how likely is it that this case will proceed to trial now that we know the charges?

Laurie: Right now it appears to be proceeding to trial. Mr. Jackson, I believe, in his interview on 60 Minutes had said that, you know, he was going to take this case to trial to have his innocence proved, didn’t talk about plea bargain as an option. So right now it looks like its going on the regular course to trial.

Trish: Now there has been some talk that the prosecution wants to call a grand jury to bypass the preliminary hearing which could give the defense the opportunity to question the witnesses. Can you describe the different processes between the two scenarios?

Laurie: First of all, I think it is a little late to go to the grand jury. If they were going to go to the grand jury, they ordinarily would have already gone, and gone by way of indictment instead of a preliminary hearing. Once they filed that complaint, it seemed to put them on the ordinary course of a preliminary hearing. If they had gone to a grand jury, then that process would be for the prosecution, not the defense, to be presenting their side of the story to the grand jury. Under California law, however, they would have to present what we call exculpatory evidence, evidence that they know shows that Michael Jackson may not have committed the crime, and they also would have had to have enough evidence that’s not by hearsay to bring the charges. A preliminary hearing is not done to the secret group of private citizens. It will be done in open court to a judge. The defense will have an opportunity to be there. The defense will have an opportunity to question the witnesses and perhaps, they don’t have to, but perhaps call some of their own. So it is a very different scenario. Although, in the preliminary hearing now, in California, they can use police officers to present the story of the victim by hearsay. They don’t necessarily have to call the victim. I think one of the reasons they did not go by grand jury so far is that there have been problems in Santa Barbara with its grand jury. The method of selecting the grand jury has been suspect in terms of diminishing the numbers of minorities, and I don’t think they wanted to get into the fight over the composition, the racial composition of the grand jury.

Trish: Can you give us an overview of what typically takes place in an arraignment hearing such as the one scheduled January 16th, i.e., formal reading of the charges, offering of evidence by prosecution, the defendant entering a plea, etc.?

Laurie: The arraignment is a very straightforward hearing. The judge will be there to make sure that Michael Jackson’s lawyers have been given copies of the charges, ask him if, at that time, he is prepared to enter an initial plea, which I would expect to be not guilty. Then they’ll set a time schedule for future hearings. It is not a time where we, the public, will hear anything about the evidence in the case.

Ron: Speaking of that hearing, Laurie, when asked if the hearing and potential trial would be televised, Tom Sneddon stated that it was up to the judge. What do you think the possibilities of this being televised are, especially considering that a minor is involved?

Laurie: Well, the fact that a minor is involved makes it much less likely that this will be televised. It is completely up to the judge under California law. Either side can weigh in on that, but, you know, the judge gets the final say. I’m wondering whether this judge, because of all the media clamor, will want to tone it down by not having a camera in during the proceedings. On the other hand, an arraignment is so nonsubstantive a proceeding, he can almost throw the media a bone by saying we’ll televise it and not very much risk any undue publicity in the case.

Ron: Okay. Some reports have mentioned the possibility of a gag order being requested. Can you explain what a gag order is, specifically, and the typical criteria used by the judge in approving one?

Laurie: A gag order is an order by the judge limiting what the parties and the witnesses can say to the media about the case. So it may, for example, say you can’t talk about the witnesses, you can’t talk about the evidence, you can’t talk about the facts. And it’s used so that we’re not trying the case outside of the courtroom instead of inside the courtroom. Now, because of the First Amendment rights of even the participants in a trial, the judge really has to have an indication that there is a substantial probability that the discussion is going to have a negative impact on the fairness of the trial, and he has to make sure that the gag order is narrowly drawn so it doesn’t limit everybody under the sun nor everything they have to say. Oftentimes, judges do not want to get involved in gag orders because they take up a lot of time of the courts both in deciding what to issue and then supervising them. But in a case of this magnitude, the judge might evaluate it and at least say to the lawyers and to the direct participants, don’t talk about the case unless you’re inside the courtroom.

Ron: Could the testimonies or other evidence from the 1993 investigations be used by the prosecutors or the defense, for that matter, in this criminal case, and if so, on the defense side, couldn’t Michael Jackson be in danger of breaching the supposed confidentiality agreement that he signed accompanying the 1994 settlement?

Laurie: The prosecutors may very well try to get the victim in the 1993 investigation to come forward and cooperate, but it’s not at all clear to me that that person will want to do that. In terms of the breach of confidentiality agreement, that’s a civil case and that has less importance than the criminal matter. So, yes, there may be separate consequences on the civil side of breaching that agreement, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t call those witnesses if they want to be called to testify in the criminal case.

Ron: I see. Laurie, recently you made the following statement about Tom Sneddon, "Everyone thought the oddest person in this case would be Michael Jackson, but the DA is rivaling him with his own antics. It may be naiveté on their part, but it makes it look like their interests are something other than seeing that justice is done." Can you please elaborate on this for us?

Laurie: I didn’t mean to be unkind to Mr. Sneddon, but so far his press conferences, I think, have left a lot of people wondering, why is he holding them? Why is he holding himself out there as an important person in this case? And all it has done is draw more attention to him personally than will help his case. You know, prosecutors, frankly, are nothing more than government processors. It’s the job of a prosecutor, I know because I was one for many years, to take the evidence in the case, assemble it, present it to the jury, hope for a fair verdict. It’s not supposed to be a personality contest. And yet Mr. Sneddon, perhaps by the nature of his own personality, has made it more so. And I don’t think that necessarily works for the prosecution’s advantage.

Ron: You bring up a good point, Laurie, because Mark Geragos in his press conference in response to the charges has mentioned that the charges were motivated by revenge and money, further stating that the prosecutors involved, seeming to refer to Tom Sneddon himself, had a "ax to grind" against Michael Jackson. And Sneddon has gone on the record, of course, denying that he has any personal vendetta against Michael. But, Laurie, I know that you’re a former prosecutor, so we’ll be delicate in the way we ask this, is it even possible that a prosecutor would let their personal feelings impact the cases they file, how he or she handles these cases, and the accused being accused in this case?

Laurie: Well, of course it’s possible because prosecutors are human beings and so they can get very personally invested in a case, and it’s a constant struggle just to take yourself outside the case and handle it objectively, especially if you really believe the defendant is guilty and if, as in this case, you might believe that he got away with it before. But it does not work to a prosecutor’s advantage to get personally involved. It backfires because the jury does not want to see a grudge match. They don’t like the government using its power in that way. What they want to see is the most objective, fair presentation of evidence, almost sort of begrudgingly saying, I don’t want to have to go after Michael Jackson, but nobody is above the law. That is usually the better tactic.

Ron: I see. It does appear to be a personal matter in this case, even though its not supposed to be, as you’re saying, it should be an objective presentation of the facts.

Laurie: Yeah, Mr. Sneddon, it’s hard to tell. It does look sometimes that he’s so personally involved in the case. Now, he has said its not, that he just has sort of a loose personality and that’s what comes across. But, I don’t think it helps. A lot of people have perceived, and not just me, that, you know, Sneddon has a personal stake in this action. If that’s the case, it might help him to have some distance and let some of his deputies take the front line on it.

Ron: Laurie, in closing, Gil Garcetti, of course the former DA for L.A. County, will forever be remembered as the man who couldn’t "nail O.J. Simpson". Doesn’t Tom Sneddon also have a lot riding on the line here, especially given the fact that he’s so close to his own retirement?

Laurie: Well, Mr. Sneddon seems to have chosen this case as one of his big last cases. I don’t want to say a swan song, but it could end up being that. So, yes, he has chosen to associate his name, his career with this case. That might be a bit unfortunate because obviously the man has made a lot of contributions, tried a lot of cases. But he, by going out there for at least two press conferences, has identified himself very personally with this case. If he wins, maybe he’ll go out a hero. If he loses, it will be a very different story.

Ron: Great. Well, thank you very much, Laurie, we know you’re very busy. We really appreciate your time. That concludes our interview with Ms. Laurie Levenson, a law professor of Loyola Law School. Thank you very much for joining us, Laurie.

Laurie: My pleasure, Ron.